A Portrait of Paul

Welcome

Good morning and welcome to Redeemer Church. As Ethan said, our goal is ultimately to glorify God, and we do so by shining the light of Jesus to everyone around us and so we hope that you see just that this morning, see the wonderful light of Jesus as we sing His praises and dig into His word. If you are new here with us I hope you feel welcome and loved and we thank you so much for visiting our church family this morning!

Now, I wanted to make you all aware that my family is here from TN, which is wonderful, but I want to make it clear, no one is allowed to ask them for embarrassing stories from my childhood. To do so would bring immediate church discipline down upon you, so please just give them a wide birth. But other than that I hope you feel welcomed into our church family this morning!

Reminder of Galatians

We have recently begun a series in the book of Galatians. And if you were here last week you might remember that this book was written by a man named Paul to a group of churches in the region of Galatia which was located in modern day Turkey. Now Paul wrote this letter for a specific purpose. You see, there was a group called the Judaizers and they were worming their way into the churches that Paul started. And their goal, as Galatians 1:6-7 tells us, was to essentially discredit Paul so that they could replace the message that Paul preached with their own message.

The message that Paul preached was the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now the word gospel literally means good news and the news that Paul preached was one could possibly ever hear! And it was a simple yet profound message! That Jesus, the Son of God who was God Himself, was hung on a cross for our sin, where the wrath of God the Father was poured out on Him, the wrath that should have been ours to receive. And he died there, on that cross, bruised, bloody and pierced. But, the gospel that Paul preached doesn’t stop there! Jesus rose again from the dead, so that if you place your faith in Him and what He did for you on the cross, taking your sins and punishment on Himself, you will be forgiven. Your sin, wiped away. Your heart, once dead, brought to life. The guilt and shame that weighs you down, removed. The alienation you have from God, turned into relationship as the Father wraps His arms around you and calls you son and daughter. And, most importantly, salvation comes only through the grace of God, meaning you cannot earn it. There is not a single good deed you can do to either earn salvation or keep your salvation. Spurgeon says, “ Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.” It is purely by grace through faith in Jesus that you are saved! This is the message that Paul founded the churches in Galatia on.

And this is message of grace is what the Judaizers sought to uproot and replace with their false gospel.

The Judaizers hated and were set against the pure grace of the gospel Paul preached. As we mentioned last week, the Judaizers were former Jews who were claiming to be Christians and believed for one to be saved you must not only believe in Jesus but you must also keep the Law of Moses found in the OT. They believed you must have faith plus your own, human effort to be justified before God, to have a right relationship with Him. And in order to distort the gospel of grace, they first had to discredit Paul, they had to slander his name and reputation. So they began declaring that he was an impostor, masquerading as an apostle. That his message was not from Jesus but from other men, taught to him by someone else. That he was just a former disciple of one of the twelve apostles who simply went rogue. And they did this viciously, believing if they can cast doubt about the authority of Paul, they can begin to sew the seeds of their false gospel of faith plus works.

And Paul, in our passage today, begins his defense against this slander.

But before we dive in, let’s pray.

Lord, prepare our hearts and minds

We ask that your Spirit teaches us this morning

Mold us, shape us, and conform us more to your image through your word

Before we look at Paul’s defense against the slander from the Judaizers, it is important to understand that Paul is not seeking to defend himself in order to simply protect his own reputation or what other people think of him. In verse 10 he makes clear that pleasing man is not a top concern of his. He is seeking to defend himself in order to defend the truthfulness of his message, so that the churches in Galatia will accept the message of grace. Paul does not defend himself for his own sake, but for the sake of the gospel.

And for that purpose, Paul begins to sketch out an autobiography not so that the church will be more appreciative of him, but to authenticate the truthfulness of the gospel, that is his only concern. And as you read this you can almost feel his passion and at some points, his frustration, because Paul knows that it was only through the message that he brought that anyone could be saved, and not other! That only through gospel of Jesus Christ, can someone who spiritually broken, lost, without hope, gain an eternal life.

Now, let’s take a look at the beginning of Paul’s defense. Look at v. 11 and 12: “For I would have you know, brother, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

These first two verses begin in a way that is very similar to the first verse of this chapter, where he writes, “Paul, an apostle- not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead.” So Paul, from the very first verse of this book wanted to make it clear that his apostleship did not come from man but came from the risen Christ! Likewise, we see in verses 11 and 12 that gospel he preached also did not find it’s origins in man but it was revealed to him by Jesus Christ. These verses are similar in structure, as John Piper points out, because the truth of Paul’s apostleship and the truth of the gospel stand or fall together (repeat). Why is that? To understand this, let’s turn to Eph. 2:19-20. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens (Paul is speaking to Christians), but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, (now listen closely hear), built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.”

