One thing which leaps off the page as you read this letter by the apostle Paul to his former apprentice Timothy are the three times where he uses a particular phrase: Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Most people agree that Paul didn’t make these sayings up himself. Most scholars think that these are actually quotations of “trustworthy sayings” or “faithful sayings” which were in circulation in the early church and indeed were at the heart of the faith of the first Christians in the days while the New Testament Gospels and letters were still being written.
This morning we will look at the first two of these trustworthy sayings, which are on the same theme of salvation. And we begin with one of the most wonderful verses in the whole of the Bible.
1:15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners
Jesus came to bring God’s salvation. And since all have sinned and fallen short of God, we ALL need Jesus to save us. There hasn’t been a single human being born apart from Jesus Christ Himself who has NOT needed saving! Jesus mission was to save people. But Paul was always acutely aware that the mercy of God had stretched down to save not only sinners in general but him in particular – the chief of sinners!
1:15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
We should never lose sight of the fact that Jesus came to save sinners – and that includes you and me! Even you and me! The whole of our lives should be motivated by gratitude to God that he loves not only sinners in general, but me in particular. We sometimes use prayers of confession to remind us that we are sinners – like the prayer from the Anglican book of Common Prayer which goes like this.
“ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father,
We have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep:
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts: We have offended against your holy laws: We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But You, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders”
I heard about one man who whenever he prayed that prayer would say under his breath, “I am an offender but I’m not miserable.” We live in a selfish age, and we are often absorbed in ourselves. We offer a prayer of confession like this and are tempted to evaluate the prayer against our own assumptions about ourselves and about God. But prayers like this help us to turn away from self and turn towards Christ. Without Him we will never be anything other than ‘miserable offenders’. If we forget that we are lost forever without God’s mercy and forgiveness, then we are indeed lost forever.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And this saying has something else to say to us. Because it reminds us that although we are all sinners, Paul reminds us that Christ came to save even the worst of sinners. We all need saving, and God saves even us, but there may be people who are even worse than us and they need saving too!
1 Timothy 1:12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Paul was a blasphemer and persecutor of the church – he needed saving and God saved him. If God grace could save a sinner like Paul, God can save sinners like you and me. But more than that. God cares about SINNERS. We sometimes think that heaven is going to be full of the kind of people we like to think we are like. Genuine, kind, gentle respectable people who God is happy to welcome into His Kingdom. This saying reminds us that as well as people like us, heaven will be just as full of the worst of sinners.
1 Corinthians 6 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
God cares about all kinds of people and God saves all kinds of people. Not just nice respectable people. When Jesus had dinner with the tax collector Zacchaeus, Jesus said to him, Luke 19 9 … ‘Today salvation has come to this house … 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’
Parable of the lost sheep = Luke 15 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.
Jesus even called a notorious tax collector to be one of his 12 apostles.
Matthew 9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. 13 But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’
There are many many sinners even in respectable Chelmsford. Hard people. Rebellious people. Violent and adulterous people. Drunkards and swindlers. Maybe some who have run as far away from God as the apostle Paul had. There are many such people in our town. They may cross our paths – although we may spend most of our lives hoping they won’t. But these are the sinners Christ came to die for – just as much as Christ came to die for us. These are the sinners who are lost without Christ. We need to take the love of God to people like that. Because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
So on to Paul’s second trustworthy saying about salvation.
1 Timothy 4 9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. 10 That is why we labour and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, and especially of those who believe.
The 1984 NIV makes clear that the trustworthy saying is what follows in verse 10 rather than the verse before.
4:9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance 10 (and for this we labour and strive), that
we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and especially of those who believe.
Although it may seem like a subtle point, I prefer the alternative translation used by the New Living Translation and others, which say that God is the Saviour particularly of all believers. Because it is specifically believers who God saves.
This second trustworthy saying about salvation raises an important question for us. Did Paul believe that everybody would be saved? In what sense is God the Saviour of all people? There are other verses as well in 1 Timothy which might imply that all people would be saved.
1 Timothy 2 3 This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.
Paul says here that Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all people. God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. That is what God wants. That is God’s wish. Indeed, if God were to command it, then that would be what would happen. If God were to command it, then everybody WOULD be saved. But there are so many places elsewhere in the Bible which teach us that God has not so commanded. Instead, it is clear that salvation is God’s gift which is available to all and offered to all – but not accepted by all. Elsewhere in Paul’s letters it is indisputable that God’s gift of salvation has to be received by personal faith in Jesus Christ, e.g. in Romans 1.
Romans 1 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’
Paul spells this out in Romans 10
Romans 10 9 if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.’ 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
This is the truth which not only the apostle Paul but all the first Christians proclaimed. The people who believe that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead are those who are justified – brought into a right relationship with God. It is the people who confess “Jesus is Lord” who are saved. It is the people who call upon the name of the Lord who are saved – and only those people who have put their trust in Christ to be their saviour.
So when we read verses in 1 Timothy that God wants everybody to be saved and that God is the saviour of all people, there is certainly a superficial contrast between what it says about salvation here and what the rest of Paul’s letters say, and indeed what the rest of the New Testament says. Some people see that difference as proof that Paul himself did not write 1 Timothy. Other people think that because the letters to Timothy were written at the end of Paul’s life that maybe Paul mellowed as the years went by and even changed his mind about who would be saved. I disagree with those ideas. I do think that Paul himself wrote 1Timothy. And I think here Paul still believed what he always believed and taught – that only those people who believe in Christ will be saved. Why else would Paul be so concerned to defend the truth of the gospel? Paul would not have endured so much opposition and suffering for the sake of the gospel, if he had believed that it actually doesn’t matter what people believe and that God will save everybody in the end anyway, whether they want to be saved or not.
So what then does Paul mean when he writes,
we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, and particularly of those who believe.
Paul is saying that God is potentially the Saviour of all people. But in actuality God is only the saviour of those people who believe. God’s wish that everybody would be saved but that wish is only realised in those who put their trust in Jesus. It is only those people like Paul and his readers who have put their hope in the Living God who will be saved, not all people. This is the trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance. This really matters, which is why Paul goes on in verse 11 to insist, 11 Command and teach these things.
If we still have any doubt about whether Paul thought everybody would be saved, we can go back to the first trustworthy saying he quotes in chapter 1.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
Paul’s own life was an example of the difference that God’s grace can make for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Paul knew that he himself had only received eternal life because he had put his trust in Jesus. The offer of salvation is there for all people. But only those who believe in Jesus will receive God’s gift. The idea that everybody will be saved is popular. But that idea is mistaken and indeed dangerous. It gives people false hopes. This is why we need to proclaim the gospel of salvation boldly – especially to the worst of sinners! We long that all people will put their trust in Jesus and be saved.
So here we have two trustworthy sayings, worthy of full acceptance. Different translations bring out the full force of these truths which the Early Church believed and which Paul is passing on. This is a true saying, to be completely accepted and believed. (Good News Bible) There is no doubt about this at all, and Christians should remember it. (J.B. Phillips) You can count on this. Take it to heart. (Message)
1 Timothy 4:10 We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, and particularly of those who believe.
And even more wonderful, 1 Timothy 1:15 This is indeed a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners