Galatians 1:15-16 - Homiletics

After his conversion he took no counsel with men as to his doctrine or career.

The apostle is most emphatic in asserting his independence of man. Mark—

I. HIS HIGH DESTINATION FROM BIRTH . "Who separated me from my mother's womb." Here is an instance of prevenient grace. From his very birth, and therefore before he could have any impulses or ideas of his own, God destined him to apostleship, no matter how wayward or inconsistent may have been the career of his youth. Looking back now upon his full history, we can see the marks of that momentous "separation." We see the working of prevenient, formative, restraining, preparatory grace. We see it:

1 . In the splendid intellect with which he was endowed. God did verily prepare this large brain to be touched in his own time with heavenly fire.

2 . In his education. He was a pure Jew, not half Greek, half Jew, but thoroughly versed in all the traditions of the Jews, and so trained in rabbinical traditions that he could afterwards thoroughly understand and confront the Judaist spirit everywhere, while he was led through inward struggles and fightings out of the darkness of Judaism into the full light of the gospel.

3 . In his thoroughness of character. He could be nothing by halves; as a sinner, he was the very chief of sinners. Conversion made no change in his temperament and in the force of his character.

II. HIS CALL TO GRACE AND APOSTLESHIP . "And called me by his grace." In evident allusion to the scene on the way to Damascus. The call of the Redeemer was in the same moment a call to conversion and to apostleship ( Romans 1:5 ). That call was not on the ground of his Pharisaic strictness and fastings and prayers; much less on the ground of his mad violence as a persecutor. It had its origin wholly in grace, It was of grace, not of works,

III. THE REVELATION OF GOD 'S SON IN THE APOSTLE . "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me."

1 . Revelation is here opposed to the method of patient and prolonged study.

2 . The gospel is a revelation of the Son in his person, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. It reveals him to poor sinners as "Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption."

3 . It is a revelation in individual lives. "In me." God revealed his Son to Paul and in Paul as "the Hope of glory," showed him what is "the riches of the glory of this mystery." It was a wonderful thing that the apostle should have all his fixed ideas unhinged in a moment, all his deeply rooted prejudices destroyed, and the most comprehensive views of a singularly glorious system established in his soul, not by a process of gradual inquiry or slow conviction, but instantaneously by the revelation of the Son in him. It was this revelation which enabled him ever afterwards to hold forth the Son as the one transcendently glorious and loving Redeemer.

IV. THE DESIGN OF THIS REVELATION . "That I might preach him among the Gentiles."

1 . It was not for his own individual salvation , but that he might be able to make known to others what had been so graciously conveyed to himself.

2 . It was the Son who was to be preached to the Gentiles , not the Law, or circumcision, or holy days; not the righteousness of works, but "the righteousness of faith." This was the true scope of his apostleship.

V. THE MOVING CAUSE ALIKE OF CALL AND REVELATION — THE GOOD PLEASURE OF GOD . "It pleased God." We see in his career, first and last, the sole agency of God, and therefore there could be no dependence upon man or self for either call or apostleship.

VI. THE PROMPTNESS AND INDEPENDENT ACTION OF THE APOSTLE AFTER HIS CALL . "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." He took no counsel with mortal man; he did not take the usual methods of men in determining their conduct in critical eases; therefore there was no reason for the Judaists to affirm that, after he had received his revelation, it underwent modification at the hands of men. There are times for thoughtful and even prolonged consideration, but where God's will is perfectly clear there is no need to consult man. Our first duty to Christ is a prompt obedience .