WALKING IN A STRAIGHT PATH
(Studies in the epistle to the Galatians)
1. REVELATION
Harry Foster
MANY think that this letter to the Galatians was Paul's earliest contribution to the New Testament. Like all of his writings, this is not a treatise but a missive with a direct, personal message. It was written to meet an actual situation of need, written not to provide material for theologians but to show men that straight path of the gospel from which their feet were straying. Its writer remembered all too vividly how Peter, Barnabas and many others almost forsook that path (2:14); he realised the danger that the Galatians were in (5:7); and he wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in order that the whole 'Israel of God' might be rightly guided in their Christian walk (6:16). This is the guidance which I propose to seek, using various headings which roughly correspond with the six chapters. They are: Revelation, Resurrection, The Holy Spirit, Sonship, Liberty and Fellowship.
Our first study, based on chapter one, concentrates on the matter of revelation.
It is impossible for me to give you revelation. Indeed it is impossible to describe how to get revelation, for revelation is a miracle from God. The first public interchange which the Lord Jesus had was with the learned doctors in the temple. He was only twelve years old at the time, but He surprised them all with His wisdom. They marvelled at His words and no doubt discussed the matter after He had returned to Nazareth; but none of them had any revelation of who He really was. Then the last public interchange which Jesus had before His death on the cross was with a man who had little education and no instruction in divine things but, as he himself hung on another cross, this man had a flash of revelation. He perceived what even the well-taught disciples could not see, that Christ was the divine king who might be willing to make a place for him in His eternal kingdom. Even in those excruciating last moments, the Lord must have thanked the Father for performing this miracle of revelation to one of those least likely to be able to receive it.
TO Saul of Tarsus had come a much greater revelation as to the person of Christ, as he was able to testify; and his intention in writing was that his readers should also have a similar inward illumination. He wrote, therefore, not about ideas but about the Lord Jesus, His person, His cross and His resurrection. And he prayed before he wrote, continued praying as he wrote, and went on praying as the Galatians received his letter; with the one objective that Christ should be revealed in them too (4:19). There was nothing formal about this praying, it involved spiritual birth-pangs. In other parts of the letter he addressed them as 'brothers' but in this connection he spoke to and prayed for them as his 'little children'. They were getting far too conceited in their imagined cleverness and he longed that they might abandon all this false doctrinal dexterity and become again those 'babes' to whom the Father loves to reveal His Son. Paul was on sure [87/88] ground when he prayed like this, for his prayer was in line with God's good pleasure. This was the explanation of his own inner revelation -- "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (1:15). It was as though God had watched this religious fanatic, trying to serve Him and yet pursuing a course completely contrary to the God whom he wanted to worship. He had longed to show him the truth -- not just true ideas but the living truth as it is in Jesus -- and would have been glad to have had the chance to enlighten him with the knowledge of His Son. Then God's moment came: the inward revelation became a reality. This brought great pleasure to the persecuted Church; it brought even more pleasure to the transformed Saul; but the greatest pleasure of all came to the Father Himself, who likes nothing better than to give men an inward revelation of His Son.
IT is clear that revelation is much more than mere information. Saul the Pharisee possessed much information about Christianity without having any vital revelation of Christ. He knew many Scriptural facts, but they did not help him; in fact he fought them. We also may be enraged by divine truths, or we may perhaps be happy about them, but until something is done in our hearts by God's illuminating Spirit, it is just information and nothing more. When the initial enlightenment has occurred, though, then information can bring great benefit. Think of what happened to Saul when he was in Arabia. We have no certainty as to the exact time spent there, nor are we told how he was occupied, but the implication of his words is that he went there to be alone -- alone with God. What did he take with him? His Bible. Whether he took the actual parchments or not, he had an unrivalled wealth of Scriptural truth stored up in his Pharisee's mind and memory. When such knowledge was only in his head it did him more harm than good, but once the first miracle of revolutionary revelation had happened, then what was in his head could go down into his heart. He had a new Bible. He did not spend that valuable time in Arabia just going over and over his momentary experience of illumination but, having found the key to the Word of God, he was able to open it in the Lord's presence and find ever more unfolding light upon the Lord Jesus. Previously, if he had prayed at all, it would only have been for more understanding of the text, but now his constant petition must have been that the Spirit would unveil the Lord Jesus to his heart as well as to his mind. And if it pleased the Father to give Saul of Tarsus that first inward revelation, how very pleased He must have been to enlarge and deepen the revelation during the time spent in Arabia. Those must have been happy months. Saul, of course, would be thrilled as each day brought fresh light on the Word and showed him more of the Lord Jesus, but how happy God would be -- and always is -- to be giving fuller revelation of His Son.
