The Epistle to the Galatians 1:11-17

Welcome back to my study/review of The Epistle to the Galatians. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.

Galatians 1:11-17

¹¹ For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. ¹² For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. ¹³ For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴ And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. ¹⁵ But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, ¹⁶ was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; ¹⁷ nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

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By way of reminder, Paul rebuked the Galatians in the previous section of verses, saying, “but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” He explains in this section of verses that the Gospel, as originally delivered, comes from God and nobody has the authority to modify it or to replace it.

We’ll jump right in, then with the note from Ellicott’s Bible Commentary on verse 11, as Paul explains his rebuke.

Verse 11 is something like a subject line which is defended by the verses that follow. He defends the verse by giving his own biography and bona fides in the verses ahead. Continuing on to verse 12 in Ellicott:

(12) For I neither received it.—The first “neither” in this verse does not answer to the second, but qualifies the pronoun “I.” The connection in the thought is perhaps something of this kind: “The gospel is not human as it comes to you; neither was it human as it first came to me.”

Taught.—There is an antithesis between this word and “revelation” in the next clause. “I did not receive my doctrine from man by a process of teaching and learning, but from Christ Himself by direct revelation.”

By the revelation.—It is better to omit the article: “by,” or “through the medium of,” revelation. What was this revelation, and when was it given? The context shows that it must have been at some time either at or near the Apostle’s conversion. This would be sufficient to exclude the later revelation of 2 Corinthians 12:1. But can it be the vision on the way to Damascus itself alone? At first sight it would seem as if this was too brief, and its object too special, to include the kind of “sum of Christian doctrine” of which the Apostle is speaking. But this at least contained the two main points—the Messiahship of Jesus, and faith in Jesus, from which all the rest of the Apostle’s teaching flowed naturally and logically. When once it was felt that the death of Christ upon the cross was not that of a criminal, but of the Son of God, the rest all seemed to follow. Putting this together with the sense, which we may well believe had been growing upon him, of the inefficacy of the Law, we can easily see how the idea would arise of a sacrifice superseding the Law, and in the relegation of the Law to this very secondary position the main barrier between Jew and Gentile would be removed. St. Paul himself, by laying stress upon his retreat to the deserts of Arabia, evidently implies that the gospel, as taught by him in its complete form, was the result of gradual development and prolonged reflection; but whether this is to be regarded as implicitly contained in the first revelation, or whether we are to suppose that there were successive revelations, of which there is no record in the Acts, cannot be positively determined.

Of Jesus Christ—i.e., given by Jesus Christ; of which Jesus Christ is the Author.

This verse reminds us that Paul encountered Jesus directly, as recounted in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 9:

9 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. ³ As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴ He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

⁵ “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. ⁶ “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

⁷ The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. ⁸ Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. ⁹ For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

A reason that Paul is so readily accepted (ultimately) as an Apostle, by the other Apostles, is that his vision of Jesus is confirmed by a separate vision to Ananias. The note above points out that this vision does not seem to have been sufficient in and of itself to provide Paul with a complete understanding of Christ and what to teach. However, as the note also states, the vision has to be taken into the context of Paul’s life. It might be that this confirmation of Christ’s divinity was the missing piece of a coherent messianic knowledge already present in Paul. After all, he was a devout Jew and he was very aware of the doctrinal arguments being made by the Apostles.

It’s not hard to imagine a scenario wherein Paul might think to himself, “what they are teaching would make sense of Christ were God, but as he is not, it’s blasphemy.” What happens then if Jesus confirms to Paul that He *is* God by this vision?

Continuing on in Ellicott in verse 13:

(13) Ye have heard.—Rather, ye heard. It was indeed notorious; but the Apostle may be referring to the fact that he himself usually (see Acts 22:3-21; Acts 26:4-20; 1 Corinthians 15:8-10) brought his own career and experiences into his preaching, so that they may have heard it from his own lips.

My conversation . . . in the Jews’ religion.—How I behaved in the days of my Judaism. The phrase “Jews’ religion” (literally, Judaism) is not used with any sense of disparagement.

Wasted it.—The same word is translated “destroyed” in Acts 9:21 : “Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name?”

(13, 14) Proof that the doctrine of the Apostle is derived from God and not from man, in that it could not be accounted for by his antecedents and education, all of which told against, rather than for, a Christian belief of any kind.

(14) Profited.—Made progress. The kind of progress would correspond to the width of the term “Judaism,” with which it is connected, and would imply, not merely proficiency in theological knowledge, but also increase in zeal and strictness of ritualistic observance.

My equals.—Strictly, my equals in age. St. Paul is thinking of his contemporaries among the young men who came up, ardent like himself, to study the Law at the feet of Gamaliel or some other eminent Rabbi. He looks back upon them much as some English political or religious leader might look back upon his contemporaries at the university, and might point to his zealous advocacy of a cause that he has long since given over.

