Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – 1 Timothy 1:15

The sermon text today is found in the book of 1 Timothy 1:15. Please read for the standing of God’s command word. 1 Timothy 1, verse 15. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this word. And we thank you, Lord God, that you have given us the Holy Spirit on the basis of Christ’s work. And we thank you that you have promised us under the old covenant that the new covenant time is the time of blessing because you give us your spirit to write this word, your law, word, your statutes, commandments, and judgments upon our heart.

We pray now, Lord God, that the Holy Spirit would do that work in the context of our assembly. May we understand this word. Open our ears which so often we close to your word that we may open our hands to walk and act in obedience to it the rest of our lives. Be also with the Sabbath school children and teachers, for the children, and may they instruct them from your word at a level that they can understand so that these children also may grow in grace through the preaching of your word. In Jesus name we ask it and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

This is our sixth sermon going through the book of 1 Timothy. And with this sermon, we will go back to more of a flow through the book. We’ve kind of jumped around a bit. We sort of did an overview of it and then we looked at some particular verses relative to office for several weeks because we were in the process of selecting deacons and reminding ourselves of the role of the officers in edifying the church. So we spent some time in those sections.

And now we’re going to kind of go back and go through the book in a little more orderly fashion. And probably another ten sermons or so, maybe a dozen sermons at the most out of the rest of 1 Timothy.

We’ve subtitled this study in 1 Timothy as “behavior in God’s house.” Chapter 3 tells us that really is why Paul wrote the book to Timothy—that in case he couldn’t make it there, that he might know how to behave in the house of God. Well, in the Father’s house there are many sayings, and in the pastoral epistles particularly there are what are called faithful sayings.

So one of the themes that I’m going to run through the book of 1 Timothy as we go through it over the next few months is faithful sayings, and then you already know that one of the other kind of subtopics under that subtopic are hard sayings. There are some things that are difficult to understand in the book at first glance. We dealt with one of those a few weeks back regarding Paul and how God had forgiven him because he had done things ignorantly. And we explained what that meant. It didn’t mean that Paul was different than any other sinner.

And we’re going to deal with other hard things. I think in a couple of weeks we’ll deal with the one that talks about women being saved and childbearing. And so we’ll have hard things, but today we’re going to talk about faithful sayings. And I want to first talk about essentially what these faithful sayings are in the context of the scriptures.

So you’ll see on your outline that first of all, we look at these faithful sayings and where they are. Now, they’re called faithful sayings because that’s what the scripture says they are. In the verses I’ve given you there under the outline—1 Timothy 1:15, 3:1, 4:9, 2 Timothy 2:11, and Titus 3:8—it says in those particular verses that these are faithful sayings. “This is a faithful saying.” And in several of these verses, the added clause is they are worthy of all acceptation, like the one we have today. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

And so in the pastoral epistles, there are five occurrences of these faithful sayings. And I’ve given you in the outline where those references are where it says this is a faithful saying.

Now the term “faithful saying”—a saying is like a portion, a sentence, a proverb, a maxim, whatever you want to call it. That’s all the word really means. It’s a saying. And the fact that the saying is faithful means that it’s a faithful thing, that it means it is dependable. It refers to its basic trustworthiness. You could say that these are sayings that are faithful. In other words, they’re not to be doubted. They’re completely trustworthy. They’re not to be argued with, debated, or doubted, but rather they are to be trusted. They’re a source of obvious and explicit biblical truth. And as such, they are sayings that are faithful. They inspire trust. They are completely dependable.

Now in the context of 1 Timothy and a couple of other ones of these we read that these sayings are worthy of all acceptation, and what that means is it means that these sayings are such that you should be able to receive them to you without any doubt or hesitation. Again, they’re completely receptive, and in fact you should gladly receive unto yourself as you would a great gift these sorts of sayings. They are worthy. They are fit, balanced out by receiving them into the depth of your life. To accept what is offered from without, to receive into the mind with assent, to be received and believed upon. That is what these sayings are according to the scriptures. They are completely acceptable in every way with no hesitation, no doubt, no reservations in the least.

Now, we know that all scripture is that same thing, don’t we? I mean, we know that all scripture is the word of God and God is the definition of faithfulness and trustworthiness. And yet, these sayings are delineated for us for some particular reason in the providence of God, and I want to talk a little bit about that today.

