6. " Paul, an apostle (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead)." (Gal. 1:11Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;) (Galatians 1:1).)
The apostleships of Peter and of Paul had their respective peculiarities and points of difference: Peter received his from the Lord while on earth; Paul his from the Lord in ascended glory. In the opening of this epistle his great desire seems to have been to prove that neither he nor his doctrine were, before God, subject to the work at Jerusalem; but, if anything, upon a higher and more glorious standing, though both entirely of grace. And this he sought to establish, not in pride or self-importance, but as showing the folly of those who having learned Christ from him had turned to Judaism. It could not be said of any of the other apostles, " not of man neither by men, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him, from the dead;" for, to say the least, they were apostles before God the Father had raised Jesus Christ from the dead: and the pre-eminence of glory as to Paul's apostleship will be found, by those who read the New Testament carefully, to attach itself also in a peculiar way to our standing, which is not, in any sort in nature, a Jewish one; but, every natural tie of connection with the Jews and with the earth having been broken by the crucifixion of the Lord, He, when raised from the dead by God the Father, has given Himself in resurrection and ascension-glory to the church. And this seems to me the Spirit's object in here introducing the subject of the Lori's death; namely, to skew the entire rupture and breaking up of all Jewish and earthly order, and blessing, and authority.
The law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And the law could not give righteousness; it described health to the sick patient, but gave him neither medicine nor a cure-if it could have done so, there would evidently have been something good in man, and then why need Christ have died? But this was not so; and there could be nothing done for man, no righteousness found for him, but in and by the death of Jesus Christ. Oh, that we might cleave fast to grace, and get our hearts established therein and filled therewith: it is a sad thing, even in this present day among the saints, to see how little establishment in grace there is. Believer! let it sink down into thy mind, that every question thou dost entertain, such as, " Am I accepted of God?" (for that is righteousness) goes toward frustrating the grace of God, toward making the death of Christ to have been in vain, and therefore must be false. And most clear it is that if thou halt not acceptance of God (and there is no acceptance now but acceptance in the Beloved), then thou art entirely without any blessing, a lost thing, under judgment. Marvelous have been God's ways! Out of blessing in Eden man cast himself; and now he must either be blessed and loved together with Christ, the Son and Heir of all God's glory, or cursed and damned with Satan, the enemy of God and man. But we are not of those that are cursed, for we have known the grace of God, and seen in Israel's history the entire irremediableness, under the best circumstances, of man; and grace (the grace of God, which, when righteousness could not come by the law, caused Christ to die) is our plea and boast.- May our hearts be filled therewith continually.