The Divine Character of the Gospel, Part 3

Galatians 1:11-24

February 15, 2004

 

            The main point that Paul is trying to make in these 14 verses is that the gospel that he preaches is a divine gospel. It is not a human gospel. It was not taught to him by man. He did not receive it through the traditions of the Jews. He received it by revelation. The Apostle tells us this very thing in verse 12, where he writes, For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. That statement is the point Paul is making from verse 11 all the way through verse 24.

            Paul’s entire purpose is to show that his gospel is a divine message. He does not preach a human message. It is not a message that men may choose either to accept or ignore as they will. If they do not accept the gospel message preached by Paul, they perish. If they receive it, they receive eternal life.

            The Galatians, however, had their confidence shaken by false teachers who brought in a false gospel. Questions were rising in their minds as to whether or not Paul had preached to them the one, true gospel. Did they need to be circumcised to be saved? Did they need to follow the Law to be children of God? These were very real, very troubling questions the Galatians were wrestling with, and they were what prompted Paul to write this letter.

            When Paul came to the Galatians he preached Christ crucified. He preached faith alone for salvation apart from works. How could the Galatians be sure that this message was the only true gospel? In this section Paul is anxious to convince these Galatians that the gospel he preached is the true gospel, and all other gospels are false gospels. In fact, in these 14 verses Paul lays down 7 proofs of the divine character of the gospel. He gives 7 evidences that the gospel is the message of God for salvation to all who believe.

            Last week we looked at the first proof. In verses 13 and 14 Paul set about to prove the divine character of the gospel by showing that his former manner of life was inconsistent with conversion. Paul was not the kind of person who would have become a Christian if the gospel was merely a human message. There were two reasons that Paul was the most unlikely candidate for Christianity during his time. One was that he was a violent persecutor of the church. He wanted to destroy the church and obliterate it from the face of the earth. The second reason that a human message could not have changed Paul’s course is because of his progress in Judaism. Saul of Tarsus was a young Pharisee who was advancing beyond many of his peers. He had incredible zeal for the traditions of the fathers. He had a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. He was ignorant of the truth of the gospel message. He probably knew the facts of the gospel, but he utterly rejected Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. It was this sinful, wicked manner of life that Paul lived before his conversion that made it inconceivable that he should become a Christian if the gospel he preached was of human origin. Only a divine revelation and divine power could change Saul of Tarsus into Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. The first proof, then, that Paul puts forward to us for consideration is his former manner of life, and its inconsistency with conversion.

 

#2 – Paul’s divine calling (vv. 15-16a)

 

            Let’s look, now, at the second proof. It is found in verses 15 and 16. Paul writes, But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me. Now, I want to stop there. We’ll go on, but for now, let’s stop there. The second proof is found in that statement. That statement is packed full of truths, and let’s linger on it for a few minutes this morning. The second proof is this: The divine character of the gospel is shown in Paul’s divine calling. Paul’s divine calling. By divine calling I mean that Paul was elected and chosen and called by God, and that call was effectual to bring him to salvation. It is God’s work of redemption in this apostle’s life. His divine calling.

            There are two questions I want to ask about this divine calling this morning. The first question is about the ‘divine’ aspect of this calling. What role did God play in Paul’s conversion? Was God an onlooker who took action once Saul of Tarsus made a step of faith? Or was God proactive in bringing this rebellious Pharisee to Himself? What was the role of God in this calling? When we call it divine, in what sense was it divine? Second question: How did God convert Paul? This is about the ‘calling’ aspect. How did this calling work to convert Saul of Tarsus? So, let’s take these two questions and see if we can answer them from our text this morning. We’ll start with the divine part. What role did God play in Paul’s conversion? We see from this text that God did two things in Paul’s conversion.

            The first thing that God did in Paul’s conversion was that he set [him] apart even from [his] mother’s womb. What does Paul mean by this? The word translated set apart has the idea of devoting something to a specific purpose. It is to select or choose someone or something for a specific task. This idea permeates Scripture.

            It was used in Jeremiah 1:5. Here we find a passage that is almost identical to Galatians 1:15. God says to Jeremiah, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. When God called Jeremiah into service, it is almost identical to the testimony that Paul gives of himself in this text. Before Jeremiah was formed in the womb, God knew him. Let me just pause here to point out that this is what the Bible means when it talks about God’s foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge is not a foreknowledge of events when it is discussed in relationship to salvation. It is a foreknowledge of people. When God said through Paul in Romans 8:29, Those whom He foreknew, he did not mean, “Those whom He foreknew would choose Him.” He means what He says here in Jeremiah 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Jeremiah was a person that God foreknew. God established a relationship with Jeremiah, and with Paul, before they were ever born. Jeremiah was also consecrated, or set apart, before his birth, and he was set apart to be a prophet to the nations, just as Paul was chosen to be an apostle to the nations, or Gentiles.

            We also see this idea in Luke 1:15 when the angel Gabriel came and announced to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist. The angel said, “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. Before John the Baptist was ever born, God had chosen him and set him apart for service to be the forerunner of the Messiah. He actually was filled with the Spirit even before he was born!

            So, when Paul says that God set him apart even from his mother’s womb, what he means is that God had chosen him before he was born. Before Paul even came into existence, God had elected him and chosen him for a specific purpose and to a specific task. Before Paul had done anything good or bad, so to speak, God set his love on Paul and set him apart for himself.

            Paul goes on to tell us a second thing God did in this conversion. He called [him] through His grace. So, before Paul was born, God had selected him and set him apart for a specific task, and then once Paul had been born, God called him by grace. Notice, first, that this call was by grace. That means that it was undeserved. Paul did nothing to earn it. He did not merit it. It was not a call based on anything Paul had done or would do. It was completely of the sovereign grace of God.

            If God had set Paul apart and called him based on what Paul would do for God on his own, or based on Paul’s works, or based on any condition in Paul at all, it would not have been a calling through grace. It could not be by the grace of God that Paul was saved if it was based on anything in Paul. By grace means you do nothing to deserve it. You do nothing to merit it. It is completely a free gift of God to those whom He chooses based on His pleasure and on His wisdom, not based on us. If you say that God chooses Paul because of Paul’s great missionary capabilities, it is no longer on the basis of grace, because now Paul has done something to merit it. Now it is based on a condition in Paul that makes him worthy of this grace if God calls Paul because of anything in Paul. This calling by God’s grace means that Paul did not deserve it, and it was not because of anything in Paul that God called him. It was simply grace. If it was on the basis of anything in Paul, any works at all, then, as Paul says in Romans 11:6, grace is no longer grace. God called Paul through His grace, meaning it was the grace of God that allowed Paul to be called.

            This calling through God’s grace was also an effectual calling. It was not a calling in a general sense. It was a call like Jesus gave when He said, “Lazarus, come forth!” When Jesus called, Lazarus got up and lived! As Piper says, dead men live when Jesus calls. God called Paul, and that calling was not optional. It was not something that Paul could have refused, and I’ll show you this further in a few minutes. God’s calling to Paul was effectual for his conversion.

            Now, the question that may be running through your mind at this point is, “Does God work this way with everyone who is a Christian? Maybe this is just for prophets like Jeremiah and John the Baptist, and for apostles like Paul, but certainly not for everyone who believes.” Well, if you think this is only a prophetic or apostolic call, you’re wrong. This is a Christian call. We see that from Galatians 1:6, where Paul uses the same word, when he writes, I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ. Notice the parallels here. Paul was called through the grace of God. The Galatians were called by or in the grace of Christ. The Galatians who were truly saved, who truly believed, which Paul seemed to think were all the ones to whom he was writing, were called by the grace of Christ. I say that Paul assumed his readers were genuine believers because of what he says in 5:10: I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view. After all that Paul says to them throughout the letter he is confident that they will be of the same mind as him. So, these Christians in Galatia, foolish and weak as they were, were called in the grace of Christ. They were not called on the basis of works, which is Paul’s whole point in the letter, but by grace, meaning that God worked in them even though they did not do anything nor could do anything to deserve it.

            Now, if that doesn’t convince you, turn to Romans 8:29. We see the same type of language here about the Christians in Rome, indeed, all Christians everywhere. Paul writes, For those whom He foreknew. Now, as I said earlier, this means the same thing as Jeremiah 1:5: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. That is foreknowing. God knew people beforehand. These people whom God foreknew he also predestined. Now look at verse 30. These whom He predestined, He also called. Who are these people? Prophets? Apostles? No, keep reading. And these whom He called, He also justified. That means He declared them righteous. He made them righteous. He saved them. Everyone who is called is saved! It is an effectual call. The way God saved Paul, foreknowing him before he was born, calling him by grace effectually so that Paul would have life, is the same way God saves everyone. It is the way God saved the Galatians, and it is the way God saved you if you know Him. This is the role God plays in salvation. He foreknows, and He calls to life those who are spiritually dead. So, the divine aspect of this call is that God foreknows and He calls effectually by grace. God’s role in salvation is foreknowing and calling to justification effectually.

