Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Born Free!
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” So wrote Emerson, and many a thinker agrees with him.
The English art critic John Ruskin said, “I fear uniformity. You cannot manufacture great men any more than you can manufacture gold.”
The German philosopher Schopenhauer wrote, “We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.”
Francis Asbury, first bishop of the Methodist Church in the United States, once prayed at a deacon ordination, “O Lord, grant that these brethren may never want to be like other people.”
Of course, there is a wrong kind of individualism that destroys instead of fulfills; but in a society accustomed to interchanging parts, it is good to meet a man like Paul, who dared to be himself in the will of God. But his freedom in Christ was a threat to those who found safety in conformity.
Paul’s enemies pointed to his nonconformity as proof that his message and ministry were not really of God. “He claims to be an apostle,” they argued, “but he does not stand in the apostolic tradition.” It is this misrepresentation that Paul answered in this section of Galatians. His nonconformity was divinely deliberate. God had chosen to reveal Himself in a different way to Paul.
In Galatians 1:11–12, Paul stated his theme: His message and ministry were of divine origin. He did not invent the gospel, nor did he receive it from men; but he received the gospel from Jesus Christ. Both his message and his apostolic ministry were divinely given. Therefore, anybody who added anything to Paul’s gospel was in danger of divine judgment, because that gospel was given by Jesus Christ from heaven (1 Cor. 15:1–11).
The best way for Paul to prove his point was to reach into his past and remind the Galatian Christians of the way God had dealt with him. Paul stated that his past life was already known to his readers (Gal. 1:13), but it was obvious that they did not fully understand what those experiences meant. So, Paul flashed on the screen three pictures from his past as evidence that his apostleship and his gospel were truly of God.
1. THE PERSECUTOR (1:13–14)
Paul began with his past conduct as an unconverted Jewish rabbi. (For a vivid account of these years from Paul’s own lips, read Acts 22 and 26, as well as Acts 9.) In this historical flashback, Paul pointed out his relationship to the church (Gal. 1:13) and to the religion of the Jews (v. 14). He was persecuting the church and profiting and progressing in the Jewish religion. Everything was going his way, and he was rapidly being recognized as a spiritual leader in Israel.
It is interesting to note the words that are used to describe Paul’s activities when he was “Saul of Tarsus” persecuting the church. He “consented” to the murder of Stephen (see Acts 8:1), and then proceeded to “make havoc of the church” (see v. 3) by breaking up families and putting believers in prison. The very atmosphere that he breathed was “threatening and slaughter” (9:1). So bent on destroying the church was Paul that he voted to kill the believers (22:4–5; 26:9–11). He mentioned these facts in his letters (1 Cor. 15:9; Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim. 1:13), marveling that God could save such a sinner as he.
Paul actually thought that Jesus was an impostor and His message of salvation a lie. He was sure that God had spoken through Moses, but how could he be sure that God had spoken through Jesus of Nazareth? Steeped in Jewish tradition, young Saul of Tarsus championed his faith. His reputation as a zealous persecutor of “the sect of the Nazarenes” became known far and wide (see Acts 9:13–14). Everybody knew that this brilliant student of Rabbi Gamaliel (22:3) was well on his way to becoming an influential leader of the Jewish faith. His personal religious life, his scholarship (26:24), and his zeal in opposing alien religious faiths all combined to make him the most respected young rabbi of his day.
Then something happened: Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the church, became Paul the apostle, the preacher of the gospel. This change was not gradual; it happened suddenly and without warning (Acts 9:1–9). Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians; a few days later he was in Damascus preaching to the Jews that the Christians were right. How could the Judaizers explain this sudden transformation?
Was Saul’s remarkable “about-face” caused by his own people, the Jews? Unthinkable! The Jews were encouraging Saul in his program of persecution, and his conversion was an embarrassment to them.
Was Saul’s change caused by the Christians he was persecuting? Certainly the believers prayed for him, and no doubt the death of Stephen—and especially the glorious testimony he had given—affected Paul deeply (Acts 22:19–20). But the Christians ran from Paul (8:1, 4; 9:10–16), and as far as we know, they had no idea that the young rabbi would ever become a Christian.
But if the amazing change in Paul was not caused by the Jews or the church, then who caused it? It had to have come from God!
No matter how you look at it, the conversion of Paul was a spiritual miracle. It was humanly impossible for Rabbi Saul to become the apostle Paul apart from the miracle of God’s grace. And the same God who saved Paul also called him to be an apostle and gave him the message of the gospel. For the Judaizers to deny Paul’s apostleship and gospel was the same as denying his conversion! Certainly Paul was preaching the same message that he himself had believed—the truth that had changed him. But no mere human message could effect such a change. Paul’s argument was conclusive: His past conduct as a persecutor of the church plus the dramatic change that he experienced proved that his message and ministry were from God.
2. THE BELIEVER (1:15–16B, 24)
Having discussed his past character and conduct, Paul went on to explain his conversion, for after all, this was the crucial thing in his life. “What I preach to others, I have experienced myself,” he was saying to his accusers. “This is the true gospel. Any other gospel is counterfeit.” In these verses Paul explained the characteristics of his conversion experience.
