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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Galatians 1:16
Comments
God revealed his Son in Paul not merely to him. Paul knew that this was a revelation not just to his five senses, for the certainty with which Christ is revealed to us at the new birth is greater than anything that results from an empirical enquiry. This knowledge was not filtered through his senses but came with all the authority of God’s revelation to his soul. Christ was revealed in Paul’s heart as the Spirit of God revealed Christ directly to Paul’s spirit. He knew that Jesus was the Christ as surely as he knew that he Paul existed. In his case this was not only a revelation of Christ in the heart, but it was a visible and audible appearance, because, as an apostle, he had to be a witness to the resurrection just as the other apostles had done. He was as one born out of due time. ‘That I might preach him among the heathen’, the Gentiles. When did Paul receive this commission? At his conversion (Acts 26:15-18). At this time Christ told him that he would be sent to the Gentiles that they might be turned from darkness to light. The revelation of Jesus Christ to him was at the same time his commission to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Ananias also told him the same thing (Acts 22:14-15), being reassured about the same point (Acts 9:15). Paul was an apostle from the moment of his conversion (1 Corinthians 15:3-9). He knew then that he had been commissioned by God for his future life’s work. It was not just that he had the desire to preach, but he was then sent to the Gentiles. If he had simply had the desire to preach then what would have been more natural than for him to preach to his own countrymen but Christ specifically sent him to the Gentiles (Acts 26:17), and this instruction was repeated again later (Acts 22:17-21).Knowing this to be God’s revelation to him, what need was there for him to talk over what he had heard with any other human being? How would any other man know what God had revealed to him? He had received his orders from God. Could any mere human, even another apostle, overrule or cast doubt on what God had said? If Paul had been in any doubt that it was God who spoke to him, then he might have wanted to confer, but he had none.
Application
To have Christ revealed in our hearts is to know that he is our God, that he was without sin, that he came to earth to give his life for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. It is to see his grace in such a way that we are never the same again, for the Spirit shows us our sinfulness and our need, and then leads us to the only one who can satisfy that need. We have looked into the face of Christ. We know that such a one exists and cannot be defeated because he has conquered death. He has given himself in an act of grace which overcomes all human meanness, and can melt the hardest of hearts.
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