Traditions.—The “traditions of the elders” mentioned in Matthew 15:2, Mark 7:3, by which the commandment of God “was made of none effect” (Matthew 15:6); the oral or unwritten law, which had gradually grown up by the side of the Pentateuch, and was afterwards embodied in the Mishnah.

These verses are notable in the context of what Paul is confronting in Galatia – namely the “Judaizing” problem occurring here. These verses thus make a case for his authority on two fronts. First, he makes the case that the Gospel as originally given was from God and that it cannot be changed or replaced. Second, he asserts his own authority as a learned Jew – which was undoubtedly an assistance in arguing against “Judaizers.”

Continuing on this track, we’ll look now at the note for verse 15 in The Pulpit Commentaries:

Galatians 1:15

But when it pleased God (ὅτε δὲ αὐδόκησεν ὁ Θεός); and when it was the good pleasure of God. The Authorized Version and the Revised Version have “but when.” To determine the exact force here of the conjunction δέ, we must consider how the sentence it introduces stands related to what precedes. The main underlying thought of Galatians 1:13, Galatians 1:14 was that the habit of the apostle’s mind before his conversion was such as wholly to preclude the notion of his having known the gospel up to that hour. The main thought pervading Galatians 1:15-17, and indeed pursued to the end of the chapter, is that, after he had received from God himself the knowledge of the gospel, he had had no occasion to have recourse to any mortal man, apostle or other, for the purpose of further instruction therein. It follows that the conjunction connecting the two sentences is not adversative, as it would, of course, be taken if God’s dealings with him, described in Galatians 1:15, Galatians 1:16, were the main point of this new paragraph, but is simply the sign of the writer’s passing on to another thought—not one contrasted with the preceding, but merely additional. As examples of the use of δὲ as continuative and not adversative, comp. Luke 12:11, Luke 12:16; Luke 13:6, Luke 13:10; Luke 15:11; Acts 9:8, Acts 9:10; Acts 12:10, Acts 12:13; Romans 2:3; 1 Corinthians 16:15, 1 Corinthians 16:17. It may be represented in English by “and” or “and again.” In the reading of the Greek text it is not certain whether we ought not to omit the word “God” (ὁ Θεός). If it is a gloss which has crept into the text, it is unquestionably a just gloss. Similar omissions of the Divine Name, as Bishop Lightfoot observes, are frequent in St. Paul (see 1Co 1:6; 1 Corinthians 2:8; Romans 8:11; Philippians 1:6). The verb εὐδοκεῖν properly exprcsses complacency; as e.g. Matthew 3:17, “In whom I am well pleased;” and often. And this notion may be commonly traced in its use even when followed, as here, by an infinitive. Thus in 1 Thessalonians 2:8, “It would have been a pleasure to us to impart,” etc.; in 1 Thessalonians 3:1, “It was painful to us to be left alone, but under the circumstances we gladly chose to be so.” When applied, as here, to God, the notion of the pleasure which he takes in acts of beneficence must not be lost sight of; “Was graciously pleased;” comp. Luke 12:32, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” In Ephesians 1:5 the noun “good pleasure” points to the act of “predestination” spoken of as a volition of his heart and not of merely his regulative wisdom. The apostle seems led to use the word here by the complacency and joy which he himself felt in having been made the recipient of this “revelation;” those sentiments of his own bosom are, to his view, a reflection of the Divine complacency in imparting it. At the same time, the reader must be conscious of the deep sense, in fact the supremely prevailing sense, which the apostle has just here, that the imparting of the revelation spoken of was the fruit solely of a Divine volition triumphing over extreme wickedness and infatuation on his own part. Compare, in this respect also, the passage Ephesians 1:5, just cited. It is this feeling which prompts the introduction of the deeply emotional parenthesis consisting of the two next clauses of the verse. Who separated me from my mother’s womb (ὁ ἀφορίσας με ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου); who set me apart from my mother’s womb. The verb ἀφορίζω, set apart, separate, which is found used in other relations in Leviticus 20:26 (LXX.); Matthew 13:49; Matthew 25:32; Acts 19:9; Galatians 2:12, is employed here with an implied reference to a specific office or work. Such a reference is explicitly added in Acts 13:2,” Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them;” and in Romans 1:1, “Separated unto the gospel of God.” There is this distinction, however, between the “setting apart” of the present passage and that of Acts 13:2, that, whereas in the latter it was one actually realized, here it is in the Divine predestination only, which last seems to be nearly the sense of the words, “whereunto I have called them,” in the Acts. In Romans 1:1 the verb probably includes both senses. “From my mother’s womb” means “from the time that I was as yet unborn;” not perhaps exactly “ever since my birth,” as Judges 16:17; Matthew 19:12; Acts 3:2; Acts 14:8; comp. rather Luke 1:15, as illustrated by Luke 1:41. The addition of these words is designed to mark the purely arbitrary character of this predestination. Comp. Romans 9:11, “The children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand.” Viewed thus, the clause appears as an utterance of adoring humility on the part of the apostle, combined, however, with the strongest possible assertion of the Divine origin of his mission. A similar statement of God’s arbitrary selection of a particular human being for a particular function is found in Isaiah 49:1, “The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name; “ibid., Isaiah 49:5, “That formed me from the womb to be his servant;” and again, with yet more striking resemblance, in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations (προφήτην εἰς ἔθνη).” It is difficult not to believe that this conviction of the apostle concerning himself as an object of God’s predestinating purpose, and perhaps even the form of its expression—for compare the words in the next verse, “That I might preach him among the Gentiles (ἔθνεσιν)”—was very mainly derived from the Lord’s words to Jeremiah, applied by the Spirit to his own particular case (comp. Acts 9:15). The apostle feels that all the while that he had been pursuing that career of persecuting impiety and passionate Pharisaism, the Almighty had kept his eye upon him as his predestined apostle, and been waiting for the fitting hour when to summon him forth to his work. And called me by his grace (καὶ καλέσας με διὰ τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ). As the “setting apart” mentioned in the previous clause unquestionably was a “setting apart” for the apostolic office, it might seen convenient to understand the “calling” likewise as a calling to be an apostle. So most probably we are to take the words κλητὸς ἀπόστολος in Romans 1:1 as meaning “called to be an apostle;” and in Hebrews 5:4 the verb “called“ is used of one called to be a priest. But the prevailing sense of “being called,” in St. Paul’s writings, refers to the bringing of the soul to Christ and into his kingdom; and in this definite reference the apostle uses the verb no less than twenty-four times, three of them in this Epistle (Hebrews 1:6; Hebrews 5:8, Hebrews 5:13). And this, the regular use of the term, is quite in place here. It was quite natural that the writer, after so vividly portraying his former life when unregenerate, should now distinctly advert to the moral transformation which by Divine grace he had been the subject of. The word “grace” denotes God’s freely expanding unmerited goodness, not as existing in himself, but as energizing upon men. This is made clear by the introduction of the preposition (διὰ) “through” or “by.” It is that “grace whose “reigning” power the apostle so exultingly extols in Romans 5:15-21 (comp. Ephesians 2:5, “By grace have ye been saved”). The notion of mercy shown to the utterly undeserving is a prominent element of the word, connected as it is here with the description of the writer’s former wickedness (comp. the use of the verb “obtained mercy (ἠλεήθην)” in 1 Timothy 1:13, 1 Timothy 1:16). This clause, together with the preceding one, is not to be taken as a part of the historical statement in conjunction with the next verse, as if tracing the successive steps of the transaction, but as a periphrastic designation of Almighty God adapted to the circumstances of the case. The one article prefixed in the Greek to the two combined clauses shows this. We need not, therefore, perplex ourselves to determine the relation in point of time which the Divine acts here indicated bear to that described in the verse which follows. The tone of the verse is in a measure apologetic, rebutting the prejudice which, we may be sure, did in the view of many accrue to the writer from what he once had been. Thus: “Nevertheless, God had all along, even kern the dawn of his being, set him apart to be his apostle; God, by a marvellous exercise of goodness, had called him forth out of that evil state to be his own: unworthy, no doubt, he had proved himself to be of such mercy; but what God’s grace had made him, that he was; for who should dare to contravene his hand?”

