I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Galatians 1.11-12, NIV
In Galatians, Paul can barely get his greetings finished before his frustration breaks through. “I am astonished…” And because his dear Galatians appear to have accepted “another gospel, which isn’t a gospel”, he has to talk about the Gospel he brought them. Hence the verses above.
But is it true?
Did he get his Gospel purely by revelation? And of course, the answer is yes, absolutely. The risen Jesus stopped him on the road and he was a totally changed man from that moment.
And also no.
Saul wasn’t some pagan walking along, minding his own business, when suddenly he got a download from Jesus. He was a highly ambitious young Jew, who had advanced within Judaism beyond many of his fellows. He knew the scriptures, and he knew all the glosses different rabbis put upon them.
Furthermore, he was savagely chasing down the followers of The Way, in order to destroy them. That is pretty difficult if you don’t have any knowledge of what marks these people out, including what they say, how they speak, what they believe and so on.
The arrogance of these people, trying to turn Judaism inside out and thinking they could overthrow the tradition of the fathers enraged him. The way he says this in Gal 1.14 loses something in the translation – it is more like “I was extremely zealous for the things the fathers had handed down from the beginning.” If we say ‘tradition’, it is just a static and possibly ridiculous thing; but what Paul says has much more of the sense of continuity from earliest times.
And it is into this context of “knowing everything” that Jesus appears and speaks. Our fixation in translating the verb διώκω as “to persecute” doesn’t serve us here. It is primarily the verb of the pursuit and the hunt, or as the French would say, la chasse.
Because in Acts 9.4, when Jesus says to Saul, “τί με διώκεις;” He is asking him “why are you pursuing me?”
And yes, as far as Saul is concerned, it is a deadly pursuit of the followers of Jesus; what Jesus confronts him with is the fact that he is actually trying to find Him, Jesus.
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are pursuing,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Acts 9.5-6 NIV, with my correction
I love the fact that Jesus doesn’t mention four spiritual laws or explain the gulf that sin makes between God and man or anything of that sort. It is more like “okay, you found me – now go into town and await instructions.”
And that is where we need to go back and correct Gal 1.12. The NIV has a small but incredibly important defect. ἀλλὰ δι’ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is not “but through a revelation from Jesus Christ”; it is “but through a revelation of Jesus Christ”.
And that is the truth of Paul’s Gospel. Nobody taught him the gospel, nor did he receive the Gospel from men. He knew everything he needed to know – and it only made him a savage enemy of the Kingdom, because he still lacked one thing.
And when he met Jesus, alive and glorious on the Damascus Road, that revelation of Jesus Christ rewired his whole being and everything he thought he knew. Henceforth he was someone carrying the Gospel of the Kingdom. And yes, later he checked in with “those who were Apostles before me” – but they could only give him a green light.
And so it is with us; provided we are encountering the risen Jesus. A purely “propositional gospel” won’t really cut the mustard; we need an encounter that rewires us into who God always meant us to be.
Those are the people who can say, with Paul, “what I now live in the flesh, I live by safe-conduct from (or by faith in) the Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself for me…” (Gal 2.20b)
