Chapter I
HE begins, as I have said, with the history of his call to the ministry-the way in which he had been made an apostle. He announces himself at once, and boldly to be an apostle (which they denied), but an apostle not of men, neither by man-not by Peter, nor by any other, whoever it might be, but-which was far better-by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who had raised Him from the dead, the true source of all blessing and all authority. It is always the way of those who do not love the truth to ask by what authority it is proclaimed. The Lord Himself was asked this; so were the apostles, and the same thing is done in these days. Ecclesiastical authority, as such, as established by means of ordinances, is always the enemy of the truth. When its ministers lean upon authority, they are accredited as of God, but they do not allow God Himself to work outside those ordinances which give them their importance.
Paul would own no other source of his ministry but God Himself and the Lord Jesus Christ, who had chosen and also prepared him for this service, who had called him, and had afterward formally sent him by the Holy Ghost, giving him the proofs of his apostleship in its success, as also in the miracles which he had performed. Now the faith of believers ought to rest upon the power of the Holy Ghost, which had been manifested in him, and had been efficacious in their own hearts by the power of God. God was free to send His gospel to the Gentiles, causing it to reach them by whatever means seemed good to Him. He chose Paul, proving this by the power of the Holy Ghost. The fruit manifested the tree. This is the only true ministry, though all are not apostles.
Verse 2. Paul linked with himself all the brethren who were with him. In accepting Judaism, the Galatians were placing themselves in opposition to all Christians who had been enlightened by heavenly truth, and who, through grace, enjoyed true Christian liberty. The Jews might indeed seek to subject souls to a system which had been abolished by the death of Christ, in order thereby to maintain their own glory; but the time was passed. It was a question of the freedom of the word of God, that is, of God Himself, who certainly was free to send His gospel, His salvation, wherever He would, and by the means He Himself chose. What is His will He always performs; and the Porter (the Holy Spirit and the providence of God) opens the doors, as was the case with the Lord, the sole Head of all true ministry.
Now miracles are not wrought to prove ministry, even as no miracles were wrought by John the Baptist or the prophets amongst the Jews. The word, and the fruit which it bears, are the evidence of the reality of the ministry: the word by the truth itself, and the fruits by their character and power. There may be opposition and persecution, but that is nothing new; the Lord and the apostles encountered it, in spite of the mightiest miracles. God will accomplish His own purposes, and His word will not return to Him without prospering in that whereunto He sent it.
The law applies to man in this world: it supposes that man belongs to this world, and it furnishes him with a rule, by which he ought, as a child of fallen Adam, to direct his steps. It is the duty of man, in all the relationships in which he finds himself, both with God and with his neighbor; and to this is added the prohibition of lust, a prohibition which judges not only the outward conduct, but also the inward movements of the heart. A man might possibly keep all the external commandments, and think himself righteous, but the flesh being evil and sinful, he cannot fail to detect lust in his heart. An outwardly righteous walk may produce self-righteousness: but before God who searches hearts, the presence of lust, which is always sinful in His holy eyes, constitutes us sinners, and makes us unfit to enter heaven.
We have not only committed sins, we are sinners; and therefore false Christianity does not allow that lust in the baptized is sin: it has no true remedy for the evil tree, the law does not furnish one. It judges sins: where God is working it can discover sin; but it does not take it away; it cannot justify the soul if it finds sinful acts or sin. It cannot give a new life; that is not the work assigned to it. It is the rule of God, invested with His authority over the children of Adam, as responsible in this world; consequently they are lost, for no child of Adam is without lust, or even without actual sins. Now the law pronounces a curse upon those who have sinned, and it likewise forbids lust; it must needs do so, as the perfect law of God. Grace, on the contrary, Christ, the Son of God, comes to redeem us, and to set us free from the condition in which, both through Adam's sin and our own sins we are found. Christ gave Himself that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father (v. 4): and if we profess to be Christians, we profess to be dead with Christ, and no longer of the world, which has rejected Him, no longer in the flesh, which was crucified with Him.