Why these sayings are what some have called a “citation emphasis formula”—for those of you who are used to reading scholarly works and commentaries and such—and what that means is there’s a citation here of a saying and the citation is given as to stress or emphasize that particular citation. In other words, these verses are written are to call attention to, draw the attention of us in contemplation and emphasis upon that particular statement or saying. They’re there with emphasis. This is particularly true of course of the two sayings that are stated in the scriptures to be worthy of all acceptation, including the one that we’re dealing with today.

Now, these sayings—the implication clearly is that this was a saying before Paul made it a saying. He’s not saying I’m going to make up a saying. These were sayings in the context of the Christian community. These had developed in the Christian assemblies, is the apparent concept being talked about here. These sayings permeated the Christian community that Paul would write to in terms of his epistles. These sayings probably have their origin in the very words of our Savior. Not that he said the saying, but as we’ll see with this particular one, there are direct correlations back to the gospel accounts of Jesus himself.

And so these sayings really are to be seen as things that were in the context of the covenant communities that Paul had been used by God by the Holy Spirit to establish. They had been circulating about, and he would pick them up. Now they actually have gone from proverbial sayings in a community to becoming part of the holy word itself, the inspired word of God.

So these sayings, where are these sayings? Well, and what they are of course is what I give you first. And let’s go over them briefly.

First of all, in 1:15, the one we’re dealing with today: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That’s a faithful saying.

Secondly, in 1 Timothy 3:1, we read that it’s a faithful saying that if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

Now, let me say here that there is some degree of contention about what these faithful sayings even are. You have in the Greek this statement, “This is a faithful saying,” and you have stuff before it and you have stuff after it. So where’s the faithful saying? And not necessarily everybody agrees what these faithful sayings are. But I’m giving you here what I understand, what my study of the scriptures leads me to believe the sayings are. And in some of these it’s rather obvious. In 1 Timothy 1:15 there’s no doubt that is the saying. And I believe that most of these are rather obvious. But just so you’ll know, there is a little difficulty with it. But in any event, the second one is, I believe, that if a man desires the office of a bishop he desires a good work.

And then in 1 Timothy 4:8: “Bodily exercise profiteth little but godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”

Let me just mention there by the way that this saying probably arose in opposition to the Greek culture of the time and the Artemis religion that said that the body is so important and needs all this work and development. And so in opposition to that, this saying arose in the context of the Christian community: that bodily exercises profiteth little but godliness is profitable unto all things. And why? Because it has promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. And bodily exercise of course only concerns the life that now is. So he’s not saying it’s totally useless, but saying that far greater is the exercise unto godliness.

And then in 2 Timothy 2:11-13: “If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. And if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself.”

A faithful saying having to do with our participation in the death and resurrection of the Savior.

And then in Titus 3:4-8, the last one: “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Now these are what I believe are the faithful sayings of the pastoral epistles.

Now these faithful sayings in essence give us, I believe, a compendium, an overview of the Christian life. They’re not just random sayings. If you look at the subjects they address and spend a little time meditating upon them, you’ll see they’re really a summary of the rest of the scriptural teaching about our life in Christ.

In 1 Timothy 1 we see of course the basic idea being that God—that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. In 1 Timothy 3 we see the exaltation of the office of the bishop and says it is a good work and talks about the importance of officers and as a result the institutional church. It may seem a little out of place in light of these some other truths, but remember that when Paul went around in his missionary journeys, he’d go around and preach the gospel and lead men to the faith, but then he would come back around and immediately—why did he go back? Well, primarily for the purpose of establishing the institutional church, ordaining officers and setting it up. It’s quite important in the continuing work of the body of Christ.

I know in our day and age it doesn’t seem like it should be even included in a list such as these other verses, but that’s the importance to which the word of God places the institutional church and the officers of that church by designating this faithful saying and kind of setting it apart from the other things.

Well, at any event, in 1 Timothy 4, that verse encourages godliness by showing that it has promise for both this life and the life to come. As we just said, the citation in 2 Timothy 2 expresses the saving act of God as it changes us here, dying to ourselves here, raising him, serving him, not denying him. And then in 2 Timothy 2, we read that it proceeds from our death with Christ and encourages us and warns us about ethical responsibilities for Christ in this life.

And so there are these sayings that have these correlations that really relate to specific compilations of the Christian life. It tells us the purpose of Christ’s coming here in the verse we’re going to deal with today in a short period of time. There’s a well-rounded expression of God’s salvation of the believer found in Titus 3, the last one on your list, that really correlates well with the first one because it’s an expansion of really God’s salvation of the believer, which is the purpose that Christ came to the earth.

