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(2)
He had been "separated" from his birth by God Who knows the end from the
beginning, and had decided both his parentage and birthplace which
included not only the privileges of the Hebrew race, but that of the city of
Tarsus and of Roman citizenship.
(3)
He had been "separated" on the road to Damascus, when the Lord revealed to
Ananias that Paul was a "chosen vessel".
(4)
He was "separated" unto the Gospel of God, as he declared in Rom. 1: 1.
(5)
He had been "separated" by the Holy Ghost as recorded in Acts 13:
When these facts are superadded to the items already brought forward, the apostle's
claim to entire independence of man or men is distinctly furthered, and amounts to a
moral necessity.
Paul not only draws attention to his "separation", he follows it immediately with the
assertion, that the gospel which he preached was his "by revelation", "to reveal His Son
in me" (Gal. 1: 16). He has already put this "revelation" over against all possible modes
of instruction, declaring that he had received the gospel "by revelation" (Gal. 1: 12).
There it was "the revelation of Jesus Christ", which by the antithesis of the former clause,
means "a revelation from Jesus Christ" as the One Who occupied the place of a teacher.
In this second reference, the Revealer is God, and the subject matter is "His Son". To
Paul the gospel of God unto which he had been separated, was "concerning His Son"
(Rom. 1: 1-4). When Paul preached the Gospel he preached Christ. In Romans the gospel
is referred to as "The Gospel of God" because God is its author (1: 1). It is the Gospel of
His Son (1: 9), because, as the Son of God, Christ was declared to be such with power
(1: 4), and it is called the Gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God unto salvation
(1: 16). This gospel revealed in such a manner and entrusted with such grace, the apostle
claimed as his own, calling it "my gospel" (16: 25).
One of the reasons that helped Paul to the decision that he would not confer with the
apostles at Jerusalem, seems to be found in the words of Gal. 1: 16: "That I might preach
Him among the heathen, or Gentiles." The peculiar nature of this ministry was so new
and unprecedented that Peter even, was called upon to give an account of himself after
preaching once to the Gentiles (Acts 11: 1-4), making it clear to Paul that he could expect
little or no help from Jerusalem and the twelve. The other reason was that he had come
through a crisis, lifelong convictions had been shattered, pride had been humbled.
"He was a stricken deer, and was impelled as by a strong instinct to leave the herd. In
solitude a man may trace to their hidden source the fatal errors of the past; he may pray
for light from heaven--he may want the healing of his deep wounds by the same tender
hand that in mercy had inflicted them" (Farrar, "Life and Work of St. Paul").
Like Moses, and even like the Lord Himself, retirement into the wilderness was a
necessity.
Lightfoot says: "A veil of thick darkness hangs over St. Paul's visit to Arabia . . . . . It
is a mysterious pause, a moment of suspense in the apostle's history, a breathless calm
which ushers in the tumultuous storm of his active missionary life."