Verse 6. But the apostle begins abruptly, as has been said, rebuking the unfaithfulness and inconstancy of the Galatians. They had abandoned the truth of the gospel which they had received from the apostle-that is, grace revealed in Christ- in order to give themselves to another gospel, which in reality was not another, or different one, but was the corruption of the gospel of Christ. Moreover, it was the giving up of the only true gospel, to put themselves under law-they who had been called by grace-for there were some who troubled them, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. There is, and there can be, but one gospel; God has given one gospel alone for the salvation of sinners.
Through His infinite grace, and His grace alone, He gave His only-begotten Son, to become a man and to die for us. The only source of all was His love: no one suggested it to Him, or persuaded Him thus to have compassion upon sinners. None could feel it divinely but God Himself, none but a divine Person could accomplish what was needful. The Father prepared a body for Him, and He, the Son, came to fulfill His will, to save. Thanks be to God, the Son has fulfilled the work that was entrusted to Him, and the Holy Ghost has announced this gospel-that the love of God has been manifested in the gift of His Son, and that He, having finished His work, sits as Man, at the right hand of God-and with this gospel He leads souls to repentance.
God Himself has not, and cannot, have another gospel. He cannot forget the work of His Son, in which He has found complete satisfaction, in which He has been fully glorified. He cannot set forth another gospel, or add something on man's part, as though the work of Christ were imperfect, and lacked something to complete it. Christ, as Man, sits at God's right hand, because He has accomplished the work of salvation for all believers, having by Himself purged their sins. And when He had sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, the work which saves us was announced to be finished. And then all teaching that requires anything else, that assumes to add something of man to complete it, denies the perfection of the work of Christ-that is to say, denies that He has completed the work of redemption. That the Spirit of God works in the heart to produce in us the sense of our guilt before Him, and our need of the sacrifice of Christ-that we need to be born of God in order to enter into His kingdom, and further, that the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Christian, brings forth the fruits which suit the new life in which we participate through grace-all that is true; but for the work of redemption, for the putting away of sin, and cleansing us from it, for making us divine righteousness in Christ, God will have nothing else but the death of Christ. God has shown that He has accepted His death, in that He has raised up Christ from among the dead, and has set Him as Man at His right hand in the glory which He had before the world was. He will not allow man to add anything to that work; whatever it might be, it would deny, in so far, the sufficiency of the work of Christ.
These heretics do not say that Christ has not finished the work; nor did the false judaizing teachers among the Galatians say it. But they insisted that man must on his part add his works, the law, circumcision. They said God had done His part, and now it remained for man to do his. This is always the way of a man who does not know himself, does not own that in himself he is but a miserable lost sinner who ought to have kept the law, who was responsible to do it, but that he has failed, that his flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Man feels his responsibility; but instead of saying, alas! I have failed, I am lost and guilty, I cannot satisfy the demands of the law; he seeks to work out a righteousness when it is too late. False teachers who know not the grace of God, or the value of the work of Christ, use the law for self-righteousness. As conscience cannot be pure, satisfied and quiet before God, nor make itself so, men have invented various means which man can accomplish, in order to quiet the conscience without cleansing it. Thus they do the devil's work, hindering conscience from feeling the depth of that sin, to which man has become accustomed, and which reigns in the flesh. This is always done by means of ordinances; these, man can fulfill; but make the flesh holy he cannot. A new life is received from God in Christ, who came that we might live through Him. But man likes to do his own pleasure and will not submit himself in heart to Christ. He feels his responsibility, and in order to quiet his conscience, he accepts these means at the hands of men, who pretend that these human expedients come from God, and have His authority, while they only seek, as the apostle says, to glory in the flesh of those who listen to them, and for their own advantage, to hold them under their authority.
Zealous and ardent (if you believe them) for the glory of God, and for the authority of His commandments, they take possession of that authority through the rules they impose upon others, wielding it at pleasure over the conscience, and thus over the man himself; as the Lord Jesus said, " they annul the commandments of God by their traditions." Thus did the Pharisees, who were so strongly condemned by the Lord. Thus also do those who in this day follow not the word of God, who will not allow Christians to be taught by the word, the scriptures, which are addressed to them by God Himself, and which therefore, they are bound to obey; they would not, I say, that others humbly learning by the help of the Spirit of God, which belongs to all believers, should follow the precepts of that word, and enjoy the blessing which is found in the pure faith, there presented to us.
