Part One

An Exposition of Galatians 1:11-24

John G. Reisinger

In Galatians 1:6-10, we saw the Apostle declaring that there was only one authentic gospel, and anybody who changed the nature of that gospel must be viewed as enemies of Christ. The Judaizers came under just such an anathema because their message was a clear perversion of the gospel of God's grace. Both the Judaizers and their perverted gospel were to be totally rejected. We next learned that we are to measure men and movements, everybody and everything, by this one true New Testament Gospel. We do not measure the gospel by men and their abilities, gifts, or their eloquence, but we measure men by their adherence to apostolic doctrine.

Now the question arises, "Where did Paul get his knowledge of the gospel message?" Who taught him this amazing gospel of sovereign grace which he preached so faithfully? When we read Paul's Epistle to the Romans, or his Epistle to the Ephesians, we see him putting the whole purpose of God into focus from eternity to eternity. He shows us that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each had a specific and essential part in our salvation. He shows us God's eternal and sovereign purposes for His chosen people in Jesus Christ the Son. But where did Paul learn all of this? Where did he get his understanding of this amazing gospel? Was it a product of his own brain? Was he a magnificent philosopher who sat down and figured it all out or else thought it up from scratch? Was his message secondhanded, that is, did he receive his understanding of the truth from the other Apostles? Did he get it by way of tradition handed down to him? Did Paul go to seminary or get his instruction from the church as the only authoritative source? We remember this was the very claim which the Judaizers made. They insisted that Paul was not a true Apostle, but had gotten his authority, if indeed he had any real authority, from the other Apostles.

Paul's answer to this question of the origin and authority of his message is set forth in Galatians 1:11, 12:

I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the personal revelation of Jesus Christ.

"I certify you" is the same as saying, "I swear to you." Paul really wants his readers to be convinced. Another way of saying the same thing would be, "I would have you know for sure." One of Paul's favorite expressions, when he wanted to convince his readers of something of major importance, was, "I would not have you ignorant." If you would like to have a good Bible Study for your own heart, take the phrase "I would not have you ignorant" in Paul's Epistles and list the things that Paul wants you to be certain about. If you ever have to lead a Bible Study, that would be a good outline to use. What Paul is saying is this: "What I believe and what I preach is not after man." The New English Bible translates that, "It is of no human invention." Paul is saying, "I preach the amazing gospel, but I didn't invent it, nor did I receive it from other men as if it were an already accepted tradition. Nor was I taught it by any human authority or human teachers." He then puts the same thing positively by saying, "But by the personal revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul is claiming nothing less than that "God Himself, in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, personally and directly revealed to me the gospel which I preach. I owe all I know about the gospel of sovereign grace to Christ himself, personally."

Let me quote a short section from John Stott's excellent commentary on Galatians.

Paul's claim, then, is this. His Gospel, which was being called into question by the Judaizers and deserted by the Galatians, was neither an invention (as if his own brain had fabricated it), nor a tradition (as if the church had handed it down to him), but a revelation (for God had made it known to him). As John Brown puts it: "Jesus Christ took him under his own immediate tuition." This is why Paul dared to call the gospel he preached "MY gospel" (cf. Rom. 16:25). It was not "his" because he had made it up but because it had been uniquely revealed to him. The magnitude of his claim is remarkable. He is affirming that message is not his message but God's message, that his gospel is not his gospel but God's gospel, that his words are not his words but are the very words of God. (The Message of Galatians, p. 30)

Paul is claiming apostolic authority. He's demanding that our mind, our conscience, and our heart be bound by what he says. We must clearly understand Paul's claim. "I learned the gospel I preach by a direct revelation from God without any human intervention." That's his claim. Well, we might ask, how is Paul going to prove this tremendous claim? Beginning at 1:13 through to the end of the chapter, Paul proves this claim with three clear facts. Perhaps it would be good to give a short outline of the verses we will cover. Remember the trustworthiness of Paul's doctrine is dependent on his authority as an Apostle. The Judaizers had attacked his apostleship in order to destroy his message of sovereign grace. That is why Paul is defending his apostleship.

I The supernatural origin of Paul's gospel. Gal. 1:11-24

A. Paul's gospel is not from man but directly from Christ Himself: "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:11, 12). The main point of his argument is that his knowledge of the gospel is in no way connected with man, or man's authority, but it is a result of a direct "revelation of Jesus Christ." The argument is based on biographical material.

