Galatians 1.15-16a
“But … God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.”
As in the three accounts in Acts, and the references in Philippians 3 and 1 Timothy 1, here in Galatians he affirms that he was called by God to preach the Gospel. But surely, in view of the direct revelations from the Lord which Paul describes in Acts 22 and Acts 26, we might have expected that he would tell the Galatians how God ‘revealed his Son to me’. But no, he says God ‘revealed his Son in me’. That enormous task, taking the good news to Gentiles, could only be accomplished by that enabling, that gifting, which the Spirit of Christ wrought in him, to empower him to do the seemingly impossible. Seeing the risen Jesus changed Paul from the inside. Have we let God change us from the inside? That’s the only way we can do anything for him.
We note also that God ‘set him apart from his mother’s womb’. Did he set each of us apart from birth? Christians have struggled through the centuries to square God’s sovereign electing grace with our freewill and our responsibility to believe the Gospel and trust the Saviour. I believe these are two indispensable aspects of salvation, opposite sides of the equation, no matter how hard they are for our finite minds to reconcile. But reconciling is what God excels at!
Lord, you know my inner being better than I do. You know what is good, and what needs attention. I invite you to enter and work so that Jesus can be revealed in me.
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