They always place souls under the law, to which they add traditions, which, together with the interpretation of the word of God, they hold in their own hands, and thus they can teach what they like. Let believers remember, that if a master-and God is master over every conscience-had given commandments and directions to his servants, or a father to his children, and another prevents those commandments or directions from reaching the servants or children directly, and as they were given, he would hinder the exercise of the master's or father's authority, and moreover would deprive the servants or children of their rights.
Now the whole Scriptures are in fact addressed either to the Jewish people, or (if we except three short epistles) to believers who are now sons of God by faith; and no one has the right to prevent those to whom they are written, from knowing what revelations have been made to them, and what precepts have been addressed to them. He who does so opposes himself to the authority of God, who has made these revelations, and has placed all His own under obligation to obey the precepts contained in them.
God can give gifts for the purpose of helping believers to follow His precepts. Paul was thus helping them in this very epistle; but the true servants of God have never sought to take from His children's hands, His word which He has given them, which is their blessing and their light, and by which He Himself speaks to their souls, showing that in His infinite grace He has desired to speak to them, and to communicate to them amid the darkness of this world, the knowledge of His love and of His will, to show them the path in which they may walk in simplicity, in spite of the enemy of their souls, and enjoy-immense happiness! the love of God and the light of His countenance. What unbounded grace, that God should deign in such a world to communicate to us His own thoughts, divine light in the darkness; and how terrible to take away these divine communications, and hide them from the eyes of His own. Alas! man is but too readily disposed to neglect them; yet to take them from souls who desire to have them, is iniquity, it is open opposition to the sovereign grace of God which has given them. Those who seek to rule over souls in God's stead, take from them the revelation He has made to them. They are then free to preach and teach what is not according to the word of God, and to impose the yoke of the law and traditions, as well as their own authority upon the necks of man.
The forms of this departure from the truth may differ, but the principle is always the same; that is, the law and human traditions, imposed upon souls, and the authority of men. Here among the Galatians, it was openly the Jewish law and circumcision, by which they were held to observe the whole Jewish system, and submit to the authority and tradition of the scribes and Pharisees. In this day, it is still the law and traditions of men and then clerical authority, and that, in place of the direct authority of the word of God.
But it will be said, were there not men appointed of God to teach others? Yes. God has by the Holy Spirit given various gifts; the evangelist, the teacher, and the pastor; these gifts are exercised through the grace of the Holy Spirit, under the authority of the Lord Jesus. The difference between the various gifts of God and the clergy is this. The gifts which are really of God, are exercised by applying the word of God to the conscience, and the word always retains its supreme and absolute authority over the soul. Everything is referred to that authority. The clergy place themselves between the soul and God, as if possessing His authority; the word of God disappears, and does not act directly on the part of God; the soul does not go to God, is not subject immediately to Him, but to man; God's own light does not shine into it, the conscience does not find itself in the holy presence of God, the heart is not irradiated by the beams of His love. Servile fear takes the place of confidence and joy. God is not a Savior and a Father for the heart, but a God of judgment, who exacts the last farthing. The grace of God is unknown, the law is unfulfilled, and the heart full of terror submits to a poor sinner like itself. Man degrades himself, instead of being at once elevated and humbled by the presence of God, and by communion with Him. If he commits sin, his conscience is quieted by a human being, without being cleansed, and at last disgusted with everything, he neglects and entirely abandons religion and the fear of God.
The gospel of grace to every creature under heaven had been committed especially to Paul by the Lord Himself, as was the gospel among the Jews to Peter. Paul maintained this gospel in its purity as being of God Himself. An angel even had no right to alter it; and he pronounces an anathema and curse upon any who might have preached a different gospel. How shall we know what he taught? The answer is simple. Read what he has written, which remark, he addressed to the whole Christian people, even as to those who were forsaking the truth.
The ardent words of the apostle are very remarkable. The Holy Ghost has given us God's own testimony, that if an angel came to teach what the apostle had not taught, he would be under the malediction of God-he would be anathema. It little mattered who he might be, if he contradicted the testimony of God. Paul well knew that he had received it from God Himself, and he who opposed or falsified it, opposed the authority of God, and the truth which He in His grace made known.
