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(Acts 9:19-22). Barnabas also, who would never use the sacred name lightly, told the gathering at Jerusalem how
Paul `had seen the Lord in the way' (Acts 9:27).
Do we find that upon reflection, this same Paul retracted and gave a lower place to the Saviour than he, in his
untaught enthusiasm, had at first acknowledged ?
To answer that question and to exhibit the place that the Lord Jesus occupied in the life and testimony of this
apostle to the Gentiles we propose to devote the remaining pages of this booklet, praying that any whose second
name may happen to be `Thomas' may be led at length to the full unrestricted confession of this Saviour and say:
`My Lord and my God' (John 20:28).
CHRIST, in the Epistles of Paul.
GALATIANS
We have set forth our reasons for believing that Galatians was Paul's first epistle, in The Berean Expositor, in
The Apostle of the Reconciliation, and in Part One of An Alphabetical Analysis under the heading Chronology. An
examination of this challenging epistle will show us how far the Person and Work of Christ dominated the teaching
and claimed the undivided loyalty of the apostle Paul.
The same inroad into the purity of the faith that is made evident in Acts 15:1,5 is challenged, exposed and
disarmed in this epistle.
The basic doctrine namely `justification by faith apart from works of law' that was announced in Acts 13:38,39 is
summed up in Galatians 1:6 and 7 as `The grace of Christ', or `The gospel of Christ', and, said the apostle, if I were
to allow myself to tolerate the preaching of any other gospel `I should not be the servant of Christ', for, among other
reasons, Paul certified the Galatians that the gospel preached of him, was `not after man', for he neither received it of
man, neither was he taught it, `but by the revelation of Jesus Christ' (Gal. 1:10-12). He follows this ultimatum with
a reasoned statement going back to his early life, and asking `Could such a man with such a background, have
evolved such a gospel as has been entrusted to, and preached by me?'
`You know the story of my past career in Judaism; you know how furiously I persecuted the church of God and
harried it, and how I outstripped many of my own age and race in my special ardour for the ancestral traditions
of my house. But the God who had set me apart from my very birth called me by His grace, and when He chose
to reveal His Son to me, that I might preach Him to the Gentiles, ` ' (Gal. 1:13-16 Moffatt).
We do not suggest that the A.V. translation of Galatians 1:13-16 is defective, we simply quote Moffatt in order
to break the deadening effect that familiarity with our venerable version sometimes induces.
The conversion of Saul of Tarsus is summed up in the words:
`To reveal His Son in me' (Gal. 1:16).
The commission given to Saul of Tarsus is summed up in the words:
`That I might preach HIM' (Gal. 1:16)
Fourteen years after this most wonderful conversion and commission, Paul, by the same `revelation' that had
rendered him independent of `man' or `teaching' (Gal. 1:11,12), went up to Jerusalem
`And communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles' (Gal. 2:2).
In verse 4 Paul makes it evident that the liberty that the believer has in Christ Jesus was in jeopardy, and in verse
5 makes it clear that his refusal to be subjected, even for an hour, was because `the truth of the gospel' was at stake
(Gal. 2:5). It was for this self same concern for the truth of the gospel that Peter was withstood (Gal. 2:14).