What happened after this? Paul tells us that he went up to Jerusalem. On the road to Damascus he had met Jesus personally; in Arabia he had made rich discoveries of Christ in the Old Testament; but he still hungered and thirsted for the truth and, as he himself later wrote, "the truth is in Jesus" (Ephesians 4:21). It is striking that he used the plain name, Jesus, in this connection, so stressing the earthly manifestation of the Son of God. Truth is only to be found in Jesus. It was most important, therefore, that having identified Jesus as the Christ of the Old Testament, he must now learn New Testament facts about the coming in the flesh of this Christ. There is always a peril of our revelation being spoiled and distorted by our imagination. I sometimes meet Christians who claim that Christ is in them, and I have no reason to doubt this fact, but I must confess that they have ideas and procedures which do not seem to tally with what I read about Jesus in the Gospels. Surely we can only avoid our revelation being spoiled by imagination if we check everything by God's standard of truth, which is Jesus. Paul seemed to be of this opinion for he tells us: "Then after three years I went up Jerusalem ...". What for? "... to visit Cephas" (v.18 R.V.). The word here translated 'visit' is only used on this occasion in the New Testament and it is the Greek word from which we get our word 'history'. Fifteen days of history with Peter! Who better than he to give Saul the information he sought, for Peter had lived through those marvellous years of the history of the earthly ministry of Jesus and was able to describe them.
PAUL here states most emphatically that he did not get his revelation from Peter. Also that he did not get his commission as an apostle from Peter. We know that he did not get his education in the Old Testament from Peter. What did he get, then? Obviously, Peter's personal account of the things which Jesus had said and done, and how He had said and done them. Day after day, and into the night, the two men must [88/89] have gone over the historic details of those gospel years. To this new Saul, captivated by the Lord Jesus, it must have been well worth going to Jerusalem for that. One other man he did meet, so he tells us, and that was James. This seems to confirm my point. We would know, of course, that James was an elder in Jerusalem; its president at the Church conference there; and the author of a letter to the dispersed tribes. What we would not have known, apart from this reference to him in the Galatian letter, is that this was the same James who was half-brother of the Lord. Who, then, better placed than he to give Saul more historical facts about the home at Nazareth where he had lived in the closest contact with the Jesus in whom all the truth is to be found? It is impossible to imagine the profound effect on the apostle Paul of those two weeks in Jerusalem. But we need not envy him. We have much more. We have the rest of our lives which can be spent in learning more of Jesus by means of all four Gospels. You may say that you thought that the Gospels were meant for the unconverted, or that they contain elementary truths which should be left behind as one passed on to the Epistles. This is a fairly common mistake, but mistake it is, for whenever we read in the Epistles something about the Lord, we need to turn back to the Gospels to understand what is being referred to. I read, for instance, that Christ liveth in me, and then I need to get fresh light on how He lived, to know what this involves. I am told that I am to walk even as He walked, to suffer as He suffered and to love as He loved; but only the Gospels can inform me as to the true significance of such a walk. Is it too much to say that those fifteen days in Jerusalem produced a further revolution in Saul's thinking? If they were days of revelation they must have done so, for real inward revelation always produces transformation. So if you do not want your life to be turned upside down, then do not read the Gospels. But by not doing so you will not only rob your own life of spiritual value but deprive God of His great pleasure, which is to reveal His Son in you.