And then in the context of these there are also two dealing with soteriology—salvation, the salvation of the believer, why Christ came—and then an exposition of it in Titus 3, a lengthy formula of it. And then there are two that deal with exhortations to godliness in 1 Timothy 4:8 and an encouragement to live for Christ in 2 Timothy 2:11-13. And then finally to round it off, this statement about the office of the church.

And so you can see in these faithful statements two of them had to deal with salvation, two had to do with man’s responsibility to exercise godliness, to consider ourselves dead to Christ, dead to sin, alive to Christ, to not deny Christ in our actions. And then the last one that rounds it off is the statement about the institutional church.

And so there is a summary or a compendium of the Christian life in these things.

Now it’s interesting as well to note that these faithful sayings occur in the context of a charge to teach them. We know for instance—well, those of you who have been here and remember the sermons on 1 Timothy chapter 1—and how the letter begins. He begins by reminding Timothy now, “I left you here for a reason. That’s to exhort people not to teach any other doctrine and to shut down the false teachers.” So that’s why I left you here. That’s what I’m charging you to do. Again, and the purpose of this is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience.

So this charge that Paul talks about to Timothy leads up to this saying. What is he to teach then? He’s to charge them not to teach this, and he is to essentially charge them that this is the content of the teaching that goes on in the institutional church: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

So there is an implied charge here in terms of this particular text, and we see that in the rest—we won’t look at the verses necessarily—but we do see in the other faithful sayings the same thing in 1 Timothy 4:8-9, 2 Timothy 2:11-13, and Titus 3:4-8, and those three on your outline—not the 1:15, which has to do with this thing I just talked about—and the officer is separate—but the other three, they are immediately in the context of specific charges on the part of Paul to them to teach these particular things.

For instance, in 1 Timothy 4, that faithful saying is followed up in verse 11 with this phrase: “These things command and teach.”

In 2 Timothy 2, the faithful saying is followed up in verse 14: “Of these things, put them in remembrance.”

In Titus 3, the faithful saying is followed up by this: “And concerning these things, I desire that you affirm confidently.”

So these faithful sayings give us a compendium of the Christian life dealing with soteriology, salvation, dealing with godly living—those two other references to while we live—and dealing with church order and officers—a compendium. And these things are to be specifically charged to be taught in the context of Paul’s epistles. These things are singled out for emphasis not just by saying their faithful sayings, but also by the immediate adjuncts to charge people that these are the things supposed to be taught. This is the content of what’s supposed to be taught.

So the faithful sayings are important things is what I’m saying. They’re a nice compilation of the Christian faith—salvation, godly living, and the need to see that in the context of the church. And they’re an excellent compendium that way.

But now let’s move on then to consider this first of the faithful sayings. And I don’t think it’s any accident that this is the first in the context of the writing of these by Paul—the first placement of these maxims in the church, into the inspired text, in his chronologically when he wrote this epistle to Timothy. And that is this one we’re dealing with today: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is the first faithful saying. This is a summation of the very heart of the gospel. It should be rather obvious to us. We think of John 3:16, a verse we know very well, but this is a verse that has that same kind of a cast to it, that is a summation of the gospel message.

And it’s very akin to other places in scripture. For instance, in Matthew 18:11, we read that the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. You see the correlation to our Savior’s words in this particular saying as kept in the context of the community: the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. John 3:16, as I said, is almost a corollary to the particular text we’re looking at here.

Well, let’s break this text down a little bit and look at its component elements. We want to look at the big picture and the little picture, zooming into the specific details.

First thing we notice here is the first part of the saying: that Christ Jesus came into the world sinners to save. “Christ Jesus.”

And this strikes us as a little bit odd. We usually think of Jesus Christ. But the fact is that in Paul’s epistles and particularly in the pastorals, this flipping around of Jesus Christ to Christ Jesus is done by the Apostle Paul. Now, why does he do that?

Well, I think it tells us a couple of things. First of all, you want to know what the names mean. Christ means “anointed one” or “Messiah”—the prophesied Messiah to come. It means “anointed one” or “Messiah.” Jesus is the New Testament equivalent of Joshua in the Old Testament, and specifically we’re told in Matthew 1:21, the parents of our Savior were said to give this command: “Ye shall call his name Jesus for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.”

So “Christ Jesus” is the anointed Christ. He is the Savior Jesus. Or you could say, as I have on the outline, the divinely anointed Savior. So these two names of our Savior are quite important to see in conjunction together. The church today likes to split off salvation from the lordship and messiahship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is a great error. Paul sees these things together, and he actually—as I said—the fact that Jesus is the anointed one is sort of like our names. You know, you have a first name and then maybe a last name. Well, they had a first name and maybe a title. You can look at Jesus as the first name—Savior—but his title is Messiah. He is the anointed one, the promised one who was to come, the divinely anointed prophet, priest, and king, and all that implies.