B. First Proof: Paul's pre-conversion life proves that only a miracle could have convinced him that Jesus was the Messiah. "For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers" (Gal. 1:13, 14). People in such a mental and emotional state cannot be changed by arguments, threats, or any kind of persuasion. It takes a miracle from God to change a fanatical bigot and that is exactly what happened.

C. Second Proof: Paul's conversion experience cannot be explained except on the basis of the sovereign electing grace and power of God. "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen," ( Gal. 1:15, 16a).

D. Third Proof: What followed his conversion proves his gospel did not come from, or through, man in any sense whatever. He says, ". . . .immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ: But they had heard only, 'That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.' And they glorified God in me" (Gal. 1:16b-24). His argument uses three historical facts. After Paul was converted, he (A), did not consult with anyone, but went immediately into Arabia (vs. 16b, 17). (B) After three years he made a very brief trip to Jerusalem (vs. 18-20). (C) He went to Syria and Cilicia (vs. 21-24).

John Stott has well summed up this section:

What Paul has been saying in verses 13-24 may be summarized thus: The fanaticism of his pre-conversion career, the divine initiative in his conversion, and his almost total isolation from the Jerusalem church leaders afterwards together combined to demonstrate that his message was not from man but from God. Further, this historical, circumstantial evidence could not be gainsaid. The Apostle is able to confirm and guarantee it by a solemn affirmation: "In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!" (v. 20) (Ibid., p. 35)

II. Pre-conversion Data

Having shown and declared that no human agency was involved in either his conversion or his knowledge of the gospel, Paul begins to prove it. He first describes himself before his conversion:

For you have heard of my conversation [or manner of life] in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it and profited in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the tradition of my fathers. (Gal. 1:13, 14)

It is interesting that the Apostle calls Judaism, which was the one true religion of God in the Old Testament, "the Jews' religion." It is no longer God's religion, but merely the Jews' religion. It was God's true revealed religion until the time of Jesus Christ. However, when He of whom the Jews' religion prophesied had come and fulfilled the prophecies then Judaism was done. When He of whom all of the Old Testament scriptures pointed had come and brought in the New Covenant, then everything the Old Covenant inaugurated was ended. When Christ, the true grain of wheat, was planted and bore fruit, Judaism was an empty shell - it is now nothing but the "Jews' religion" without the knowledge of Christ or the authority of God. The reality has come and replaced the shadows. The old is now nothing but empty rituals and futile regulations.

Paul first takes us back to the days of his Jewish religion and pulls out two specific things in his former behavior. First of all, he "persecuted beyond measure the Church of God," and secondly, he reminds us of how zealous he was in defending the tradition of Judaism. He was extremely successful in both of these simply because he was so fanatically sincere in his zeal. Paul was a true zealot. The phrase, "I persecuted the church beyond measure" denotes a savagery or violence. We read in Acts how Paul went into the synagogues and literally dragged men and women out in chains. He did everything he possibly could to stamp out the name of Jesus Christ simply because he hated the gospel. He literally despised the Son of God as a deceiver. Paul said, "I did everything I could to waste the church." He wasn't just content to persecute it, but rather he was bent on totally destroying it; stamping it out from the face of the earth.

Paul's point is to show that he was so fanatical in his Judaism because of his zeal for the "tradition of his fathers." Paul was not only a member of the strictest sect of the Jews, he was one of its leaders. He tells us two things about himself: (1) He outstripped his contemporaries in zeal, "I was zealous in my religion above many of my equals in my own nation," and (2) He got to the top very quickly because of his sincere zeal. If ever there was a case of "sincere but wrong" it was the Apostle Paul. If ever a man loved his religion and sincerely practiced what he believed, it was Saul of Tarsus. One thing you can say about him, he was not half-baked in anything. When he was a Jew he was an all-out Jew, and when he became a Christian, he was an all-out Christian. In other words, Paul was a bigoted fanatic. Why does he bring that up? Why does he want us to see what kind of a person he was? It is quite simple. Paul is saying: "I was blinded by my bigotry and so fanatical in my convictions that no person in that frame of mind, or with that attitude, could ever be changed with arguments, threats, or any other human influence." You cannot argue or reason with a fanatical bigot. All you can do is shoot them. Nobody but God Himself could have ever changed a bigot and a fanatic like the Apostle Paul, and that is exactly what Paul is claiming happened. God Himself opened his heart with His truth. God Himself opened Paul's eyes by the power of His Spirit. The risen Christ personally appeared to Paul and spoke to him. Nothing less than actually seeing and talking with the risen Savior would have convinced a zealot like Paul.