NOW, perhaps, we should go back a little and speak of the preparation for revelation. There is no question about God's wish to reveal His Son: the question is not 'if' but 'when' -- "when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me". Two points are stressed in this verse. One is that "He called me by His grace", and the other is, "who separated me from my mother's womb". Before the revelation, there was the call, and before the call the separation. Paul could truthfully tell Agrippa that the Lord called him by name, and spoke to him in his own language (Acts 26:14). Thank God that He knows our name and He knows our language. Saul of Tarsus had been under divine scrutiny for thirty years or more. From his birth God had planned to reveal His Son in him, and had ordered and overruled all his life to this end. Later the apostle may well have wondered why God had waited so long. There must have been times when he asked: 'Oh Lord, why did You not show me this earlier? Look at the years I have wasted! Look at the follies I have committed! How I wish that I had been given this revelation earlier.' If Paul did not complain like this, you and I are often tempted to do so. There is a simple answer. It is that Saul was not ready. God had to do a preparatory work in him, and the main feature of that work of preparation was one of disillusionment. He had to be disillusioned about his own efforts to please God. He had also to be disillusioned with his imagined understanding of the Word of God. He faced disillusionment even over his own praying and, hardest of all, disillusionment with himself as a man. When he had come down to that level, then God could meet him and show him Christ. The same applies to us. Are you full of ideas about what is divine truth? Are you convinced of the rightness of your own ways and the value of the sacrifices you are making for Him? Then, my brother, you are not yet ready for revelation. Perhaps the work of preparation is going on. It may be that you have now reached the moment of complete disillusionment with all else and, most of all, with yourself. This seems to be a necessary prelude to revelation.
And since revelation must be a continual process, it may be that new experiences of self distrust have to keep recurring. I notice at least two such crises in the life of Paul himself. The first was at Corinth. Paul had always felt a burning desire to evangelise Jews. At Corinth he was disillusioned. At Corinth he had to shake his raiment in repudiation of the synagogue, and turn to the Gentiles. He had no hesitation in doing this but it must have been a keen disappointment to him, so much so that the Lord decided to appear afresh to him, to assure him that many believers were to be gathered in Corinth, though they would not be Jews. He told the downcast Paul: "I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:10). It may be [89/90] that the Lord was saying to His servant: 'Forget your own desires and ideas in your work for Me, and keep on with My ideas. This is how we will go on together and you need have no fear.' So for Paul the night of disappointment became a night of new revelation. The Lord had appeared to him. The second occasion was connected with his appearance before the Jerusalem council. He had the brilliant idea of defending himself by claiming to be a Pharisee and so precipitating discord among them. His strategem worked, for Pharisees and Sadducees were soon quarrelling so violently that the Romans had to remove Paul from the council chamber. But Paul later felt, as many of us have done at times, that his cleverness was not what God wanted at all. We get a bad reaction when we take things into our own hands in this way. It is a bitter experience to realise that in spite of all our blessings and spiritual growth we can be betrayed into some expression of our old nature which gets us off the straight path of the gospel. It may well be that Paul was passing through some such experience of self-disillusionment, for that night the Lord again made a special appearance to him. The Lord did not discuss Paul's failure. He seldom does. He waits until the consciousness of them has shocked us, and then He comes and says: 'Be of good cheer. We will keep together and finish the work which we set out to do' (Acts 23:11). It is when you are most disillusioned with yourself that you are ripe for a fuller revelation of God's Son, for the whole secret of the Christian life is 'Not I, but Christ'.
IN conclusion we note that revelation is meant to produce ministry -- "... to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles ...". So revelation is given not that I may sit at home and meditate on it, not that I might write some poems about it, and not even that I may tell other Christians about it. No, it is given so that I may go out and meet people who have never received it, and convey something of Christ to them. God gives people the revelation of His Son, but He usually needs a human agent to make this revelation actual. The book of the Acts describes three men who illustrate this fact. The Ethiopian eunuch had the Scriptures, but he needed Philip to interpret them to him. Cornelius was visited by an angel, but the angel insisted that Peter must be called to communicate God's message of revelation. Saul of Tarsus met Jesus on the way to Damascus, but he had to wait for Ananias to complete the work begun by that vision. None of the three agents wanted to do the work. Peter and Ananias said so very emphatically, and we presume that Philip must have been most reluctant to leave Samaria and go off into the desert. None of them preached a sermon. Philip and Ananias just talked. It is true that Peter did start preaching, but he was soon interrupted by the intervention of the Spirit, and did not get very far in his sermon. So even if we do not feel very willing, and even if we have no preaching gifts, we are still needed to be both recipients and ministers of the revelation of God's Son.
