We live in the day of God’s grace, when He is showing what He can do for man. To demonstrate the greatness of His love, acting in grace, He took the very “chief of sinners” and lifted Him up to be one of His greatest servants. Paul could say with a humble and grateful heart, “I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. . . . But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:9-10).
None of us can claim to be the “chief of sinners” and none of us would claim to have labored more than the apostles, but all of us can rejoice that, like Paul, we are the objects of God’s grace and mercy. We thank the Lord for His servant Paul and what He has revealed to us through him.
This man of grace is given to us by the Lord as a “pattern” for our Christian lives. He illustrates to us what it means to be a heavenly citizen living on earth, witnessing to all men by word and deed that God is light and God is love. Like Paul, we are to live by that faith which has Christ as its object.