An Unplanned Revelation (No Other Gospel #5)

If Donald Trump came out and posted on Twitter that God had given him a vision saying that we needed to build a wall on the border, probably few people would take him seriously. But if Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi said they had received such a vision and began championing such a wall, you would have to take it seriously. Even if you didn't believe they had gotten a vision from God, you would have to say SOMETHING had happened. It wouldn't be the kind of thing they would makeup and there would have to be SOME cause for such a major change in attitude and position. We should keep this idea in our mind as we read this passage.

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 my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. 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; 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. (Galatians 1:13-17)

Paul begins by stating what the Galatians already knew, what they had heard--most likely from Paul himself--regarding his life before he became a Christian. He refers to his “conversation” or manner of life during the time when he still embraced Pharisaic Judaism. Paul says three things about his life at that time. (1) He persecuted the church of God and wasted it. The word “wasted” is the word used to refer to an army plundering and destroying an enemy city, leaving it in ruins. That is what Paul did or at least tried to do to the Christan church. He says he did that “Beyond measure.” The Greek word here literally means “to throw beyond” and has the idea of going beyond, going to an extreme. It is the source of our English word hyperbole which means an exaggeration, an idea carried to an extreme, beyond the bounds of reality. And Paul's persecution had been exaggerated, carried to the extreme. You'll meet lots of people in the world who will criticize Christianity and say bad things about Christians, but it's not something that particularly matters to them and they mostly ignore it. Paul wasn't one of those people. He was actively and to an extreme degree involved in trying to stamp it out. If Paul had succeeded, there would have been no Christian church. Acts 26:9-11 describe his actions: “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.” (2) He “profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation." That word “profited” is misleading, at least in Modern English. The idea is that he advanced or made progress in Judaism, excelling many of his contemporaries. His commitment to Judaism was not a casual, nominal thing. He was thoroughly dedicated to pursuing the course of Jewish thought; pressing forward as if in a race with his fellow Jews to be the best at his religion. (3) He was “more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.” He was dedicated and filled with zeal for the Jewish (and probably specifically the Pharisaic) tradition which had been passed on to him and which he was determined to pursue.

This puts in very clear terms what kind of man Paul was in his youth, something which the Galatians knew very well and which even his opponents could not deny. He had been thoroughly and completely sold out for Pharisaic Judaism and was determined to completely stamp out and obliterate the threat to it which he saw in the Christian gospel. He wasn't a man like Nicodemus, who though a Jewish leader was interested in Jesus and talked to him and tried to find out who he was and whether he was truly of God. Paul was a staunch enemy of Jesus.

And yet... yet there was more to Paul than that, more to his life than that. He may have had no interest in Jesus but Jesus had an interest in him. God had a plan for Paul--a plan very different from the plan Paul had forged for himself. From before his birth, God had chosen Paul for a special task. God called Paul even before Paul was able to hear. This call did not come as a reward for Paul's virtue, because it came when he was still an infant unborn, unable to do anything. Rather it was a call of grace. But it wasn't just a call. It was an encounter, an encounter in which Jesus was revealed to Paul. In 1 Corinthians 15: Paul is recording the resurrection appearances of Christ to the apostles, and then includes himself: “And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”

On the road to Damascus, Paul had a meeting with Jesus, who seems to have appeared to him in a physical form. Just like the other apostles, Paul saw Jesus. But this was not just Paul's conversion but his calling. When Paul was testifying before Agrippa, he explained what Jesus said to him at that meeting: “But 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; 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 26:16-18)

This isn't Paul's main point, but we need to stop and think about this for just a minute. Paul was a man steeped in Pharisaic Judaism; a man who consciously and consistently sought to stamp out Christianity, being involved in the imprisonment and death of Christians. I've sometimes tried to wonder about the feelings of the Christians at Damascus when they heard Paul was coming. Obviously, they would have felt apprehension and fear. Were they praying? Perhaps praying that God would prevent Paul from reaching the city? Perhaps praying that something would force him to turn back? Praying that somehow the church there could be protected from him.

