CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 1:16. To reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him.—The revealing of His Son by me to the Gentiles was impossible, unless He had first revealed His Son in me; at first on my conversion, but especially at the subsequent revelation from Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:12), whereby I learnt the gospel’s independence of the Mosaic law.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 1:15-19
The Imperative Claims of a Divine Commission—
I. Are independent of personal merit.—“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace” (Galatians 1:15). From the beginning the apostle was divinely destined to fulfil his high vocation. His Hebrew birth and Hellenistic culture combined to prepare him for his future work. When he developed into a hot persecutor of the Christian faith he seemed far away from his life-mission. But a change took place, and it soon became apparent that, not on the ground of any merit of his own, but because it pleased God, the training from his birth was the best possible preparation for his lofty calling. We cannot see far into the future, or forecast the issue of our own plans or of those we form for others.
“There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we may.”
The divine element in our lives becomes more evident as we faithfully do the duty imposed on us. Joseph recognised this when he declared to his brethren, “It was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Genesis 45:8).
II. Are based on an unmistakably divine revelation.—“To reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen” (Galatians 1:16). The dazzling appearance of Christ before his eyes, and the summons of His voice addressed to Saul’s bodily ears, formed the special mode in which it pleased God to call him to the apostleship. But there was also the inward revelation of Christ to his heart by the Holy Ghost. It was this which wrought in him the great spiritual change, and inspired him to be a witness for Christ to the Gentiles. His Judaic prejudices were swept away, and he became the champion of a universal gospel. The same revelation that made Paul a Christian made him the apostle of mankind. The true preacher carries within his own spiritually renovated nature evidence and authority of his divine commission.
“This is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher,
There’s a background of God to each hard-working feature;
Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced
In a blast of a life which has struggled in earnest.”
III. Are superior to the functions of human counsel.—“I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me” (Galatians 1:16-17). The counsel of the wise and good is valuable, and ordinarily should be diligently sought and thoughtfully pondered. But when God calls, the commission is beyond either the advice or the opposition of men. Paul had reached a stage into which no human authority could lift him, and from which it could not dislodge him. He might legitimately confer with others as to methods of work, but his call to work was imposed upon him by a power to which all human counsellors and ecclesiastical magnates must submit. Channing once said: “The teacher to whom are committed the infinite realities of the spiritual world, the sanctions of eternity, the powers of the life to come, has instruments to work with which turn to feebleness all other means of influence.”
IV. Stimulate to active service.—“But I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus” (Galatians 1:17). Immediately after his conversion the history tells us, “Straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues” (Acts 9:20). In Arabia, a country of the Gentiles, he doubtless preached the gospel, as he did before and after at Damascus, and thus demonstrated the independence of his apostolic commission. A call to preach demands immediate response, and impels to earnest and faithful endeavour. It is said that Whitefield’s zealous spirit exhausted all its energies in preaching, and his full dedication to God was honoured by unbounded success. The effect produced by his sermons was indescribable, arising in a great degree from the most perfect forgetfulness of self during the solemn moment of declaring the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. His evident sincerity impressed every hearer, and is said to have forcibly struck Lord Chesterfield when he heard him at Lady Huntingdon’s. The preacher, as the ambassador for Christ, is eager to declare His message, and anxious it should be understood and obeyed.
V. Are recognised by the highest ecclesiastical authority.—“Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and … James the Lord’s brother” (Galatians 1:18-19). The claims of Paul to the apostleship, evidenced by such supernatural signs and such solid Christian work and patient suffering, were at length acknowledged by the chief leaders of the mother Church in Jerusalem. Good work advertises itself, and sooner or later compels recognition. What an eventful meeting of the first gospel pioneers, and how momentous the influence of such an interview and consultation! Though the call of God is unacknowledged, ridiculed, and opposed, its duties must be faithfully discharged. The day of ample reward will come.
Lessons.—
1. God only can make the true preacher.
2. A call to preach involves suffering and toil.
3. The fruit of diligent and faithful work will certainly appear.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Galatians 1:15-17. The Conversion and Vocation of St. Paul.
I. The causes of St. Paul’s conversion.—
1. The good pleasure of God.
2. His separation from the womb, which is an act of God’s counsel whereby He sets men apart to be members of Christ and to be His servants in this or that office.
3. His vocation by grace—the accomplishment of both the former in the time which God had appointed.
II. The manner of his vocation.—“To reveal His Son in me.”
1. By preparation. God humbled and subdued the pride and stubbornness of his heart and made him tractable and teachable.
2. By instruction.
(1) Propounding unto him the commandment of the gospel, to repent and believe in Christ.
(2) Offering to him the promise of remission of sins and life everlasting when he believed.
3. By a real and lively teaching when God made Paul in his heart answer the calling. Ministers of Christ must learn Christ as Paul learned Him.
