and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2: 13). That tremendous glory is now hidden and the

hope of the Body of Christ coincides with its manifestation (Col. 3: 4).

In  I Timothy  Paul thrills with joy at the thought of his high commission of

proclaiming the good news (gospel) contained in the priceless deposit of truth, filled with

the unsearchable riches of Christ and ablaze with His glory (Eph. 3: 9). Yet, at the same

time, he cannot help thinking of his own unworthiness especially his pre-conversion days.

If the Lord Jesus could change Saul of Tarsus, the chief of sinners into Paul, the Apostle

of the Gentiles, then there is no limit to His transforming power, and there is hope for the

weakest of us if we come into contact by faith with such an almighty Saviour and Lord.

This sudden outburst of thanksgiving is typical of the Apostle, who never ceased to

marvel at the grace and long-suffering of God and his own past sinfulness and blindness.

He does not attempt to excuse himself in his headstrong persecution of the Lord's

people. He ravaged the early church like a wild animal (Gal. 1: 13). In I Timothy he

describes himself as a `blasphemer, a persecutor and injurious', only the English

"injurious' is not strong enough. Hubristen means a violent man, one who is arrogant

and overbearing. In his self-drawn sketch we can hardly believe that such a person could

ever become one of the most faithful and Christlike servants of the Lord, but such is the

truth.  All people are naked and open to the all-seeing God (Heb. 4: 13) and in

considering Saul of Tarsus, the Lord recognized one who was absolutely faithful to his

light, however small it might have been, and that there was a mighty potential in this man

once he was saved and enlightened. Whatever Saul of Tarsus was in his pre-conversion

days, he was not a hypocrite, "I did it ignorantly in unbelief", he says (I Tim. 1: 13). Here

was no willful ignorance which cannot be excused, but the blindness of unregeneracy

which, when removed by the risen Christ, could be replaced by the full knowledge and

acknowledgment of the liberating truth of God which is resident alone in the ascended

Lord. No wonder the Apostle Paul never forgot the wonders of grace and we are not

surprised to find that he makes more references to grace than any other N.T. writer. It

was the Lord's saving grace that stopped him in his mad career, replaced it by a new

spirit of faith and love and a keen desire to `apprehend that for which he had been

apprehended by Christ Jesus' (Phil. 3: 12).

The striking formula, "Faithful is the saying" occurs five times in the Pastoral Epistles

and nowhere else (I Tim. 1: 15; 3: 1; 4: 9; Titus 3: 8; II Tim. 2: 11).  This is

supposed to present a problem to Pauline authorship, but who can dogmatically say that

Paul could not, or would not have appealed to such sayings if they were truth? It appears

that he is quoting statements in a rhythmical form current in the churches, which were

acknowledged to be `sure words', and pistos, faithful, is a characteristic word of the

Pastorals, occurring no less than seventeen times. Truth and fidelity are brought to the

fore here. The statement that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" breathes

the very soul of the gospel as one writer has expressed it, and gives us the basic fact of

the Christian faith. In introducing it, Paul is still thinking about himself and the depths of

his sinful past for he adds, `of whom I am chief'. Paul holds no inflated idea of his own

importance.  It is `less than the least' (Eph. 3: 8) and `the least of the apostles'

(ICor.xv.9). But here he thinks not only of himself for he realizes that, in laying hold of