NOTES for Ti1 1:15

These are some of the apostle Paul's best-known words, reflecting something exceptionally important in our faith. For fifteen centuries now many Christians have remembered them in the prayer before receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, saying: "I believe, O Lord, and confess that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first..." Therefore, we do not believe merely that God exists; in essence, that goes without saying. We do not even believe merely that God is able to deliver us from death; that too is obvious. We believe that He has already done this, that He has come into the world.

And there is one more astonishing thing that the apostle Paul mentions more than once: the Lord came to us while we were still sinners. God's love for us is such that He saves us from the depths of perdition, giving us a new opportunity to become worthy of this love. And perhaps the most important words are: "...of whom I am first." But this statement, for all its rightness, suffers from a certain abstractness. What has practical significance is that He came not only to all, but to each person personally.

How should we understand Paul's words that the Messiah came into the world to save sinners? And why does Paul consider himself the foremost of sinners? The simplest answer would be that people in general are sinful, and if they are to be saved, then by definition sinful people must be saved, simply because there are no others. But this may be only part of the answer.

Another part of it may be hinted at in Paul's words about himself as the foremost of sinners. What, in essence, does salvation mean? Clearly, liberation from the power of evil and sin. And how can one be definitively freed from it? Only by entering the Kingdom. But sin is precisely what keeps a person from entering it. Clearly, a fallen person has to begin sharing in the life of the Kingdom while at the same time resisting his own sin. And perhaps the closer a person comes to the fullness of the Kingdom's life to which he is called, the more visible that sin becomes.

Not only Paul but other Christian righteous people also considered themselves the greatest sinners, and this was not self-torment or showmanship. The matter here is probably something else. Once, at a scientific gathering, people were discussing the possibility of interstellar travel at near-light speeds. Among other problems, one rather unexpected one emerged: it turned out that interstellar matter could hinder such flights. Its density is negligible; from the standpoint of the speeds familiar to us, interstellar space can generally be considered empty, with a few atoms per cubic kilometer being insignificantly little. But at near-light speeds they "thicken" and become an insurmountable wall for potential travelers. So it is with sin: countless small sins, like dust, are constantly present in our lives, and as long as we do not approach the Kingdom, we do not notice them because they do not hinder us. But as soon as we take a step in that direction, what was previously unnoticed becomes visible. The intensity of spiritual life increases, and what we once did not even notice begins to hinder us seriously. And when spiritual life becomes what it should be in the Kingdom, those same sins, formerly almost invisible, become a heavy burden pulling us away from the goal. Only the Savior's help makes it possible to overcome that burden.

‘The saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.’ Today we single out these words of the Apostle because of their unparalleled importance in our liturgical life. Let us recall the whole prayer. ‘I believe, O Lord, and I confess that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. I also believe that this is Your very most pure Body, and this is Your very precious Blood. Therefore I pray to You: have mercy on me and forgive my transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and deed, committed knowingly and unknowingly; and grant me to partake without condemnation of Your most pure Mysteries, for the forgiveness of sins and life eternal. Accept me today, O Son of God, as a partaker of Your Mystical Supper: for I will not reveal Your mystery to Your enemies, nor will I give You a kiss as Judas did; but like the thief I confess You: remember me, O Lord, in Your Kingdom. May my partaking of Your Holy Mysteries, O Lord, be neither for judgement nor condemnation, but for the healing of soul and body.’ How did it happen that these very paradoxical words entered our most important prayer? They are paradoxical because, as soon as they are spoken in the holy church, we have to line up before the ambo, and I will not be first: someone else will be first; and if I am first, someone else will not be. Yet in the Liturgy everything is so sacred that there is not a shadow of contradiction or meaninglessness in it. This queue for the Chalice is in fact an image of something quite different, for it takes place in time that flows quite differently during the liturgy. In essence, we return to the first century, for this is the very Body and the very Blood — yet we return not into time but beyond time. This is so important to understand and hear today, when people often do not approach the Chalice and do not receive Communion because they consider themselves unworthy. And this is terrible. But let us listen to the Apostle, let us listen to the prayer: I am the first. When we come to the liturgy and do not receive Communion, it is as though we think: so many people are receiving; my not receiving changes nothing. Does it matter whether one hundred people or ninety-nine have received? No one will notice, neither the priest nor the parishioners. But I am that first person to whom God comes, and He comes to me first, while I turn away and disregard Him. It is very important to feel this: God has now come into this church for me, and I am not receiving Him. In fact, this does not mean extreme self-centredness. It means only one thing: when I come to church, I of course meet my community and my spiritual father, or simply the priest; but that is on the tangible level, while mystically only two meet: God and I. And for each person it is God and I; thus we are together, but only through Him. Some think that the words ‘Let us pray to the Lord in peace’ mean ‘all together’, whereas they must in fact be understood as ‘in peace let us pray to the Lord’. For a priest can celebrate the liturgy even on his own. We must always remember: God is waiting for me at the Chalice, for me first, because I am His unique, unrepeatable person and child.