Let Christians take heed to the solemn words of the apostle. We possess them in this Epistle, as well as in others which he wrote. They are the touchstone for all teaching; and we need to study them in order to know if he who speaks tells us the truth of God. So solemn was this point, so deeply was it felt by the apostle, that he again repeats what he had before said-that whoever should preach any other gospel than that which the Galatians had received from himself, should be anathema. He did not seek to please men in what he announced, or to satisfy man. If he sought to please men, he would not be the servant of Jesus Christ. It was He and He alone whom he ought to seek to please; to abandon the gospel would not be the way to do it.
Verse 11. He begins then by declaring that the gospel which he preached was not after man. He had not received it from man, neither from Peter nor from any other. It was not by man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He had not learned it from any man, he held it immediately from the lips of the Lord, when He revealed Himself to him in glory. Among the Christians at Jerusalem, he had been an enemy and a persecutor. Jesus Christ Himself had taught him the gospel, and had revealed the truth to him. He might well hold it firmly, refusing all else that man might add to it, whatever might be their pretext for teaching better than the Lord Himself-whether they sought to add the law to the gospel, or assumed to know a better way of producing holiness, than the means employed by God.
It is not usually the knowledge of what is right that is lacking among men, so much as the power to resist and overcome lust, subduing the flesh and being filled with motives which lead us in the way of God, in which the heart loves to please Him. Christ is all this, as power, as motive, as way, if we follow His steps. From Him we receive the Spirit, who causes us to desire to know His will, and gives us power to do it. The law gives neither life, nor strength, nor an object to attract us. If we walk by the Holy Spirit we keep the law, and in no other way.
Verse 13. The statement that he had not learned the gospel from man, leads the apostle to relate the history of his life, a history which the Galatians had already heard-but he repeats it afresh, because in that history was found the source of the authority which he possessed from Christ, for announcing the gospel as it had been committed to him by Christ Himself, whose heavenly glory he had seen, and who had sent him to preach it. And he had even been a persecutor, zealous of the law, and had sought to get rid of the name of Christ from the earth! He had been a Pharisee, living according to the straitest sect of his religion, persecuting the church of God with all his strength, and wasting it. Moreover he had excelled many, his equals in his own nation, in the knowledge and observance of Judaism, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of the fathers. He was ruled by the law and traditions.
We see in Saul a zealous and religious man; one too, who was unblameable in his conduct. And now God, who had in fact separated him from his mother's womb, came in, and called him by His grace, revealing His Son in him, that he might preach Him among the Gentiles. The ways of God as to this call for utmost attention. He first prepares a vessel-a man full of energy, courageous, bold, ready to undertake all things, full of zeal for the cause which he espoused, and having moreover, nothing as to his life with which to reproach himself touching the law, with a powerful mind, that could enter into the highest subjects, and yet know how to come down to occupy itself with the smallest details, and to think of individual circumstances, with a heart full of affection. Taught of God, he could, through grace, understand the greatest and most glorious truths, and at the same time he could fully enter into the relations of a poor fugitive slave with the master from whom he had fled. Naturally independent, he had enough greatness of heart, to submit himself to all who held a position, entitling them to exercise authority, and honoring also each one in his place. It is the mark of greatness of mind to despise none, if not wicked men assuming to exercise authority against that which is good; but even in such, to recognize the authority of God, in the position in which God has set them.
But all these fine qualities were marred and hidden by the activity of a will, which sought only to please itself, and to increase its own glory in upholding the honor of the sect, and the traditions of the fathers, making use of the name of God for this end, and carrying on persecution, even to strange cities: so that the energy that characterized him was but the means of satisfying the malice and passions which sought to destroy the name of Christ.
But God had used Saul's energy and ardent will, to separate him from Jerusalem, where the apostles were, who had been already called by the Lord and sealed by the Holy Ghost. At Jerusalem it would have been difficult for him to be entirely independent of the other apostles; he would have come into the Christian assembly under their authority and directions; it must necessarily have been so. But his energy, under the hand of God, had led him away from a position, which was not in accordance with God's thoughts. He had asked for letters from the High Priest, to bind and bring prisoners to Jerusalem, all who in strange cities called upon the name of the Lord.