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It is impossible for me to give you revelation. Indeed it is impossible to describe how to get revelation, for revelation is a miracle from God. The first public interchange which the Lord Jesus had was with the learned doctors in the temple. He was only twelve years old at the time, but He surprised them all with His wisdom. They marvelled at His words and no doubt discussed the matter after He had returned to Nazareth; but none of them had any revelation of who He really was. Then the last public interchange which Jesus had before His death on the cross was with a man who had little education and no instruction in divine things but, as he himself hung on another cross, this man had a flash of revelation. He perceived what even the well-taught disciples could not see, that Christ was the divine king who might be willing to make a place for him in His eternal kingdom. Even in those excruciating last moments, the Lord must have thanked the Father for performing this miracle of revelation to one of those least likely to be able to receive it.
TO Saul of Tarsus had come a much greater revelation as to the person of Christ, as he was able to testify; and his intention in writing was that his readers should also have a similar inward illumination. He wrote, therefore, not about ideas but about the Lord Jesus, His person, His cross and His resurrection. And he prayed before he wrote, continued praying as he wrote, and went on praying as the Galatians received his letter; with the one objective that Christ should be revealed in them too (4:19). There was nothing formal about this praying, it involved spiritual birth-pangs. In other parts of the letter he addressed them as 'brothers' but in this connection he spoke to and prayed for them as his 'little children'. They were getting far too conceited in their imagined cleverness and he longed that they might abandon all this false doctrinal dexterity and become again those 'babes' to whom the Father loves to reveal His Son. Paul was on sure [87/88] ground when he prayed like this, for his prayer was in line with God's good pleasure. This was the explanation of his own inner revelation -- "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (1:15). It was as though God had watched this religious fanatic, trying to serve Him and yet pursuing a course completely contrary to the God whom he wanted to worship. He had longed to show him the truth -- not just true ideas but the living truth as it is in Jesus -- and would have been glad to have had the chance to enlighten him with the knowledge of His Son. Then God's moment came: the inward revelation became a reality. This brought great pleasure to the persecuted Church; it brought even more pleasure to the transformed Saul; but the greatest pleasure of all came to the Father Himself, who likes nothing better than to give men an inward revelation of His Son.
IT is clear that revelation is much more than mere information. Saul the Pharisee possessed much information about Christianity without having any vital revelation of Christ. He knew many Scriptural facts, but they did not help him; in fact he fought them. We also may be enraged by divine truths, or we may perhaps be happy about them, but until something is done in our hearts by God's illuminating Spirit, it is just information and nothing more. When the initial enlightenment has occurred, though, then information can bring great benefit. Think of what happened to Saul when he was in Arabia. We have no certainty as to the exact time spent there, nor are we told how he was occupied, but the implication of his words is that he went there to be alone -- alone with God. What did he take with him? His Bible. Whether he took the actual parchments or not, he had an unrivalled wealth of Scriptural truth stored up in his Pharisee's mind and memory. When such knowledge was only in his head it did him more harm than good, but once the first miracle of revolutionary revelation had happened, then what was in his head could go down into his heart. He had a new Bible. He did not spend that valuable time in Arabia just going over and over his momentary experience of illumination but, having found the key to the Word of God, he was able to open it in the Lord's presence and find ever more unfolding light upon the Lord Jesus. Previously, if he had prayed at all, it would only have been for more understanding of the text, but now his constant petition must have been that the Spirit would unveil the Lord Jesus to his heart as well as to his mind. And if it pleased the Father to give Saul of Tarsus that first inward revelation, how very pleased He must have been to enlarge and deepen the revelation during the time spent in Arabia. Those must have been happy months. Saul, of course, would be thrilled as each day brought fresh light on the Word and showed him more of the Lord Jesus, but how happy God would be -- and always is -- to be giving fuller revelation of His Son.