            Now, how does God accomplish this? That is the second question. How does God accomplish this work of salvation in sinners like Paul, or like the Galatians, or like you or me? God foreknows, and God calls, but how does it play out?

            Notice, first of all, that it is God’s good pleasure to save sinners. Paul says in Galatians 1:15, But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me. Notice that, God was pleased to reveal His Son in Paul. It brought God pleasure to save Paul. God is not indifferent to your salvation if He has foreknown you! This word translated pleased is the same Greek word used at Jesus’ baptism where the Father says that He is well-pleased with His Son. It means to be well-pleased, to receive pleasure. When God revealed Christ in Paul it pleased God to do so. It was not as if God was in heaven saving Paul and utterly apathetic about the whole event. God rejoiced to save this unworthy sinner. God rejoiced to see His grace poured out on the vilest offender and to see that sinner truly believe.

            In case you think I’m making too much out of this word, let me read you Zephaniah 3:17. God says, The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. What in the world is Zephaniah saying? He is saying that God will rejoice over His people with shouts of joy! Can you imagine what kind of shouts these must be coming from the Almighty God? Listen to Psalm 29:4-8: The voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord hews out flames of fire. The voice of the Lord sakes the wilderness. What kind of shout will the Lord make when He rejoices over His people? How glorious will it be? If His voice breaks in pieces cedars, what kind of shout of joy will God make over His elect? O, Christian, the Lord is not indifferent about your salvation. He is at work in you, and He rejoices over you. He exults over you with joy. Don’t think of God as a stoic without any emotions. God is filled with joy, and seeing His people brought to Him by grace is pleasing to Him. He rejoices over His people. He is well pleased to reveal His Son in them. How this ought to make you rejoice that the God of this universe rejoices over you if you are His child. He is pleased to save you. He is not indifferent to your plight. He is not apathetic about your salvation. He rejoices and is pleased to save those whom He has called by His grace.

            I think as Paul wrote the word translated was pleased he had to offer up praise to the Lord that God should be pleased to reveal Christ in him, the chief of sinners. When you read that word, don’t read it too quickly. God was pleased to reveal His Son in you if you are a Christian this morning. If you are not, seek Him while He may be found, and today, if you hear His voice, believe, and do not harden your hearts to the God who rejoices and exults over His people.

            We are still looking for an answer to the ‘how’ question. How did God accomplish what He was well-pleased to do? I think the answer is found in the words, to reveal His Son in me. This is how God saves those whom He foreknew. What does it mean? First, the word translated in in the NAS should be translated that way. Some translations translate it to, but that is an example of translators becoming interpreters, which is not what translators are supposed to do. It should be translated in, because if you translate it to, I think you lose the profound meaning of this verse. So, what is Paul saying?

            I think the answer is found in 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 6. In verse 4 we have an example of those in whom Christ has not been revealed, and in verse 6 we have an example of those in whom Christ has been revealed. Let’s look at verse 4, and let’s start with verse 3 to get the context. Paul writes, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. This is the negative. Those who are perishing do not negate the truth of the gospel because their eyes are blinded by the devil, the god of this age. They cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. This means that Christ and His glorious gospel have not been revealed in them, for they cannot see it. If the gospel had been revealed in them, they would believe, because they would be able to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So, if God has not revealed Christ in a person, that person cannot see the glory of the gospel. The gospel is foolishness to him. It is boring. It is not glorious because Christ has not been revealed in that person. Look at verse 6. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Where does this revealing take place? Where does this light shine? In our hearts. It is an internal revelation. The God who created the universe shines in the hearts of Christians the light of the knowledge of the glory of Himself in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ. He reveals Jesus Christ in the hearts of those who believe. Those who are perishing cannot see this glory. Christ has not been revealed in them. The gospel is foolishness to them. The cross is boring to them. The death of Jesus is brutal violence to them without any real meaning, and it might only be interesting if it’s portrayed by Hollywood on a movie screen. But, if you take the entertainment element out, you put the conviction of sin in, the gospel is not something the unbeliever wants to hear or discuss. But, it is not this way for us. Why? Because God has been pleased to reveal Christ in us. He has been pleased to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