Well, that title is so much his title and his title only in the ultimate sense that it can be switched around and used, so to speak, by Paul as the first name. See, B.B. Warfield in his commentary talks about this: that because we stress the title, this conjunction, the way this is used here, “Christ Jesus” also tells us that title is not in opposition to an appellation or first name basis, so to speak. He claims it for his own, our Savior does—is the point. He is the only ultimate anointed prophet, priest, and king. And so it’s to be identified with him. As I said, the primary occurrence of this—25 times in the pastoral epistles it is “Christ Jesus,” only six times, maybe seven, is it “Jesus Christ” as Paul writes in these pastoral epistles.

Now, that’s interesting to me. I don’t know that I could say this with any kind of authority, but it strikes me that when you’re writing to men who are themselves pastors, under-shepherds under the King Jesus, it is a good thing to remind them in the very use of the term referring to the great Shepherd that he is the Messiah. He’s the anointed one. And that they’re under his authority. You see what I’m saying?

It stresses by bringing to the front the authority of Messiah. And I think that when you write to leaders, that is a good thing to do—to restress to them the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul says here, as he does this so often in so many places, that it is “Christ Jesus.” And it’s very important in our day and age, as I said, to remember that when we speak about our Savior, he’s not just a Savior. He’s Messiah. He’s the anointed prophet, priest, and king, the King of kings. And we tend to forget that in our day and age. Well, it’s important here.

Now, it’s interesting if you turn in your scriptures to 1 Timothy 2:5. I will read that verse. And here we seem to have the same expression used “Christ Jesus” in a particular context.

“So there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.”

So here we see that there is one God and one mediator, and the term “Christ Jesus” is put in the context of that truth. He is the one who is the one mediator between man and God. He came as this one mediator between God and man, and the purpose again is stated in verse 5, that he might be a ransom for all. And so this designation of “Christ Jesus” as being both the anointed one and the Savior is a very important one to make.

Well, “Christ Jesus” is said in the faith. So first of all, the faithful saying includes a ready reception by the church of Jesus Christ of his being Messiah, the anointed prophet, priest, and king, as well as Savior.

And secondly, it says that Christ Jesus did something. He came into the world. He came into the world. Now, most commentators point out that there is a great similarity to this language and the language of the Gospel of John.

In all the other gospels, this phrase of Jesus coming into the world is not stressed. But repeatedly throughout the Gospel of John, you have references to Jesus coming into the world. Turn in your scriptures to the Gospel of John and we’ll look at several of these verses very quickly.

First look at John 3:16-17: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into this world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.”

So here we have a reference to God sending the Son into the world. And specifically, as with the verse we are looking at in 1 Timothy 1:15, the faithful saying, it says that he doesn’t come to judge the world, condemn it, but rather to save it.

Turn if you will to also verse 19 of that same text: “This is the condemnation: that light has come into the world and that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

Again, light referring to our Savior came into this world.

Turn to chapter 9, verse 39. Jesus said: “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.”

So again, Jesus talks of himself coming into the world to save sinners, but also to make those blind who didn’t acknowledge their own sin.

And then chapter 12, verse 46: “And I have come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.”

Again, he comes into the world to bring salvation.

Chapter 16, verse 28: “I am come forth from the Father and am come into the world again. I leave the world and go to the Father.”

And then there’s another reference in chapter 18:37. We won’t turn to it.

The point of all that is that this idea of Jesus coming into the world is particularly emphasized in the Gospel of John. And it’s emphasized over and over again in relationship to what we’ve just read—that he comes in the world to bring salvation.

Now, the other thing that John emphasizes and what’s important for understanding of Christ Jesus coming into the world to save sinners is that John sees the Savior’s entrance into the world as leaving the Father. And Jesus says, “When I leave the world I go to the Father.” It’s like the world and the Father are the two places you can be. There’s nothing else. So for Jesus to come to the world is to be absent from the Father, and for him to go away from the world is to be present with the Father.

There’s a change here—not just of location, or not even primarily of location. There’s a change here with the departure from the Father and coming into the world of moral or ethical sphere of position.