And thus he found himself on the road to Damascus, accompanied by his traveling companions. But the Lord had His eye upon him; and suddenly, as he drew near to the city, there shined round about him a light from heaven. They all fell to the earth; they all saw the sudden light; Saul alone saw the Lord. All heard a sound, but not the voice of Him who spoke to Saul. They were to be witnesses that the heavenly vision had appeared to Saul, but it was for him alone to receive the revelation from the Lord. He was to be an eye witness of the glory of the Lord, and a testifier of the words which He had personally spoken to him. For him, it was a revelation of the Lord and of His will, a direct and personal revelation; he must be able to say, " Have I not seen the Lord? " (1 Cor. 9:11Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? (1 Corinthians 9:1)). But it was the glorified Lord. He had not known the Lord in His humiliation, he was to begin with the glory.
The other apostles had known the Lord in humiliation, as the earthly Messiah, in His life of grace and patience. They had followed Him to Bethany, had seen Him go up into heaven, they knew that He was set down on the right hand of God, but they saw Him no more after His ascension. Saul appears for the first time, as taking part in the death of Stephen; that moment when the Jews showed themselves to be enemies of the glorified Christ, as they had already shown themselves to be the enemies of the humbled Christ; for the testimony that Stephen gave, was that he saw the Son of man in glory at the right hand of God. It was the end of all God's relations with the children of the first Adam. They had already rejected Christ humbled upon the earth, sin was complete: but Christ had interceded for the Jews upon the cross; God had heard His prayer, and the Holy Spirit answered by the mouth of Peter (Acts 3), announcing to them the glad tidings, that God had set Christ at His right hand, according to Psalm no, and that if they repented of their sin, He would return. They took Peter and shut his mouth. And finally, when Stephen had plainly declared His heavenly glory, they rose up with fury and stoned him The Christ in glory was rejected, even as Christ in grace had already been crucified upon the earth.
And here we find Saul, helping on Stephen's death by word and deed. Spurred on by these events, and still breathing out threatenings and slaughter, he asked and received from the high priest, who was prompt to help him in his zeal against Christ, letters for the prosecution of warfare against Him. Thus engaged, the Lord took him up, the apostle of the hatred of the human heart, and of God's chosen people against Him and against His Christ, in order to make him the apostle of His sovereign grace, which in his own person he had experienced, as also of the glory of Christ which he had witnessed.
What grace in God; what a change in the man! It is the same grace towards all who are saved, but Saul was a marvelous testimony to it: a testimony which would make it plain and manifest to all, as says the apostle himself: " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern of them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting," 1 Timothy: 15, 16.
The way in which the Lord prepared the two chief laborers among the Gentiles and the Jews is remarkable. Peter, cursing and swearing, declared that he knew not Christ. Paul sought to destroy His name from the earth. Neither the one nor the other could have opened his mouth, except to declare the sin of man and the sovereign grace of God.
But we shall do well to examine what the revelation made to Saul was. First, as has been said, it was the revelation of the heavenly glory of Christ, the Son of God, who still was man. The twelve had followed the Savior till the cloud received Him; beyond that, they could not be eye-witnesses. Saul had not seen the Lord, except beyond the cloud: his knowledge of Him began when Christ was in the glory. He was to declare the gospel as he had received it. A Messiah living down here was for the Jews. A Christ who had died and been glorified after having been rejected by man, became the Savior of the world. He had died for all men, and thus His work was complete. God had owned Him taking Him up to His right hand, into the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. And yet He was the same Jesus, the Nazarene (Acts 22:88And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. (Acts 22:8)), marvelous truth! who had before walked upon the earth among men.
Moreover He said: " I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." But how? If He were in heaven, Paul could not persecute Him. But He esteemed His own as Himself: they were united to Him, so united by the Holy Ghost, that they were members of His body. He loved them as a man loves and cherishes his own flesh. The Head and the members were but as one person before God. These are the two great principles of Christianity as Paul taught it; a Christ glorified after all had been accomplished, and Christians united to a glorified Christ, were the germs of all Paul's teaching; Christ, a man beyond death, beyond the sin which He had borne, beyond the power of Satan and the judgment of God against sin, redemption being complete.