The great apostle to the Gentiles, who perhaps labored more than anyone so that you and I might receive the news of Christ, does not give himself top marks. He considers himself not a righteous man but a sinner—and the foremost of all sinners. He constantly offers his repentance to God and constantly gives thanks for His mercy. Even Paul's apostleship is not his own achievement, but a response to Christ's call and a manifestation of the power He bestowed. God stopped Paul while he was persecuting Christians; God forgave him and appointed him to serve; God granted him the grace of faith and love for Christ—and to God he gives glory. Should we not learn from Paul to see these two things at once: our own sinfulness and God's perfect holiness?

Paul illustrates his words about the Torah, which leads the righteous to Christ and into the Kingdom, with the example of his own life. Speaking about his life before his conversion, Paul acknowledges that he was a persecutor of Christians, something that, of course, was known to everyone who knew the apostle. But by his own words, he was then just as sincere as he later was after his conversion to Christ, and he became a persecutor of the faithful solely out of ignorance (vv. 12-14). As we can see, in what concerns following the Torah, sincerity and faithfulness to what the person on the path considers right turn out to be the main thing for the apostle. This is not surprising: for the righteous person, what matters above all is spiritual integrity, which is manifested first of all at the level of the will, in the ability and readiness to make the right choice, to make decisions and follow them. Without such spiritual integrity, normal spiritual life is impossible in principle, as, for that matter, is any life at all. As for mistakes, when spiritual life is healthy, God can always correct them by showing the seeker the right path. That is exactly what He did with Paul, arranging for him on the Damascus road a meeting with the Risen One that overturned the future apostle's whole life.

Paul, as we can see, turned out to be spiritually ready for such a meeting. This is not, of course, about his expecting anything of the kind: in that sense, the meeting with the Risen One contradicted all his views and convictions. But he was ready in the sense that he resolved to part with them as soon as it became clear to him where the path of righteousness, leading into the Kingdom, now lay. The apostle has no illusions at all about his own sinfulness: he understands perfectly well that turning to Christ, and even the experience of the Kingdom, did not make him sinless; even now, years after his conversion, he continues to call himself a sinner, and of course this is not about what he did before, when he was a persecutor of the Church, but about what he knows himself to be now, already a witness of Christ and of the Kingdom (v. 15). But he knows something else as well, what all the righteous of all times have known: righteousness is not sinlessness, but the ability and readiness to follow God and bear witness to Him despite one's own sinfulness. For Paul, bearing witness to God means, of course, above all bearing witness to his meeting with Christ and to the experience of the Kingdom that was opened to him during that meeting and later, in the course of his apostolic ministry. And, of course, he understands perfectly well that without the direct participation of the Savior Himself, nothing of the kind in his life would have existed or could have existed (v. 16). Paul demonstrates by his own example how God turns a sinner who is seeking the righteous path into an inhabitant of the Kingdom.