            God accomplishes the salvation of a sinner by revealing Christ in that sinner. That means that God changes that sinner’s heart radically, so that he or she can now see how glorious and beautiful and desirable Christ is. Light shines in us when Christ is revealed in us. If Christ is not revealed in us, He can be revealed to us forever, and our hardened hearts wouldn’t give a rip about Him. He must be revealed in our hearts if we are to believe. God must do heart-work on a sinner like Saul of Tarsus if Saul is to be effectually called. So this is what God does.

            This is all of God. Not one ounce of this salvation comes from Paul. God foreknew him. God called him. God revealed His Son in him so that he could believe. This is divine power and divine decision. It is not human willpower. It is not a psychological self-help program. Saul was not changed by any human power. No, he was changed by the gospel of the glory of God, and in that gospel, when God revealed Christ in him, he saw glory, and was saved.

            The divine character of the gospel is proven by Paul’s divine calling. God called Paul and revealed Christ to him. This was not a work of Paul. Paul did not one day, while going to Damascus to persecute Christians, have a sudden change of mind and decide within himself, “You know, maybe those Christians aren’t so bad after all.” Not at all! Rather, God met Saul on his way to Damascus in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then as Saul was confronted with the glorious Savior, God revealed that same glory that Saul was seeing in his heart so that he might embrace the risen Lord. This gospel has divine power behind it because it is the message of God, and it is the message God uses to save sinners like Saul, and like you, and like me. The second proof of the divine character of the gospel from Paul’s life is his divine calling.

 

#3 – The purpose of Paul’s salvation (v. 16)

 

            Third, we see the divine character of the gospel in the purpose of Paul’s salvation. When Paul was called, what was God’s purpose for him? Look at verse 15 again. But when God…was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. Stop there. The so that is a key phrase that tells us why God revealed Christ in Paul. The purpose of this calling was so that Paul might become the apostle to the Gentiles. So that Paul might preach Christ to the nations, as it might be translated.

            Now, I am not going to linger here, but I do want to ask the question, “How does this further Paul’s proof of the divine character of the gospel?” How is this a third proof?

            It must be seen in light of Paul’s former manner of life, his first proof. These two things are vitally connected. Paul was a Pharisee. Pharisees did not have anything to do with Gentiles. They especially were not on a mission to have Gentiles become part of the Jewish community. Even some of the early Jewish Christians refused to even eat with the Gentiles. In Acts 11:3 we read that some of these took issue with Peter because he ate with Gentiles. So for a Jew to have close relations with a Gentile was unheard of. The racism that existed in the first century was racism between Jews and Gentiles, and the Jews hated Gentiles and thought of them as dogs.

            Only a divine gospel can transform a man like Saul of Tarsus from a zealous Jew who would have thought of Gentiles as uncircumcised dogs, to the apostle of the Gentiles. Only God could make such a change in a man’s life and overcome centuries of racism that existed in his heritage. So, Paul’s third proof is that not only was he an unlikely candidate for Christianity to begin with, but he became an apostle to the Gentiles. This is utterly impossible from a human standpoint. So this third proof, that Paul was called to be a missionary to the Gentiles, and that the Galatians were Gentile fruit borne out by his ministry, makes it unmistakably clear that the gospel was the divine message from God.

 

#4 – Paul’s isolation from the other apostles (vv. 16-17)

 

            Fourth, and we’ll conclude with this one, is Paul’s isolation from the other apostles. Paul’s isolation from the other apostles. Paul says in verse 16 that after his conversion I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. This is crucial to Paul’s argument, because if he immediately went to the apostles, then his credibility as being an apostle who was directly commissioned by Christ and God the Father, as he claims in 1:1, falls to pieces. He has no basis to stand on if this statement were not true. In this section he is saying that the proof of the divine character of the gospel he preaches is that he was isolated from the other apostles during his early Christian years. He did not have contact with them.