III. The end of Paul’s conversion.—To preach Christ among the Gentiles.
1. Christ is the substance or subject-matter of the whole Bible.
2. To preach Christ is:
(1) To teach the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ, and His offices as King, Prophet, and Priest.
(2) That faith is an instrument to apprehend and apply Christ.
(3) To certify and reveal to every hearer that it is the will of God to save him by Christ if he will receive Him.
(4) That he is to apply Christ with His benefits to himself in particular.
3. To preach to the Gentiles:
(1) Because the prophecies of the calling of the Gentiles must be fulfilled.
(2) Because the division between the Jews and Gentiles is abolished.
IV. Paul’s obedience to the calling of God (Galatians 1:16-17).—
1. God’s word, preached or written, does not depend on the authority of any man—no, not on the authority of the apostles themselves.
2. There is no consultation or deliberation to be used at any time touching the holding or not holding of our religion.
3. Our obedience to God must be without consultation. We must first try what is the will of God, and then absolutely put it into execution, leaving the issue to God.
4. Paul goes into Arabia and Damascus, and becomes a teacher to his professed enemies.—Perkins.
Galatians 1:15-16. Conversion as illustrated by that of St. Paul.—In the case of St. Paul there are many circumstances not paralleled in the general experience of Christians; but in its essential features, in the views with which it was accompanied and the effects it produced, it was exactly the same as every one must experience before he can enter into the kingdom of God.
I. Its causes.—
1. Paul was chosen by God before his birth to be a vessel of honour. “It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb.” Are not all genuine Christians addressed as “elect of God” or chosen of God, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ? Why should not the real Christian give scope to those emotions of gratitude which such reflections will inspire?
2. The more immediate cause was the call of divine grace. “And called me by His grace.” There is a general call in the gospel addressed to all men indiscriminately. There is, in every instance of real conversion, another and inward call, by which the Spirit applies the general truth of the gospel to the heart. By this interior call Christ apprehends, lays hold on the soul, stops it in its impenitent progress, and causes it to hear His voice.
II. The means by which conversion is effected.—“To reveal His Son in me.” The principal method which the Spirit adopts in subduing the heart of a sinner is a spiritual discovery of Christ. There is an outward revelation of Christ—in the Scriptures; and an internal, of which the understanding and the heart are the seat.
1. The Spirit reveals the greatness and dignity of Christ.
2. The transcendent beauty and glory of Christ.
3. The suitableness, fulness, and sufficiency of Christ to supply all our wants and relieve all our miseries.
III. The effect of conversion on St. Paul.—“Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” He set himself without hesitation or demur to discharge the duties of his heavenly vocation.
1. His compliance with the will of Christ was immediate.
2. Universal and impartial.
3. Constant and persevering.—Robert Hall.
Galatians 1:16. The Qualification of the True Minister—
I. Begins in an unmistakable revelation of Christ to his own soul.—“To reveal His Son in me.”
II. Urges him to declare the gospel to the most needy.—“That I might preach Him among the heathen.”
III. Raises him above the necessity of mere human authority.—“Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.”
Galatians 1:17. The Divine Call to the Apostleship.—
1. That extraordinary way whereby the Lord made known His mind to the penmen of Scripture was so infallible in itself and so evident to those to whom it came to be no delusion that they were above all doubt, and needed not to advise with the best of men in order to their confirmation about the reality of it.
2. The Lord maketh sometimes the first piece of public service as hazardous, uncouth, and unsuccessful as any wherein He employs them afterwards, that His ministers may be taught to depend more on God’s blessing than on human probabilities, and that they may give proof of their obedience. Thus it was with Moses (Exodus 2:10), and Jeremiah (Galatians 1:19).
3. The apostles were not fixed to any certain charge, as ordinary ministers are. Their charge was the whole world. They went from place to place as the necessities of people required, or as God by His providence and Spirit directed.—Fergusson.
Galatians 1:18. Retirement a Preparation for Work.—“I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.”
1. Affording opportunity for thought and self-testing.
2. Gives leisure for study and forming plans for future service.
3. Is often the prelude of a busy and prosperous career.
Galatians 1:18-19. The Divine Call acknowledged.—
1. That nothing of Peter’s supposed supremacy over Paul and the rest of the apostles can be gathered from this place appears from this, that Paul went first to his work before he came to Peter, and that his business with Peter was not to receive ordination from him or to evidence his subjection to him, but from respect and reverence to give him a friendly visit.
2. It ought to be the endeavour of Christ’s ministers to entertain love and familiarity one with another, as also to make their doing so evident to others, it being most unseemly for those who preach the gospel of peace to others to live in discord among themselves.
3. As ministers may and ought to meet sometimes together, to evidence and entertain mutual love and concord, and because of that mutual inspection which they ought to have one of another, so their meetings ought neither to be so frequent nor of so long continuance as that their flocks suffer prejudice.—Fergusson.