And then, like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky, Jesus met with Saul and turned him into an apostle. The church's worst enemy became in a matter of seconds its best friend. God had a plan for Paul, long before Paul began his career of persecution and through it all God was leading him to that point. Albert Barnes says that this should remind us never to despair when we see people turning away from God and seemingly wasting their life. God has a plan and He has the power to turn around the life of the chief of sinners. For the Christians at Damascus, the coming of Paul might have seemed like the end of the church--but in reality, it was the beginning of a new phase of the church as well as a new phase for Paul.

Of course, there is one qualifier we must make. God had called Paul from before his birth. There are several people in the Bible who are described as having been called from before their birth. For instance, Samson was called before his birth to be a Nazarite and a deliverer of Israel. But we also remember what happened to Samson. He treated his sacred calling with contempt and foolishly sacrificed it and ended up losing his call. True, he was given a second chance, but the point to notice is that he lost out on the call of God by the way he treated that call. Assumably the same could have happened to Paul.

Levin W. Kenworthy tells of having his own Damascus Road Experience--while on the way to Damascus, Oregon. He was driving up the road in the early morning until suddenly as he reached the crest of a hill, he was blinded by a brilliant light shining in his eyes. It was the sun just rising above the hills. He explains that he pulled down the visor of his car and drove on--and as he did, he began to think and wondered how often it is that when we are confronted by the light of God's truth, we just pull down the visors of our heart and drive on.  Assumably, Saul could have done this--he did have just ignored this message from God and continued in the way he had chosen. When God shone the light in his eyes, he could have just closed his eyes. But that wasn't Paul's response. Instead, his response was Acts 26:19. "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."

Remember what the word apostle means--it means one who is sent; one sent on a mission. In a sense, Paul went to Damascus as an apostle; one sent by the Jewish leaders on a mission of persecution. But on the road, Jesus met him and sent him on as an apostle in a greater sense--one sent by Jesus to witness to his resurrection and lead the church.

So let's take a moment to get the order of events right. Jesus calls Paul on the Damascus Road and Paul is blinded. Paul is taken by his companions into Damascus where he remained praying for three days and nights, after which time a Christian named Ananias came and prayed and he received his sight.  (Technically, the case can be made that Paul became a Christian at this point rather than on the Damascus Road, but God's work can't always be pinned down to exact moments.) He was baptized, probably by Ananias and was in Damascus for several days, during which time he preached the gospel in the synagogues (seemingly only to the Jews at this time). His time at Damascus terminated by a concerted effort by the Jews and the governor of Damascus to arrest Paul which he avoided by becoming a temporary basket case. He left Damascus for Jerusalem. According to verse 18, his trip to Jerusalem comes three years after his conversion. At some point during that time, he traveled to Arabia. We don't know where in Arabia he went, how long he was there, or what he did there. Many think he spent his time in prayer and study, preparing for his ministry. Others say that he went there to preach. Knowing Paul, it may have been a little of both. However, the point to grasp here is verse 16: “I conferred not with flesh and blood.” That's why the sequence of events is important. Paul started preaching immediately after his conversion. He didn't go to Jerusalem and talk to the other apostles. He had been ministering for three years in both Damascus and Arabia before he ever spoke to the apostles, before he had any converse with Christians besides those with whom he ministered. The Judaizers in Galatians were claiming that Paul wasn't a real apostle, that he had only learned the gospel second-hand from the true apostles and no doubt implied that he had corrupted or changed the gospel. But Paul makes it clear that he had gotten his gospel, not from other people, but directly from Jesus--just like all the other apostles.

The point is that Paul had been given a revelation by Christ, a revelation of the gospel. He had been given a call, the call to be an apostle. Far from getting it from other people, he didn't even talk to the other apostles for years. That isn't the way God usually works. Paul himself later will emphasize the importance of teaching and learning. Usually, a new convert doesn't immediately take up such a role in the church. Paul warns against giving a new convert a position of authority immediately. But Paul was a special case. He had a direct revelation from Christ in a way no one else really has had before or after.

Paul's point here is that the gospel he preached was not his own nor was it simply passed on to him by the other apostles. He was an enemy of the church and a diehard Jew, and so he was the last person who would have come up with the gospel on his own. And he preached the gospel long before he ever met the other apostles. His gospel, therefore, was not of man but of God.

G. K. Chesterton, speaking of the Christian theology said, “I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it... [I]t made me.” (Orthodoxy, Chapter 1) That was Paul's case. There would have been a gospel without Paul; but there would have been no Paul without the gospel.