When I was in school, one of my psychology professors used to tell me that the only reason that I was a Christian, was because I had been "conditioned" by my environment. I told him I could not have been conditioned to become a Christian since I had not been born in a Christian home nor had I gone to a church or Sunday School that preached the gospel. There was nothing in my background that could have "conditioned" me towards the gospel. I remember telling the man, "I was conditioned in sin, and I then was reconditioned by grace."

III. Conversion Data

If ever there was a man who had been totally conditioned against Christianity, it would have been Saul of Tarsus. If you try to explain his conversion on the basis of psychology, sociology, heredity, environment or any basis other than the supernatural power of God, you will have a real problem on your hands. Those things do not work on dedicated bigots. That is the argument Paul is using to show that his gospel and his call to preach it is supernatural in its origin.

Paul next moves to his actual conversion experience, and again shows that it is not possible to explain his conversion any other way than by a direct revelation of Christ. Look again at his testimony:

When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood (Gal. 1:15, 16).

It is interesting to contrast the "I's" in verses 13 and 14 with the "God's" in verses 15 and 16. "I wasted the church; I persecuted; I advanced in my Judaism; I did this ... and I did that." Then you come to verse 15, ". . when it pleased God; But God ... who separated me. . .; But God who called me. . ." There is an amazing difference. Paul is saying here, "In my fanaticism and my bigotry, I was bent on the course of persecution. I thought I was serving God but in reality I was fighting against God. However, I was no match for either His grace or His power. All of my fanaticism, based on ignorance, was not able to hinder the sovereign and eternal purposes and power of God."

Notice the stages in Paul's conversion.

1: God "set him apart before he was even born." This is eternal election.

2: At a given point in time, God "called" Him. This is regeneration, or effectual calling.

3: His conversion experience was a revelation of Christ to his mind, heart, and will.

4: The goal was so that he would preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

These verses can teach us how to give our personal testimony. I trust that every reader will take every opportunity afforded to you to testify of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The Scripture says, "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." Some of the greatest sermons that have ever been preached are personal testimonies simply because a testimony comes from a person's own heart and experience. Regardless of learning or status, you are an expert when you speak from experience. Also, the listeners are often asking the same questions in their hearts that you asked when coming to faith. They are feeling the same fears and doubts that you testify that God, in grace, removed from your heart through the Scriptures (I Cor. 14:24, 25). Paul is here giving his personal testimony. If a modern evangelical were writing this section of Galatians, how would he phrase verse fifteen? He would not start with God and say, "When it pleased God ...," but he would start with himself and say, "When I decided to give God a chance . . " or, "When I opened my heart and let Jesus come in." That is the way people testify today. They do not trace their conversion back into eternity but start with themselves and what they did. Instead of saying, like Paul, that God "separated me from my mother's womb, and revealed his Son in me," the free-will enthusiast of today says, "I had the courage to make the all important decision to accept Christ." That is not the way the writers of the New Testament Scriptures talk. You never hear any of them saying, "I decided to accept the Lord," or talking about how they were "willing to let God save them." I challenge you to find one single place in the New Testament Scriptures where any person, when they are testifying of their conversion, ever begins with themselves. They always, without a single exception, begin with God. They always glorify God's grace and power and never boast about themselves or their so-called free will.

Suppose I stood up to preach and said, "I am a little bit better than other people. I have a better heart than most people." I then proved my point by telling how different I was from most sinners because I was willing to give God a chance to save me. I emphasize that it was my willingness alone that enabled God to save me. You should throw me out and say, "We did not get you here to brag about yourself, we got you here to brag about the grace of God." Isn't that right? However, today, the congregation would probably clap and say, "Praise God." Is it not true that many Christians, who may be sincerely trying to express their appreciation to God for saving them, actually do nothing but boast about themselves when they testify. They will say, "I'm glad that when I had an opportunity, I was willing to accept the Lord." That is all a testimony of "I...I...I." That is not testifying about the grace and power of God.

