Email from Abiding Place Daily Bread – August 7, 2025 (The Fifth Day – Genesis 1:20-23) Galatians 2:17 – But if, while we seek to be made righteous in Christ, we are also found to be sinners, is Christ then the minister of sin? It cannot be! Did Paul believe that He was a sinner? He implied that if we are found to be sinners, then Christ would be the minister of sin (Galatians 2:17). In fact, throughout his Epistles, he identifies himself in just the opposite way. He made it clear that we are not to continue in sin (Romans 6:1,15). He referred to himself, as well as all believers, as being in Christ Jesus and being righteous and holy. There is only one place it could even be suggested he thought of himself as a sinner, and that is 1 Timothy 1:15. However, we can understand 1 Timothy 1:15 in more than one way. If we conclude that he believed himself to be a sinner, such a conclusion is not witnessed anywhere else in his Epistles and is contrary to what He said about himself many times. Therefore, without a second witness and with contradictory evidence we must look to understand what He said in view of all the other witnesses he gave of himself. What was Paul referring to when he said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first” (1 Timothy 1:15). How are we to understand, “Of whom I am first” “ὧν πρῶτός εἰμι ἐγώ.” First of all this phrase may be understood as a historical present tense. This is the use of a present tense to describe something that happened in the past (D. Wallace 1996). Paul viewed himself first in rank (πρῶτός, “protos”) as a sinner from those things he did ignorantly before he met Jesus as He described in the previous verse, “Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13). What must be appreciated is that Paul never described any acts of sin in his life, but rather just the opposite. He referred to himself as blameless in his behavior and demanded it from everyone who would be a leader in the Church (Philippians 2:15; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 1 Timothy 3:2, 10; Titus 1:7). There is not one verse in all of the epistles of Paul where he describes himself to be anything other than walking in the Spirit and revealing the life of Christ Jesus. In fact, he made it very clear how a person who was called a brother was to be treated if they had ongoing sin – they were to be shunned and even openly rebuked (1 Corinthians 5:11-13; 1 Timothy 5:20). Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 8/7/2025
