BY JOHN BLOORE
(The reader should always turn to the Bible and read the passages referred to.)
QUES. 1.-Paul refers to himself, as "the chief of sinners." Is this God's estimate of Paul, or just Paul's vision of his own natural heart and ways? Can all Christians apply this to themselves?
ANS.-Paul is speaking of his own case as "a delineation of those about to believe" on the Lord Jesus to life eternal (1 Tim. 1:16, N. Trans.). "The whole long-suffering" to which the apostle refers had not been shown before, not even, for example, in the case of the disciples before him, for they were not as he was a blasphemer and persecutor, etc. (verse 13), who stood before men as the incarnation of the Jewish nation in its unbelief and hatred to the Lord Jesus. Now, he, as reached by the grace of our Lord Jesus which thus is seen to have "surpassingly over abounded," becomes the delineation of Christ's ways in the case of those about to believe, and doubtless too of what will be made good through grace and by faith in due season to the Jews of the coming dispensation. He thus also is a witness that God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew (Rom. 11:2).
He was "first" (New Trans.), then, as a sinner, not as to time of course, nor necessarily as to quantity of sin, but in the sense of the character he manifested as being of Israel yet so violently and bitterly opposed to God and His ways of grace in Christ. None surpassed him in this, he was first or chief as a sinner in this way, and God showed in him, the first, how "the grace of our Lord surpassingly over abounded with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus." This being so, and we may note too that the "1" is emphatic in the Greek, the statement is not one which all Christians can apply to themselves. It is rather Paul's estimate of his former place and relation in the light of the truth, revealed to him in his conversion.
QUES. 2.-Please explain Ps. 106:15. Does God ever answer the requests of Christians in the same way today?
ANS. – A well filled larder may mean a spiritually starved soul, just because its affection is set upon the prosperity of the present and God is forgotten, then leanness becomes its state. A man's life does not consist in the abundance he possesses (Luke 12:15). Compare 1 Tim. 6:9-12, 17-19. Lot chose according to the sight of his eyes, God permitted him to get his request so to speak, but how lean was his soul! Israel would not go up into the land and desired rather to return to Egypt or die in the wilderness. God gave them their request, what a lean forty years their souls knew in comparison to the wealth and blessing of a land which flowed with milk and honey (Num. 13,14). Israel must have a king like the nations, the request is granted, but it was to their poverty not enrichment, for it was the rejection of Jehovah as their King.
If we love the world and its things, we cannot enjoy the love of the Father, it is not found there (John 2:15-17). Such is God's way in government that He may teach us the folly of our own way, and turn us wholly to Himself. God searches our hearts. We may not be bold enough to voice some requests, but He knows the unspoken desire, and sometimes when it becomes a passion which warps mind and heart, He lets us taste of the coveted thing for our correction and deliverance. In such an experience there is the absence of communion with Him, our ways do not please Him, our souls are lean, there is no spirit of praise or prayer, no power in testimony.