God did it (vv. 15a, 16a). “It pleased God … to reveal his Son in me.” Whenever Paul spoke or wrote about his conversion, it was always with emphasis on the fact that God did the work. “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9).
God did it by grace (v. 15b). Paul’s experience reminds us of young Jeremiah (Jer. 1:4–10) and also of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5–17). Salvation is by God’s grace, not man’s efforts or character. Grace and called (Gal. 1:15b) go together, for whomever God chooses in His grace He calls through His Word (1 Thess. 1:4–5). The mysteries of God’s sovereign will and man’s responsibility to obey are not fully revealed to us. We do know that God is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9), and that those who do trust Christ discover they have been “chosen … in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).
God did it through Christ (v. 16a). In another letter Paul makes it clear that he had plenty to boast about when he was an unconverted man (Phil. 3). He had religion and self-righteousness, as well as reputation and recognition; but he did not have Christ! When, on the Damascus Road, Paul saw his own self-righteous rags contrasted to the righteousness of Christ, he realized what he was missing. “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ” (Phil. 3:7).
God revealed Christ to Paul, in Paul, and through Paul. The “Jews’ religion” (Gal. 1:14) had been an experience of outward rituals and practices, but faith in Christ brought about an inward experience of reality with the Lord. This “inwardness” of Christ was a major truth with Paul (2:20; 4:19).
God did it for the sake of others (v. 16b). God chose Paul, not only to save him but also to use him to win others. In the Bible, the doctrine of election is never taught with a view to producing pride or selfishness. Election involves responsibility. God chose Paul to preach among the Gentiles the same grace that he had experienced. This, in itself, was evidence that Paul’s conversion was of God, for certainly a prejudiced Jewish rabbi would never decide of himself to minister to the despised Gentiles! (See Acts 9:15; 15:12; 22:21–22; Eph. 3:1, 8.)
God did it for His glory (v. 24). As a fanatical rabbi, Paul had all the glory a man could want, but what he was doing did not glorify God. Man was created to glorify God (Isa. 43:7), and man is saved to glorify God (1 Cor. 6:19–20). Bringing glory to God was ever a compelling motive in Paul’s life and ministry (Rom. 11:36; 16:27; 1 Cor. 10:31; Eph. 1:6; 3:20–21; Phil. 4:20). The Judaizers were interested in their own glory (Gal. 6:11–18). That is why they were stealing Paul’s converts and leading them astray. If Paul had been interested in glorifying himself, he could have remained a Jewish rabbi and perhaps become Gamaliel’s successor. But it was the glory of God that motivated Paul, and this ought to motivate our lives as well.
When Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a young preacher, his father, the Rev. John Spurgeon, suggested that Charles go to college to gain prominence. It was arranged for him to meet Dr. Joseph Angus, the principal of Stepney College, London. They were to meet at Mr. Macmillan’s home in Cambridge, and Spurgeon was there at the appointed hour. He waited for two hours, but the learned doctor never appeared. When Spurgeon finally inquired about the man, he discovered that Dr. Angus had been waiting in another room and because of another appointment, had already departed. Disappointed, Spurgeon left for a preaching engagement. While he was walking along, he heard a voice clearly say to him, “Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not!” (see Jer. 45:5). From that moment, Spurgeon determined to do the will of God for the glory of God, and God blessed him in an exceptional way.
Paul has pictured himself as a persecutor and has reviewed his character and conduct. He has also pictured himself as a believer, reviewing his conversion. He now presents a third picture.
3. THE PREACHER (1:16C–23)
What were Paul’s contacts with other believers after he was converted? This is a question vital to his defense. Paul had no personal contacts with the apostles right after his conversion experience on the Damascus Road. “Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood” (Gal. 1:16c). The logical thing for Paul to have done after his conversion was to introduce himself to the church at Jerusalem and profit from the spiritual instruction of those who had been “in Christ” before him. But this he did not do—and his decision was led of the Lord. For if he had gone to Jerusalem, his ministry might have been identified with that of the apostles—all Jews—and this could have been a hindrance to his work among the Gentiles.
At this point we need to remind ourselves that the message of the gospel came “to the Jew first” (Acts 3:26; Rom. 1:16). Our Lord’s ministry was to the nation of Israel, and so was the ministry of the apostles for the first few years (see Acts 1—7). The death of Stephen was a turning point. As the believers were scattered, they took the good news with them to other places (Acts 8:4; 11:19ff.). Philip took the message to the Samaritans (Acts 8), and then God directed Peter to introduce it to the Gentiles (Acts 10). However, it remained for Paul to carry the gospel to the Gentile masses (Acts 22:21–22; Eph. 3:1, 8), and for this reason God kept him separated from the predominantly Jewish ministry being conducted by the apostles in Jerusalem.
