‘For you have heard of the way I lived in the past in the Jewish religion, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure, and made havoc of it. And I advanced in the Jews' religion beyond many of my own age in my race, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.'
For as a dedicated and well trained Pharisee (Philippians 3:6) he had given his approval to the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1) and had been so inflamed against Christians and against their teaching that he had gone to the authorities and had been given authority, and armed support, to enable him to persecute them, entering their houses and hauling them off to prison (Acts 8:3). He had been convinced that their message was blasphemous. Indeed he had been so successful that nothing further had needed to be done there, for the people of ‘the Way' went into hiding or left Jerusalem, so that he then sought permission to do the same in Damascus as he had in Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-2). What then could convince such a man that he was wrong? The answer is that it was because he came face to face with the One Whom he was denying, the One Who was the Truth, risen and alive, and it happened in such a way that he could no longer deny Him.
‘The Jew's religion.' This was the very source of the ‘new' ideas that were being pressed on the Galatians. He points out that he knew all about it, for it was what he had previously stood for and had believed in. It was something on which he was an authority, and for which he had once felt very strongly. But he had turned from it because of his vivid revelation from God. And he now recognised its emptiness.