The Pulpit Commentaries tend to give an extra focus to the underlying language, but here it’s useful in parsing out the meaning of the text. Further, we see Paul continuing on with his defense of his argument. He seems to know that his biography might be used against him by some of those he is rebuking, as Paul did not train as a disciple under Christ for three years. However, Paul uses his biography as a tool to affirm his authority.

Returning to Ellicott’s note for verse 16:

(16) To reveal his Son in me.—That is, probably, in my mind, or consciousness. Before the Apostle could preach Christ to the Gentiles he needed to have first that intense inward conviction which was wrought in him during that sustained mental struggle which followed upon his conversion. It is possible that “in me” might be equivalent to “through me, as an organ or instrument”; but the sense above given, “in my heart and soul,” seems more likely.

That I might preach him.—The one process was preparatory to the other. Having once obtained a firm inward apprehension of Christ as the Messiah and Saviour, the Apostle then comes forward to preach Him among the heathen. But that firm inward apprehension was not to be attained all at once, and it was in seeking this that “the Spirit drove him” into the wilderness of Arabia. First comes the instantaneous flash of the idea upon his soul (“to reveal his Son in me”); then the prolonged conflict and meditation, in which it gets thoroughly consolidated, and adjusted, and worked into his being (during the retirement into Arabia); lastly, the public appearance as a preacher to the heathen upon the return to Damascus.