What happened after this? Paul tells us that he went up to Jerusalem. On the road to Damascus he had met Jesus personally; in Arabia he had made rich discoveries of Christ in the Old Testament; but he still hungered and thirsted for the truth and, as he himself later wrote, "the truth is in Jesus" (Ephesians 4:21). It is striking that he used the plain name, Jesus, in this connection, so stressing the earthly manifestation of the Son of God. Truth is only to be found in Jesus. It was most important, therefore, that having identified Jesus as the Christ of the Old Testament, he must now learn New Testament facts about the coming in the flesh of this Christ. There is always a peril of our revelation being spoiled and distorted by our imagination. I sometimes meet Christians who claim that Christ is in them, and I have no reason to doubt this fact, but I must confess that they have ideas and procedures which do not seem to tally with what I read about Jesus in the Gospels. Surely we can only avoid our revelation being spoiled by imagination if we check everything by God's standard of truth, which is Jesus. Paul seemed to be of this opinion for he tells us: "Then after three years I went up Jerusalem ...". What for? "... to visit Cephas" (v.18 R.V.). The word here translated 'visit' is only used on this occasion in the New Testament and it is the Greek word from which we get our word 'history'. Fifteen days of history with Peter! Who better than he to give Saul the information he sought, for Peter had lived through those marvellous years of the history of the earthly ministry of Jesus and was able to describe them.
PAUL here states most emphatically that he did not get his revelation from Peter. Also that he did not get his commission as an apostle from Peter. We know that he did not get his education in the Old Testament from Peter. What did he get, then? Obviously, Peter's personal account of the things which Jesus had said and done, and how He had said and done them. Day after day, and into the night, the two men must [88/89] have gone over the historic details of those gospel years. To this new Saul, captivated by the Lord Jesus, it must have been well worth going to Jerusalem for that. One other man he did meet, so he tells us, and that was James. This seems to confirm my point. We would know, of course, that James was an elder in Jerusalem; its president at the Church conference there; and the author of a letter to the dispersed tribes. What we would not have known, apart from this reference to him in the Galatian letter, is that this was the same James who was half-brother of the Lord. Who, then, better placed than he to give Saul more historical facts about the home at Nazareth where he had lived in the closest contact with the Jesus in whom all the truth is to be found? It is impossible to imagine the profound effect on the apostle Paul of those two weeks in Jerusalem. But we need not envy him. We have much more. We have the rest of our lives which can be spent in learning more of Jesus by means of all four Gospels. You may say that you thought that the Gospels were meant for the unconverted, or that they contain elementary truths which should be left behind as one passed on to the Epistles. This is a fairly common mistake, but mistake it is, for whenever we read in the Epistles something about the Lord, we need to turn back to the Gospels to understand what is being referred to. I read, for instance, that Christ liveth in me, and then I need to get fresh light on how He lived, to know what this involves. I am told that I am to walk even as He walked, to suffer as He suffered and to love as He loved; but only the Gospels can inform me as to the true significance of such a walk. Is it too much to say that those fifteen days in Jerusalem produced a further revolution in Saul's thinking? If they were days of revelation they must have done so, for real inward revelation always produces transformation. So if you do not want your life to be turned upside down, then do not read the Gospels. But by not doing so you will not only rob your own life of spiritual value but deprive God of His great pleasure, which is to reveal His Son in you.