Saul having left Jerusalem, bold and full of confidence, is arrested in the way, when on the point of carrying out his purpose. He falls terror-stricken to the earth, at the sight of the Lord. He heard a voice calling him, and discovering that it was the Lord, all is at an end as to his own will; he surrenders himself to the will of the Lord, and is sent by Him into the city, that he may there humbly learn what is that will. In other words, he at that moment submitted himself to Christianity in the ways of Christ's will. But he was blind; that so the inward work might be perfectly accomplished, and the immense change in his soul, might be experienced before God, in its true power, without any hindrance or interruption from man. Also, he neither ate nor drank for three days. But although he was to go into the city in order to learn what he was to do, yet many and great. things depended upon the revelation that had been made to him.
First, the glory of the Lord had appeared to him, the Lord Jesus of Nazareth, rejected of men but declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. Immense truth! A man was in heaven, a man, the Son of God; but He was there because the sacrifice for sin had been accomplished and accepted by God, a sacrifice so perfect, that He who had presented it was set down in His own Person at the right hand of God in His glory, and that, according to the righteousness of God.
Man, at the same time, was shown to be wholly evil and corrupt, for he had rejected God when He was present in perfect goodness, in the midst of men. Israel had forfeited all their privileges and their right to the promises by rejecting Him in whom all the promises are Yea and Amen; and not only the dispensation of the law had come to its end by the coming of Messiah, the Head of the dispensation that was to follow that of the law, but the title to the promises was lost by His rejection; and thus He being rejected, all God's relations with the people to whom He had given the law were at an end. The Gentiles had never had it; they had never been in relationship with God; they were outside the promises made to Israel, and they had fallen into the most complete darkness. (See Rom. 1) There no longer existed any relationship of men with God, if not that of sinners and rebels with their Creator.
But on the other hand, the sovereign grace of God had been manifested to the greatest sinner in the world; to the apostle of rebellion and rejection of the Christ of God, apostle of the enmity of man against God manifest in grace, against Christ exalted in glory. Important moment in the history of man! when redemption being accomplished, and love being free according to righteousness and divine glory, God rose above all the sin and enmity of man to work in sovereignty according to His grace; not only to manifest love-that, He had already done at the coming of Christ down here-but to cause grace to reign through righteousness, unto eternal life through Him: righteousness which had placed Christ, as Man at the right hand of God, because, as Man, He had perfectly glorified God. (John 13:31, 3231Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. (John 13:31‑32); ch. 17: 4, 5.)
But there was yet more in this revelation of the Lord. We have spoken of the dispensation of grace which was founded upon this revelation. It was needful that the soul of Saul should be in a state suited to the service of God in the dispensation that began by that revelation. And this is what took place. First, all the things in which he had trusted were utterly condemned: judged by God Himself, they no longer had any value. His own heart was all upset: all that he thought to be of God, and which was so until the cross, was set aside. His conscience-for he thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus-had deceived him. His confidence in the law as given of God, and by which he had hoped to obtain a righteousness before God-the authority of the heads of the Jewish religion, their fathers-in a word, all these things had but led him to find himself in open enmity against the Lord; there was nothing left upon which his soul could rest. He was the enemy of the Lord Himself, boldly seeking to destroy those whom He loved. Saul was all this in the presence of the Lord!
What a revolution! Saul himself, instead of having an externally pure conscience, found himself to be the chief of sinners, the enemy of the Lord, the apostle of that hatred against God, which had rejected from the world the Lord of glory, the Son of God, and which was still rejecting the testimony rendered by the Spirit after He had been glorified. The old dispensation, the law, the promises made to Israel, had disappeared; and instead of these, the Lord of glory, alive in heaven, is revealed by sovereign grace to him who sought to abolish the memory of His name. Eternal life is communicated to him, eternal salvation through the work of Christ is presented to his heart, in the glorified Man who had borne his sins, and was now making the work effectual by the operation of the Spirit of God. The Son of God is revealed in him.
This is true conversion, true faith. Sovereign grace reveals the Son of God in us, a glorified Man, and-if we have already understood the truth-a Savior who has borne all our sins. But it is the revelation of Christ in us. In Saul's case, this revelation was also in order that he might preach Him among the Gentiles.