I remember hearing about a Christian Chinese man who was asked to give his personal testimony. He stood up and told how God had sought him, how God opened his heart with the truth, and how the Holy Spirit had given him a new heart. In other words, the man told how God's grace and power had overcome him and saved him. When the man finished telling of all that God had done, the chairman of the meeting said, "That was wonderful, but you left out what YOU did." The Chinese brother said, "I don't know what you mean. There was nothing I could do." The chairman replied, "You told us what God did but you never told us your part. What was YOUR part?" The Chinese man was still perplexed and said, "I still do not understand what you mean." The chairman said, "Surely man, you did something." The Chinese believer's face lit up and he said, "Oh, I see what you mean. My part was to run as fast and as far as I could to get away from God, but His part was to run faster, tackle me, and totally overcome me by His grace and love."

My friend, do you know what your part was in your salvation? It was exactly what the Chinese brother said, it was to get as far away from God as you could get and look for a hiding place. If you are a child of God, you can only say, "I am saved only because it pleased God to reveal His Son to me. I am converted only because God over came my stubbornness and took away my blindness."

I will never forget the first time I realized how important it was to teach new converts the truth of sovereign grace. There are some people who believe that the doctrine of election is in the Bible, but feel you ought not to teach it. However, we should not only teach it, it should be one of the very first things a believer should learn. The circumstances and the environment in which you are born physically have a lot to do with shaping the way you think, talk and act. The same thing is true spiritually. The way that you were brought to Christ and the environment, that is, the teachers, the background, the denomination, and the theology under which you were saved, all help to shape the way you think about your salvation as well as how you view the character of God. You may have been brought to Christ by sincere Christians who are theologically correct and that left its stamp on you. The reverse it also true. You may have been converted under sincere believers who did not understand the theology of sovereign grace. They likewise will leave their stamp on you.

I saw this truth very clearly during my first pastorate. I was in a college town and we had a burden to bring the claims of Christ to the students at Bucknell University. The young people took charge of a Sunday morning service. They got six young men from six different universities and each person was from a different department of study. One was a major in Psychology, another in Science, another in Sociology, another in Physical Education, another in History, and one in English. All of these young men were asked to give their personal testimony of how they were converted. We had nearly a hundred non-Christian students visiting that Sunday morning. The youth group had charge of the whole service and I sat in the back row with my wife. The first fellow got up and said, "I'm glad that when I heard the gospel, I had the courage to reach out in faith and take Christ as my Savior. I have never been sorry for what I did because Christ is a wonderful Savior." I believe this was a Godly young man who was sincerely trying to praise his Savior. The next fellow, who came from a totally different church background, got up, and said, "I rejoice that God in His great grace and pity, led me to a church where the gospel is preached. I praise Him for His patience and long-suffering toward me in spite of my sin. I shall never forget the night that His Spirit opened my eyes to see the truth and gave me faith to embrace Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I shall praise Him forever for His electing grace and great mercy." I nudged my wife and said, "Are those two fellows both talking about the same thing? Are they both talking about the same salvation? Are they both giving testimony to the same experience?" I learned then that we have to teach the truth of sovereign grace if we want people to express their own experience, and even understand and appreciate that experience, in a way that honors God and not man and his so-called "free will". We have to teach the truth that God, all by Himself, saves, not just tries to save, sinners, the most undeserving and unable. Let the free-willer teach that God made it possible for sinners to save themselves by their faith, and hear the converts boast about their decision. As for me and my house, we will boast that God alone secured our whole salvation by His sovereign electing grace and power.

As we shall see when we come to the doctrine of election, Paul always, as in Gal. 1:15, 16, attributed his own conversion, and the conversion of his converts, to God's sovereign election (II Thes. 2:13; Acts 13:48). When he spoke of other Christians, never once did he say, "I'm glad you made a decision to accept Christ." Paul always said, "God be thanked ...," or, "I thank God for you always." Paul began with God and never with the sinner's will. As in Gal. 1:15, 16, he always emphasizes, "It was God who came to me in mercy and opened my heart by His power."

I do not pretend to understand the mystery of salvation. I confess this whole business of regeneration, or God coming into a hostile human personality and changing that person into a seeker after God, is beyond my understanding. I do not know how a person could come into a meeting who isn't interested in the grace of God at all; who may, in their heart, be as far away from God as they can be, and yet in one moment, the Spirit of God takes a hold of their mind and attention and consciously draws that person to think about Christ and eternity. In spite of themselves, that person hears these words of the gospel, and all of a sudden repents and sincerely believes in Jesus Christ. Oh, the mystery of regeneration! If you have not bowed to Christ, may He grant that it happen to you, here, and now.

