I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but
it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:12)
The certainty and
the assurance that was right at the root of his Christian life and
service came because of this one thing: he'd seen everything in Jesus.
Everything... in Jesus. What liberation that brought to him! What
emancipation! We have often said here that there was no power in this world
that could have turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus, into a
Christian and a lover of Jesus of Nazareth. No power in this world that could
have done that, but just seeing
Jesus Himself in this way and that did it, that did it! He was emancipated, he
was free! No wonder of all his writings the fiercest, the fieriest is his
letter to the Galatians, the letter of our liberty in Christ and it
begins with this "God revealed His Son in me and that set me free from all
other things."
No use telling
people that this and that, and the other thing are a limitation and that they
should seek enlargement by getting out of it. That is an unfruitful,
unprofitable, indeed that's a dangerous line to take with anybody. But again,
if only we can bring Christ...
with all His divine significance and meaning and comprehensiveness to them and
the Holy Spirit can reveal Him in their hearts... oh, that will do it! That
will do it; they will never again be content with anything that limits them to
the grave clothes of religion. It delivered Paul from Judaism as nothing else
would have done. The way of an escape, the way of enlargement, the way of
endurance is to see Jesus. It is not by learning, that is, it is not by the
schools. Paul had all of the schools, he did, of religion. He didn't get it
through the schools and we'll never get it through the schools; along that
line of the technical instruction of things Christian or religious. This is
not a merely mental or academic or intellectual thing at all. It is a work of
the Holy Spirit.