            Now, before we look at this verse in more detail, there is a translation problem with it. The NASB translates it, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, and the problem is in this phrase, because the word immediately could have the idea that at some point Paul did consult with flesh and blood, but he did not do it immediately. That is utterly opposed to what the apostle is saying here. The word immediately should be put with verse 17, and should read this way to give the true sense of what he is saying: Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I immediately went away to Arabia. That is the idea. The force of these verses is on Paul’s immediate isolation. So understanding that, what is Paul saying?

            First, he is saying that he did not obtain any information from any human source following his conversion. When he says that he did not consult with flesh and blood, he means that no human being gave him any information following his conversion. The idea of flesh and blood is the same idea found in Matthew 16:17 where Jesus tells Peter that flesh and blood had not revealed to him Jesus’ identity as the Christ. It was not of human origin; rather, the revelation was from God.

            Included in this flesh and blood were the apostles in Jerusalem. From 1 Corinthians 15:8 it would appear that Paul was the last person to be called as an apostle, so basically all the apostles were apostles before him. He is emphatic that no human source, not even the apostles themselves, were consulted after his conversion. What, then, did Paul do following his conversion?

            He tells us in verse 17. But I [immediately] went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. This word, immediately, has the idea of straightway, or without delay. He did it without any hesitation at all. He went to Arabia. Now, where is Arabia? There is some debate, but I think it is easy to resolve from Galatians 4:25. There the apostle tells us that Mount Sinai is in Arabia, so Arabia must be where Moses received the Law. It is a fascinating place for the Apostle to the Gentiles to go immediately following his conversion.

            The question arises, What did Paul do in Arabia? The answer is that no one really knows for certain. It doesn’t tell us in Acts what he did. He doesn’t elaborate on it in his other writings. Even here in Galatians, the longest autobiographical sketch we have of Paul, he doesn’t go into it. We also do not know how long he was in Arabia. Some suggest three years based on Galatians 1:18, but it doesn’t seem likely that he was in Arabia the whole time, because we know that after returning to Damascus he preached the gospel for a while, to the point that he almost got himself killed before he ever went on a missionary journey! So we have no certain way of knowing what Paul did in Arabia, or how long he stayed, but it seems likely that he spent a great deal of time there, probably learning the Old Testament through the eyes of a Christian rather than a Pharisee, and he probably spent a great deal of time in prayer and fellowship with the living Lord, being prepared for his life of suffering and sacrifice that lay ahead.

            We see that he also returned again to Damascus. This trip we know more about, because it is described for us in some detail in Acts 9. After going away to Arabia, he returned to Damascus and immediately began to preach Christ. Turn back to Acts 9:19. Acts 9:19 is an example of the verse divisions being misleading. Acts 9:19 says, And he took food and was strengthened. That should end the verse, because from Galatians 1 we know that after this he immediately went to Arabia. Then the second half of Acts 9:19 takes place after the trip to Arabia. Luke writes, Now for several days he was with the disciples who were at Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus. So as you read through Acts, when you come to Acts 9:19, realize that there is a gap in that verse of a period of some long duration, probably at least 2 years, if not closer to three. We don’t know how many days several days are, but we know it could have been quite a while that he was in Damascus, or it could have just been a couple weeks. Paul doesn’t really tell us in Galatians, and Luke’s terminology is vague as far as duration of time.

            Why is all of this important? It is important because Paul’s opponents were accusing him of being a second-hand apostle, or a false apostle. They were claiming his inferiority to the Jerusalem apostles, and perhaps his dependence on them for whatever he knew that was true. Paul is here demonstrating that he has absolutely no dependence on the apostles. He never obtained information from any human being. His gospel is of a divine origin and source. Paul’s fourth proof for the divine character of the gospel is his isolation from the other apostles.

            We’re through four of the seven proofs for the divine character of the gospel. We have three left, and, Lord-willing, we will look at them next week and conclude our series.

            Paul’s former manner of life, his divine calling, the purpose of his calling, and his isolation from the other apostles all work together to prove the divine character of the gospel. The gospel we believe is not man’s gospel. It is not a competing philosophy. It is not one of many ideas. It is a divinely inspired message given by a holy God to save undeserving sinners by His infinite grace and mercy. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the gospel is God’s divine message? Do you live like you believe that, or do you find yourself ashamed of the gospel? Don’t be ashamed of the gospel! Don’t talk about the gospel as if it is just an idea that may or may not be received without any eternal consequence. The gospel is the message of salvation for all who believe. Proclaim it, and proclaim it with confidence that there is no other gospel! Let’s pray.

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