Could you imagine one morning someone saying to Paul, "Saul of Tarsus, do you know that today you are going to repent and believe the very gospel that you now hate? When you lay your head on your pillow tonight, you're going to be a devoted lover and follower of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?" We all know what he would have done. He would have done the very same thing that some of you are doing right now. You are saying, "Never! I will never believe the gospel!" Or maybe Saul would have said what you have said for many years. "Not me! I want no part of this 'born again' business." Saul would have laughed and would have been filled with rage, but God ... ! That very afternoon Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle. Before he went to bed that night, he had cried out of the depths of his heart, "Lord, what will thou have me to do Lord?" That is what happened! Violent Saul, the raging lion, had been struck down and turned into a meek lamb. When he heard the voice from heaven saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest me," he had cried out, "Who art thou, Lord?" He knew it was some Lord. I do not believe there was ever a more astounded man in all the world than Saul of Tarsus when he heard that voice saying, "I'm Jesus, whom thou persecuteth."

Is it not amazing that even as this man Saul passionately hated Jesus and was beating His sheep that Jesus had thoughts of compassion and purposes of grace toward Saul? Even as Saul's will was fixed in rebellion against Christ, the Savior was preparing to open Saul's heart in grace and power. Does it amaze you that even before Saul was born God had chosen him unto salvation and apostleship and was at this very ordained moment, a moment when Saul was spewing out the wickedness of his heart, about to reveal Himself to Saul and turn him into Paul the Apostle. WOW!

I love to preach the sovereign grace and power of God. I rejoice to believe in the mystery of God's great salvation of His elect people. I praise God for the privilege of being used to bring His chosen sheep into the fold. I pray that even now the same thing will happen to some hearts that happened to Saul of Tarsus. I pray that somebody reading this ... maybe you didn't even plan to read this ... maybe you are a boy or a girl who was forced by your parents to read this and you hated the very idea ... maybe you are reading this out of curiosity, but regardless of why you think you may be reading this article, you really are reading it because God Himself ordained you to read it. One thing for sure, you had no thoughts of repenting and believing in the gospel. Yet even this moment as you read the message of God's great love something is happening. Unbeknownst to you, the Spirit of God is preparing your heart to embrace Christ in spite of yourself! And all of a sudden there is a voice inside of you saying, "This is the truth! Yes, this is real! Can this really mean me?" God reveals Himself inside of us. He reveals Christ to us personally as our Lord and our Savior and then we sing with great joy that hymn, "It was for ME ... It was for Me." I love to see the mystery of the grace of God in the hands of the Spirit of God apply this great salvation to individuals. I wonder if you feel like that right now? Oh! If you do, then I say to you, "Come and believe!" I pray that God would open your heart and reveal Himself to you even as He did to Saul of Tarsus!

I remind you of the stages in Paul's salvation experience. Notice how he starts: "When it pleased God." Paul does not say, "When it pleased me." Believing in Christ would have been the most unpleasing thing that Paul could have imagined that morning when he awoke. However, when God worked in his heart it was then the most pleasing thing possible. The first stage of Paul's conversion was in eternity when he was chosen unto salvation, "who separated me from my mother's womb [before I was even born], and called me by His grace." The second stage is the historical call in time on the road to Damascus. That was the day God revealed His Son in Paul.

We read about this momentous event in Acts chapters 9, 22, and 26. Paul testifies that he was filled with hatred for Christ and Christians. He had sought and received authority to beat and arrest Christians and was at that very moment on his way to begin - BUT GOD! Paul is struck down and overcome by God's grace. He is "called" effectually to believe. Someone has said, "Paul was fighting against God, against Christ, against men. He neither deserved mercy nor asked for it, yet mercy found him and grace called him, and grace overcame him."

This "calling" is a word which is used in the scriptures to mean "that power of God that He exerts on the human mind and heart and will that forces the individual to respond to the gospel." When we say "forces," we mean a loving constraint that brings the sinner to repent and believe. Some people, when they think of effectual calling, and by effectual we mean "the call of God that actually effects a response," or irresistible grace, is like a steamroller, vro o o m, rolling over a tube of tooth paste. That is not the irresistible grace of God. That is not the effectual calling in the Bible. The effectual call of God is that sweet constraint of the Holy Spirit that draws us, not by forcing us against our will, but by overcoming all of our resistance and changing our wills.