Paul did not immediately go to Jerusalem. Where did he go? He reviewed his contacts and showed that there was no opportunity for him to receive either his message or his apostolic calling from any of the leaders of the church. (Compare this section with Acts 9:10–31, and keep in mind that even the best biblical scholars are not agreed on the chronology of Paul’s life. Fortunately, the details of history do not affect the understanding of what Paul has written: We can disagree on chronology and yet agree on theology!)
He went to Arabia (v. 17b). This was after his initial ministry in Damascus (Acts 9:19–20). Instead of “conferring with flesh and blood,” Paul gave himself to study, prayer, and meditation, and met with the Lord alone. He may have spent the greater part of three years in Arabia (Gal. 1:17–18), and no doubt was involved in evangelism as well as personal spiritual growth. The apostles had received three years of teaching from the Lord Jesus, and now Paul was going to have his own opportunity to be taught of the Lord.
He went back to Damascus (v. 17c). It would have been logical to visit Jerusalem at this point, but the Lord directed otherwise. Certainly it was a risky thing for Paul to go back to the city that knew he had become a Christian. The Jewish leaders who had looked to him as their champion against Christianity would definitely be after his blood. Apparently the “basket incident” of Acts 9:23–25 (see 2 Cor. 11:32–33) took place at this time. The return to Damascus and the danger it brought to Paul’s life are further proof that the Jewish leaders considered Paul an enemy, and therefore that his experience with Christ was a valid one.
He finally visited Jerusalem (vv. 18–20). This was three years after his conversion, and his main purpose was to visit Peter. But Paul had a tough time getting into the church fellowship (Acts 9:26–28)! If his message and ministry had been from the apostles, this would never have happened; but because Paul’s experience had been with the Lord Jesus alone, the apostles were suspicious of him. He stayed in Jerusalem only fifteen days, and he saw only Peter and James (the Lord’s brother). Thus he received neither his message nor his apostleship from the Jerusalem church. There simply was not the time nor the opportunity. He had already received them both directly from Christ.
He returned home to Tarsus (vv. 21–23). Again, the record in Acts explains why: His life was in danger in Jerusalem, just as it had been in Damascus (Acts 9:28–30). As Paul went through Syria, he preached the Word, and when he arrived in Cilicia, his home province (21:39; 22:3), he began to evangelize (see Acts 15:23). Historians have concluded that he remained there perhaps seven years, until Barnabas recruited him for the work in Antioch (11:19–26). A few believers in Jerusalem knew Paul, but the believers in the churches of Judea did not know him, though they heard that he was now preaching the very faith he had once tried to destroy.
In the light of Paul’s conduct, his conversion, and his contacts, how could anybody accuse him of borrowing or inventing either his message or his ministry? Certainly he did receive his gospel by a revelation from Jesus Christ. Therefore, we must be careful what we do with this gospel, for it is not the invention of men, but the very truth of God.
Some critical scholars have accused Paul of “corrupting the simple gospel,” but the evidence is against this accusation. The same Christ who taught on earth also taught through Paul from heaven. Paul did not invent his teaching; he “received” it (Rom. 1:5; 1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3). At the time of Paul’s conversion, God said He would appear to him in the future (Acts 26:16), apparently for the purpose of revealing His truths to him. This means that the Christ of the four gospels and the Christ of the epistles is the same Person; there is no conflict between Christ and Paul. When Paul wrote his letters to the churches, he put his own teaching on the same level with that of Jesus Christ (2 Thess. 3:3–15). The apostle Peter even called Paul’s letters “scripture” (2 Peter 3:15–16).
Modern-day “Judaizers,” like their ancient counterparts, reject the authority of Paul and try to undermine the gospel that he preached. In Paul’s day, their message was “the gospel plus Moses.” In our day it is “the gospel plus” any number of religious leaders, religious books, or religious organizations. “You cannot be saved unless …” is their message (Acts 15:1), and that “unless” usually includes joining their group and obeying their rules. If you dare to mention the gospel of grace as preached by Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles, they reply, “But God has given us a new revelation!”
Paul has the answer for them: “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). When a sinner trusts Christ and is born again (John 3:1–18), he is “born free.” He has been redeemed—purchased by Christ and set free. He is no longer in bondage to sin or Satan, nor should he be in bondage to human religious systems (Gal. 4:1–11; 5:1). “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION OR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. In what ways do you think Christians today value conformity? In what ways do they value nonconformity?
2. Why do you think Paul felt it was necessary to share his conversion experience in this letter?
3. The author says, “Election involves responsibility.” Why did God elect to save Paul?
4. Paul’s experience of conversion was by grace through and through. In your own process of coming to faith in Christ, where was (and is) grace at work?
5. Paul says he received his gospel not from the apostles who had known Jesus during His earthly ministry, but directly by revelation from Christ. What reasons does he give the Galatians to believe something so extraordinary?
6. Is Paul saying that in general it’s bad to consult other people when we hear something from God? Explain.
7. Why does it matter to us that the gospel is not of human origin (1:11)?
8. If someone came to you with what he or she said was further revelation that is from God, not man, how would you determine the truth or falsity of that person’s claim?