Chris W. and I yesterday visited a fellow in jail, and I thought about this. We were sitting in the kind of cafeteria area waiting for him to come out, and I thought that this is different. No, it’s not that bad a place. It’s really pretty nice. It’s different. No freedoms, locks, things are different. We had left. Chris and I had left where we normally are in terms of the world to go into a place that was different. Now, it’s still in the world, so to speak, but there was a different sense to it. There’s a different place there. This is a place of restriction and not freedom, of bondage and a different location. We were there for a specific reason, of course.

And I think that when we go to such places, we should see ourselves as emissaries of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the point I’m trying to make is a change. Now, if our world is here and jail is like here, it’s different. Okay?

Well, for Jesus to leave the Father and come to the world, I can’t put my arms far enough apart. Even if I was Rubber Man or whatever it is, I can’t put them far enough apart. The world is seen as the sphere of ethical evil and of wickedness in the context of the fall, you see. And the Father is all rectitude and light. And so he comes bringing that light, but he comes to a completely different place, so to speak. And it’s not just a change of place, but a change of state, a change of moral and spiritual environment.

We’ll get to this just a minute, but the order of the Greek is Christ Jesus came into the world sinners to save. Now, our translations say “to save sinners,” but in the Greek, that’s put around. And Paul does something unusual, as he frequently does. He puts “sinners” in front of “to save.” And one of the reasons for that is to emphasize both the word “sinner” and “saved.” You put them both in reverse. They’re both kind of emphatic. But another reason I believe is to put “world” and “sinners” close together.

You see, Christ Jesus came into the world sinners to save. That’s where the sinners are. That’s what the world is. It’s the abode of sinners. You see? And so when Jesus comes to this, there’s a tremendous condescension on the part of our Savior that’s pictured here that we don’t normally think about. Yeah, he became incarnate. We know that. Well, you know, he humbled himself is the point. He denied himself the presence of the Father in a particular sense by coming here. We humbled ourselves yesterday. Chris and I did to go into a place we couldn’t get out of for a while. We were locked up in there with the prisoners. Okay, well, that’s a very little humbling, but it is a change, and it’s a result. It’s an example of helping us understand how far our Savior went when he left the abode of the Father to come to the world—tremendous condescension to come to the place of sinners and to come into that place.

So he came into the world. Let me read a quotation here from another commentator. Now, the world—the term “world” is the term cosmos or “order,” and as this commentator says, it denotes the ordered entirety of God’s creation, humanity itself as it presents itself within this order. But the world is an order of things characterized by the ungodly conduct of mankind, by sin and by estrangement from God.

Into such an order of things the Savior entered or came—but not as one who originated within it and took his rise from this order that had a corresponding character with it. Therefore, he also quitted it again. He left and went back to the Father. Not, however, without having broken its power, without accomplishing the propitiatory sacrifice for the elect he promised he would bring.

So he came. He was without. He came to the world in great condescension, and he accomplished things in this world. He didn’t come here just to sort of change things and leave. He changed everything because the text goes on to say that the purpose of this coming into the world was sinners to save, to save from being down in the bottom pit. And not just to bring up to the lake, to go up to the highest heavens with him.

He didn’t come just to teach moral lessons and teach us principles. He came to save us, and to save the world.

Now, this salvation is certainly from things. He saves us from the guilt of sin. He saves us from slavery to sin. He saves us from the punishment of sin. It is, you know, “fire insurance.” Salvation is that he saves us from the eternal damnation of a burning hell. He saves us from our alienation from God and from the wrath of God. The scriptures say he saves us from everlasting death.

All that stuff is true, but it isn’t enough. To leave it there is not enough because he saves us unto relationship with God, unto our renewed calling and holiness, righteousness, knowledge, and dominion. The way we were created, we are brought back to those things. And beyond being brought back, we now have the power of the Holy Spirit coursing through our lives. That’s what our Savior came to do. He came to save us unto righteousness.

We’re not just forsaking sin. We’re positively doing acts of justice in conforming to the command, law, word of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit. He saved us not just to get us away from slavery to sin, but to give us freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ and liberty. And you know, in this church, when you exercise your Christian liberty, people don’t like it. But that’s what he’s called us to is Christian liberty.

He’s called us to blessedness, not just to being away from the damnation of God the Father’s judgment upon us, but to a blessed relationship with God the Father. He’s called us to experience again and to be in the context covenantally of the love of God. Not just away from the hatred of God towards sinners, but positively now we are recipients of the positive love of God because we are in the beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he hasn’t just saved us from eternal punishment, he saved us unto everlasting life. You need to hear that over and over and over. I need to hear that over and over and over.