I remember hearing the story about two women sharing a pot of tea. The one woman watched her son walk out the door with his shoes shined and his hair neatly combed. The mother said, "That's the most frustrating thing in the world." And the neighbor said, "I don't know what you're so uptight about, I wish my son would shine his shoes and comb his hair. He dresses like a slob." The mother replied, "Oh, that's not what's frustrating. What bugs me is that a pair of blue eyes and a blonde head did in ten minutes what I couldn't do in sixteen years." Now that's like the effectual call of the Bible. Something, rather somebody, radically changed that boy's attitude and he most willingly acted differently. A blonde head and a pair of blue eyes overcame his resistance. So it is with God's grace. When the blessed Spirit reveals the beauty of Jesus Christ to our minds, our emotions, and our hearts, all of the resistance is taken out of us. We gladly repent and believe. We then see a beauty in Him that makes it impossible to resist Him. We accept Him, receive Him, believe in Him, and trust Him with all of our hearts because we sincerely want to. We must never forget it was the effectual call, or new birth, that made us want to.

Now this calling, where Christ is literally revealed in me, is not just a theological doctrine to be discussed and argued. It is a real experience that brings me to personal faith in Christ where I rest in Him. Paul's case was both externally sensed by sight and hearing as well as internally in his heart. He had a literal external revelation of Christ on the Road to Damascus. We don't have that external revelation, but we do have the same internal revelation. God literally "shines [the gospel] in hearts" (II Cor. 4:6).

It is important to notice that Paul connects his call to apostleship with his call to salvation. "He revealed His Son in me" for what purpose? "That I might preach HIM." It is not just that he might preach, but that he might preach Jesus Christ. Paul has in mind here the Judaizers. They were great preachers of the Law of Moses, but they knew nothing of sovereign grace. They were insisting on circumcision but rejecting the liberty of the gospel. Paul says, "God revealed Christ to me that I might preach HIM. God did not call me to preach Moses, to preach rules, ceremonies, and regulations. He called me to preach the gospel of grace which exalts the cross of Christ, and He called me to preach this 'to the Gentiles.'" That's right! To those poor pagan sinners. My brother, that is what we are called to do. We are to preach Christ and the grace of God to poor pagans. That's our calling. And that's why He revealed Christ to us. That we might preach HIM! And that we might preach Him to those who are lost.

Isn't it amazing that Paul became the greatest preacher of the very gospel he hated so passionately. He could only have done this by a personal revelation of God to him as an individual. His circumstances before his conversion, his actual conversion, and then, of course, the events after his conversion all prove his claim to have been called, taught and commissioned by Christ alone.

We now look at what happened after his conversion. This is the third stage of his argument and it proves again that his gospel is not of human origin. First of all Paul tells us what he did not do. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." What he means is: "When I was struck down and converted I did not need a personal worker to give me assurance that I was saved." Paul needed no human authority to validate God's work. Can you imagine somebody having to argue with the Apostle and saying, "Now, Paul, the Lord really revealed Himself to you, and you must just take it all by faith. You may doubt tomorrow that God really called you but just remember the promise." Paul could never have doubted that experience for the rest of his life.

Some churches used to have what they called a mourner's bench. I am not advocating a return to that method, but they had two things that most evangelicals today have lost. One, they believed that only the Holy Ghost could tell you when you got saved. Granted, they didn't give you very good directions on how to "pray through" as they called it, but they did tell you to keep praying "until you got through" and knew that God had heard you. They believed that when you got through, God would let you know. They were right in believing that only the Holy Ghost could tell you that you were really converted. The other thing they were right about was this: If you got through and got converted, but it didn't make you a holy person, you had better come back next week because you didn't get the real thing. They were dead right in those two things, weren't they?

Paul says, "I didn't confer with flesh and blood." Nobody had to badger him into assurance. But Paul is not only speaking of the time of his conversion, but he is aiming his argument at the Judaizers. "I did not confer with flesh and blood" also includes after he was converted. Paul did not go to any human authority in forming his belief and understanding of the gospel, nor did he consult or get approval of human authority to preach. There was no human authority involved in Paul's message or ministry. He did not confer with any man or group of men. I don't know how it is possible to reconcile what Paul says here, with the idea preached in so many Baptist churches, especially Reformed Baptist Churches, that Paul was commissioned and sent out under the authority of a local church. If Paul was commissioned by a local church, then he is guilty of the very thing the Judaizers have accused him of, and his whole argument is a lie. If the Reformed Baptist view of local church authority is correct then Paul could never have said, "I wasn't commissioned by anybody except Christ! I wasn't taught my gospel by any human being. I was taught directly by Christ! I didn't confer with flesh and blood or any human or church authority! I owe what I believe and my authority for preaching it to one person, Jesus Christ the Lord." Paul's whole argument is an outright lie if he was under any human or church authority.