Thus, he who had been exceedingly mad against Christ and against the Christians, persecuting them even to strange cities, is sent forth with these remarkable words from the Lord Himself. " For I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that which are sanctified by faith that is in me," Acts 26:16-1816But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; 17Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 18To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:16‑18).
Thus, Saul was taken from among the Jews (it is the real force of the words), separated from his nation, to belong to Christ; but he did not therefore become a Gentile. The starting-point of his new life was a glorified Christ, for the announcing of that which he had seen, and by the power of grace had received in his heart, besides other revelations which were afterward made to him: always, however, of a Christ rejected by the world and glorified by God. Knowing by the experience of Christ revealed to him and in him, that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God, as was also his religion, and his past life, Christ glorified was thenceforth his all: a Christ who had wrought redemption for him, and who had cleansed him from his sins: a Man in heaven for whom he waited, as the Fulfiller of the glorious hope of His own who were already united to Him, and were esteemed by Him as Himself.
Called by such a revelation of the Person of the Lord and by the words of His mouth, it was not the moment to go and consult others, whoever they might be; but he does not go. His mission was from the Lord Himself, from a Lord who had not been thus revealed to others. He was the Lord, it was the same salvation; but it was a special revelation which stamped its character upon the whole ministry of a servant, who knew Christ Himself no more after the flesh; that is, no more as the Messiah of the Jews upon the earth.
But it was needful that all should be wrought as experience in his soul; he was therefore made blind, in order that he might be separated from every external thing which could distract him, and that he might be entirely occupied with the change that had taken place in him, and that this revelation of the Lord, this total revolution in the state and relations of his own soul, might without interruption be felt, and might work within. It was needful that the condemnation of the law, the sin of having persecuted the Lord of glory in the persons of His people, the glory of His Person, the perfect grace which had called him, should be realities for his soul; that the new man should be formed by this means.
Thus he is left to himself. He does not think of seeking the rest of the apostles at Jerusalem; the Lord Himself had called him to Damascus, and Saul had received his mission from Him. He had not to consult the apostles, for the Lord had taken him for Himself. He was the servant of Christ immediately dependent upon Himself. He goes into Arabia and returns again to Damascus. After three years he goes up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and stays with him fifteen days. He did not see the other apostles. He also visited James, the Lord's brother. He is careful to recount all these details, that the Galatians might understand that his apostolic relation was directly with the Lord Himself, that he owed nothing to the other apostles.
Thus he, who but a little time before, had been a persecutor, advanced in Judaism beyond many his equals in his own nation, is now laid hold of by sovereign grace, in the midst of his greatest activity against the name of the Lord-an apostle sent directly by the Lord to the Gentiles, sent by a glorified Jesus.
But though chosen and called, he must await the positive direction of the Holy Ghost for entering upon the field of his apostolic labors; this was afterward given at Antioch. It is a most important principle; we need in order to work according to the Lord, not only the call of the Lord, but also the positive direction of the Holy Ghost.
Saul immediately confessed the Lord as a Christian; he did not delay, he waited for nothing: his faithfulness in publicly confessing Him is at once manifested.
This done, he all but disappears until the time when the Holy Spirit sends him as a witness for Christ into the heathen world. Only those things which show his perfect independence of the apostles and of men, are here recalled. He gloried, as in an honor, in that with which his enemies and the enemies of the truth reproached him. He did not hold his mission or his authority from any pan, nor by means of man, neither of Peter nor of the other apostles, but from Jesus Christ Himself. We shall see that Peter had no share in the mission to the Gentiles.
Paul was not known by face to the churches of Judea; when he afterward visited Syria and Cilicia, they had heard only, that he who persecuted them in times past, now preached the faith which once he destroyed, and they glorified God in him. This was the truth, as in the presence of the Lord. Later, he was sent to the Gentiles, not from Jerusalem, but from Antioch, by the Holy Spirit, as we read in Acts 13. Neither Peter, nor the apostles, nor the church at Jerusalem, had anything to do with it; it was a wholly independent mission: they knew not even what was being done. He carried on the preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles (always, however, evangelizing the Jews where he found any) taking with him various brothers, whom grace had prepared for the work, as we find it stated in Acts. But this is not the place to speak of such details.