NOW, perhaps, we should go back a little and speak of the preparation for revelation. There is no question about God's wish to reveal His Son: the question is not 'if' but 'when' -- "when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me". Two points are stressed in this verse. One is that "He called me by His grace", and the other is, "who separated me from my mother's womb". Before the revelation, there was the call, and before the call the separation. Paul could truthfully tell Agrippa that the Lord called him by name, and spoke to him in his own language (Acts 26:14). Thank God that He knows our name and He knows our language. Saul of Tarsus had been under divine scrutiny for thirty years or more. From his birth God had planned to reveal His Son in him, and had ordered and overruled all his life to this end. Later the apostle may well have wondered why God had waited so long. There must have been times when he asked: 'Oh Lord, why did You not show me this earlier? Look at the years I have wasted! Look at the follies I have committed! How I wish that I had been given this revelation earlier.' If Paul did not complain like this, you and I are often tempted to do so. There is a simple answer. It is that Saul was not ready. God had to do a preparatory work in him, and the main feature of that work of preparation was one of disillusionment. He had to be disillusioned about his own efforts to please God. He had also to be disillusioned with his imagined understanding of the Word of God. He faced disillusionment even over his own praying and, hardest of all, disillusionment with himself as a man. When he had come down to that level, then God could meet him and show him Christ. The same applies to us. Are you full of ideas about what is divine truth? Are you convinced of the rightness of your own ways and the value of the sacrifices you are making for Him? Then, my brother, you are not yet ready for revelation. Perhaps the work of preparation is going on. It may be that you have now reached the moment of complete disillusionment with all else and, most of all, with yourself. This seems to be a necessary prelude to revelation.
And since revelation must be a continual process, it may be that new experiences of self distrust have to keep recurring. I notice at least two such crises in the life of Paul himself. The first was at Corinth. Paul had always felt a burning desire to evangelise Jews. At Corinth he was disillusioned. At Corinth he had to shake his raiment in repudiation of the synagogue, and turn to the Gentiles. He had no hesitation in doing this but it must have been a keen disappointment to him, so much so that the Lord decided to appear afresh to him, to assure him that many believers were to be gathered in Corinth, though they would not be Jews. He told the downcast Paul: "I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:10). It may be [89/90] that the Lord was saying to His servant: 'Forget your own desires and ideas in your work for Me, and keep on with My ideas. This is how we will go on together and you need have no fear.' So for Paul the night of disappointment became a night of new revelation. The Lord had appeared to him. The second occasion was connected with his appearance before the Jerusalem council. He had the brilliant idea of defending himself by claiming to be a Pharisee and so precipitating discord among them. His strategem worked, for Pharisees and Sadducees were soon quarrelling so violently that the Romans had to remove Paul from the council chamber. But Paul later felt, as many of us have done at times, that his cleverness was not what God wanted at all. We get a bad reaction when we take things into our own hands in this way. It is a bitter experience to realise that in spite of all our blessings and spiritual growth we can be betrayed into some expression of our old nature which gets us off the straight path of the gospel. It may well be that Paul was passing through some such experience of self-disillusionment, for that night the Lord again made a special appearance to him. The Lord did not discuss Paul's failure. He seldom does. He waits until the consciousness of them has shocked us, and then He comes and says: 'Be of good cheer. We will keep together and finish the work which we set out to do' (Acts 23:11). It is when you are most disillusioned with yourself that you are ripe for a fuller revelation of God's Son, for the whole secret of the Christian life is 'Not I, but Christ'.
IN conclusion we note that revelation is meant to produce ministry -- "... to reveal his Son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles ...". So revelation is given not that I may sit at home and meditate on it, not that I might write some poems about it, and not even that I may tell other Christians about it. No, it is given so that I may go out and meet people who have never received it, and convey something of Christ to them. God gives people the revelation of His Son, but He usually needs a human agent to make this revelation actual. The book of the Acts describes three men who illustrate this fact. The Ethiopian eunuch had the Scriptures, but he needed Philip to interpret them to him. Cornelius was visited by an angel, but the angel insisted that Peter must be called to communicate God's message of revelation. Saul of Tarsus met Jesus on the way to Damascus, but he had to wait for Ananias to complete the work begun by that vision. None of the three agents wanted to do the work. Peter and Ananias said so very emphatically, and we presume that Philip must have been most reluctant to leave Samaria and go off into the desert. None of them preached a sermon. Philip and Ananias just talked. It is true that Peter did start preaching, but he was soon interrupted by the intervention of the Spirit, and did not get very far in his sermon. So even if we do not feel very willing, and even if we have no preaching gifts, we are still needed to be both recipients and ministers of the revelation of God's Son.
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