Immediately.—This brings out the promptness and decision of the Apostle’s action. The moment that the idea of Jesus as the Saviour was presented to his mind he sought no human aid to help him to work out the conception, but went at once into the desert.

Conferred not.—A substantially correct translation, though not quite exact. The Greek word contains the idea of taking counsel in personal interview, much as we now use the word “apply” in the phrase to “apply to a person.”

With flesh and blood—i.e., with man, with especial reference to human frailty and fallibility. Compare, for a like contrast between human and divine revelation, the commendation of St. Peter in Matthew 16:17 : “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”

Verse 17 addresses the likely complaint that some might level against Paul – namely that he did not consult with the Apostles in Jerusalem – and turns it around as an argument for Paul’s authority. He received the Gospel directly from Christ himself. Again in Ellicott:

(17) Went I up.—The usual phrase is to go up to “Jerusalem,” from the fact that Jerusalem stood upon high ground, and was approached from all sides by an ascent. Here, however, the reading is doubtful between “went up” and “went away,” each of which is supported by nearly equally good authority. In so close a balance of the authorities the less common phrase is, perhaps, more likely to have been the original reading, though there is an almost equal probability that it may have slipped in from the second “went” (really the same word, “went away”), a little further on in the verse.

Unto Arabia.—The question, what part of Arabia St. Paul retired into can only be one of speculation. There is nothing in the context to show at all decisively. The boundary of Arabia at this period was not exactly defined. By some writers it was made to include Damascus itself. It is therefore possible that by “Arabia” may have been meant the desert in the neighbourhood of the city. This would be the most obvious supposition. But, on the other hand, there would be a certain appropriateness if we could imagine, as we are certainly permitted to do, that the scene of his sojourn may have been the region of Mount Sinai itself. The place where the Law was first given may have seen its renewal in his mind—not destroyed, but fulfilled in the new law of love. Like Moses, and like Elijah, the great minister of the new dispensation may have here received strength for his work. And if this was the case, we can the more readily understand the typical allusion to Mount Sinai later in the Epistle. Such arguments may have some slight weight, but the real locality must remain uncertain.

As to the time of the Apostle’s withdrawal, and its duration, little can be said beyond the fact that it must have come within the three years that intervened between his conversion and the first visit to Jerusalem. When we compare this account with the narrative of the Acts, it is not clear how they are to be reconciled. St. Paul says, that after his conversion, “immediately (eutheôs) he conferred not with flesh and blood . . . but went unto Arabia.” St. Luke says, after recording the same event, “Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway (eutheos) he preached Christ (or, according to a more correct reading, Jesus) in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God” (Acts 9:19-20). There does not seem room here to insert the retreat into Arabia. It would indeed come in more naturally among the “many days,” mentioned in a later verse, which were terminated by the plot of the Jews against the life of the Apostle and his final escape from Damascus. There would still, however, be some apparent collision between “conferring not with flesh and blood” and “spending certain days with the disciples” at Damascus. The discrepancy is only such as we might expect to find between two perfectly independent narratives, one of which was compiled from secondary sources, and is, besides, very brief and summary in its form. We are obliged, by the Apostle’s own words, to believe that his withdrawal into Arabia took place “immediately” after his conversion; and as it would not take a very long time to attract the attention or excite the animosity of the Jews at Damascus, it seems natural to suppose that this period of silent seclusion occupied the larger half of the whole period of three years.

The patristic commentators seem to have held, for the most part, to the belief that the object of his visit to Arabia was to preach to the heathen there; but the whole context of the Epistle shows that it was rather for solitary meditation and communion with God.

Damascus.—We gather from 2 Corinthians 11:32 that Damascus was at this time in the possession, or in some manner, at least, under the rule, of Aretas, the Arabian king. How this can have been is an obscure and difficult question. (See Note on that passage.) It may have been seized by him, and held for a time, during his war with Herod Antipas and the Romans at the end of the reign of Tiberius, in A.D. 36-37; or it may possibly have been placed in his hands by Caligula on the disgrace of his rival, Antipas; or “the ethnarch under Aretas the king” may have been an officer subordinate to the Romans, and charged with a sort of consulship over the Arabians in Damascus. The first theory does not seem quite probable in the face of a power so strong as that of Rome; the second is a pure hypothesis, with no support from any contemporary writer; and the third hardly seems to satisfy the conditions of the problem. In any case, the most probable date of these events would be soon after the death of Tiberius in A.D. 37.

The visit of Paul to Arabia is a bit of a mystery. For a longer discussion on that topic, I invite you to watch the following video:

This next video, referring to an article by theologian N.T. Wright, links Paul’s mention of time in Arabia with 1 Kings, Mt. Sinai, and perhaps a longer experience with Jesus. It’s extremely fascinating.