There are three alibis that Paul uses to prove this. An alibi can be a good thing or a bad thing, and in this case, they are good things. Paul uses three facts to prove that he did not confer with flesh and blood, including the other Apostles. First of all, in verse 17, he says he went into Arabia.

Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me, but I went into Arabia.

Paul stayed in Arabia three years. Bishop Lightfoot says that these three years are the darkest, thickest cloud over Paul's whole life. This is the only reference to that period of time. All we know is that Paul spent three years in Arabia. Someone has said that these three years were the "make up time" that made up for the three years the other Apostles walked with Christ. During those three years, Paul was alone with nothing but the Old Testament Scriptures and the Holy Ghost of God, and the Son of God. He went there a bigoted Jew and he came back with Galatians, Romans, and Ephesians in his heart. You can almost hear Paul saying, "Don't tell me that somebody psyched me out because you can't explain my conversion. What I know, what I believe, and what I preach has no other basis than a personal encounter with the risen Lord Himself."

Paul's second alibi is in verses 18 through 20:

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.

The word "to see" Peter is really the word for "sight see." Paul admits he saw Peter, but he makes light of it, as if it was nothing. It was merely a quick visit. It wasn't that Peter, or the Apostles as a group, had officially called him up to Jerusalem. He went over to visit Peter and they had a time of fellowship together. Paul was only there for fifteen days, and the only people he saw were Peter and James. He didn't see any of the rest of the Apostles. Someone suggested that maybe they were still afraid of him. Paul's main point is that this trip, three years after his conversion, was only a pleasure trip and not a meeting for him to be examined and authorized. This was his first contact with any of the Apostles and he had already been preaching the gospel and planting churches for three years. He had already been authenticated as an Apostle by signs and gifts.

His third alibi is in verses 21 and 22:

Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Sicily and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but they had heard only that he, which persecuted us in times past, now preached the faith, which once he destroyed and they glorified God in me.

All this time, Paul had no contact with the Apostles. They did not teach or train him in the ministry. John Stott has a good summary of this section:

What Paul has been saying in verses 13 to 24 may be summarized thus: The fanaticism of his pre-conversion career, the divine initiative in his conversion, and his almost total isolation from the Jerusalem Church leaders afterwards together combined to demonstrate that his message was not from man but from God. Further, this historical, circumstantial evidence could not be gainsaid. The Apostle is able to confirm and guarantee it by a solemn affirmation: "`In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!" (verse 20).

We return, in conclusion, to the assertion which these autobiographical details have been marshaled to establish. Verses 11 and 12: "For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ." Having considered Paul's lack of contact with the Jerusalem Apostles during the first fourteen years of his apostolate, can we accept the divine origin of his message? Many do not. (The Message of Galatians, p. 30)

Some of the things that men use to overthrow Paul's gospel is that Jesus and Paul preached two different gospels. They pit Paul against Christ. In fact, Paul is credited with ruining the gospel and ruining the Christian faith. Ah! If he could have only known Jesus! If he could have only walked with Jesus, Paul would have never been the man that he was. But they tell us, "You see, he was a Pharisee." This was his whole background. And he brought this over into Christianity and corrupted the simplicity of the teachings of Jesus. That's very common and very widely held. But you see, how can Paul have misrepresented Christ if Christ is the one who personally taught him? How can Paul misrepresent Christ if Paul is saying, "What I believe, I received directly from Him. He is my Lord. I am His Apostle. I am saying exactly what He taught me." This then, is our dilemma. Are we to accept Paul's account of the origin of his message, supported as it is by solid historical evidence; or shall we prefer our own theory, although without the support of historical evidence? If Paul is right in asserting that his gospel is not man's, but God's, then to reject Paul is to reject God. That's the truth. You reject Paul's belief and doctrine of the gospel, and you'll reject the only hope of heaven. You'll reject the only way of salvation. To reject the truth that "I need only believe in Jesus Christ" and "all my salvation is in Him and what He's done," is to turn away to everlasting damnation. You can't undermine the authority of the Apostle without subverting the very gospel of the grace of God.

Copyright 2004 John G. Reisinger