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 our 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 hold 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 spake 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 eyewitness 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; be 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 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 Psa. 110, and that when 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 to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” (1 Tim. 1:15, 1615This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 16Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. (1 Timothy 1:15‑16).)
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 be 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—this 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, 32; 17:4, 531Therefore, 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)
4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 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 the 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 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 revealed 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; 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 would 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, blight 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 before 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, as a Christian, immediately confessed the Lord; he did not delay, he waited for nothing; his faithfulness in publicly confessing Him is at once manifested.
This done, be 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 man, 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.