Paul writes this to explain the very nature of the church that was being created here in the New Testament, the foundations of which are built upon the apostles and the prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone on which everything rests. Now the foundations were not these apostles and prophets personally, but the divine revelation that they had received from Jesus and that they taught to the church. So it was entrusted to the apostles and prophets to lay the foundations of the first century church by teaching the gospel of Christ.

Now to help clear some of this up, the prophets in the NT were those who were given the gift of prophecy, or direct inerrant revelation from God in order to teach believers in a local setting or in a local church.

The apostles were slightly different. They were those who were given the message of the gospel directly from Jesus, who sat at His feet and receive instruction directly from Him and after His ascension into heaven, were sent abroad, and given ministry over all churches, even establishing most of them. And what the apostles taught was authoritative to all churches, because they were not the apostles teachings, they were Jesus’ teachings.

So can you see why the truth of Pauls apostleship and the truth of the gospel he preached would rise or fall together? The attack on Paul’s apostleship was very calculated. The Judaizers knew the authority that the apostles had over the churches so if they could get the Galatians to discard Paul’s claim of being an apostle they could get the Galatians to discard the gospel of grace that Paul preached.

So Paul begins his defense in v. 11 and 12 by making the blanket assertion that the message he preached did not come to him by man, it came to him from Jesus, which gave him the status of apostle.

The word in verse 12 for revelation is the word apocalypse, which means unveiling. Paul is saying in verse 12 that Jesus unveiled, lifted the blanket off the wonders of the gospel to Paul personally. And it had to be so! The message of grace Paul received and taught is far too deep, far too high, far too glorious and far too genius to come from the mind of man. It had to be supernaturally unveiled to Paul by God.

And in verses 13-24 Paul defends this assertion and he does so in four ways. Now we are going to have to go through these pretty quick so buckle in.

The 4 Defenses

The first defense of his apostleship and therefore the gospel that Paul employs is by appealing to his pre-conversion life, his pre-Christian life. Look at verses 13 and 14: “For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 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.”

Before he became the writer of this book and at least twelve others in the New Testament, Paul was a Pharisee, a sect of Jewish men who were intensely devoted to the Law of God. And there was a group amongst the Pharisees that was the most zealous, the most devout to the law of God and they made it their goal, their life’s work, to summarize all the laws that are found in the OT And they came up with a list of 1,001 laws and if they could keep all of these laws perfectly for 24 hours, God would send the Messiah. And naturally Paul was a member of this group. And not only was he a member, but he was the most zealous member! So dedicated was he to these laws that any one who preached that the Messiah had already come and that you no longer were bound to Jewish customs, anyone who dared to whisper the name of Jesus, became enemy number 1. Paul became a violent destroyer of the church. Going from town to town, seeking to kill or imprison anyone who claimed to be a follower of Jesus and was present at the stoning of Stephen, the first recorded Christian martyr. You can find that story in Acts 7.

Now, why is Paul drudging up his ugly and brutal past in these verses? Paul is appealing to his life before his conversion to defend what he says in verses 11 and 12, that his gospel did not come from man. You see, Paul’s reputation as a violent persecutor of the church was well known. No one in their right mind would accuse him of sneaking into the back pew of the church to secretly hear the teaching of the gospel. No one would accuse him of being like Nicodemus, approaching an apostle in the dead of night to learn of salvation in Jesus. It would be absurd to believe that Paul had any softness in his heart toward Christianity.

That is Paul’s exhibit A that the gospel did not come to him from man. He was not taught it during his pre-conversion experience, he had nothing but hatred in his heart for Jesus’s bride, the church. He didn’t want to learn of it, he wanted to annihilate it.

The next and most significant of Paul’s defenses was his supernatural conversion. Look at verses 15 through the first half of 16: “But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.”

Paul did not come to faith people do now. You see, no one shared the gospel with Paul, no one laid out the plan of salvation to him. In fact, in Acts chapter 9 we are told that Paul was on his way to the city of Damscus, with letters in hand giving him permission to imprison any Christian he found, when Jesus, in a miraculous way, revealed Himself to Paul, to call Paul to Himself and to commission him as an apostle and preacher of the gospel. Paul’s conversion is utterly unique in the history of the Christianity.

A theologian once said that Paul is arguing that attempting to explain the change in Paul from a ravager of the church to it’s greatest defender and preacher merely by the works of men is grasping at the thinnest of straws. The only truly plausible explanation for this radical transformation in Paul was that he saw the risen Christ, who set him apart, like the prophet Jeremiah, before the foundations of the world were formed, for the purpose of bearing witness to the world the wonders and freedom that are to be had in the gospel! No clever words of man, no persuasive argument could have possibly melted Paul’s heart of stone and turn zealous hatred of Jesus into zealous love for Jesus. That radical transformation could have only been done by Jesus Himself.

So, Paul’s second defense is that his conversion did not come from hearing the gospel preached by a human being, but through a direct encounter with Jesus.

Now, I am going to go over these last three defenses of Paul fairly quickly so we can have to time to see why Paul defending his apostleship matters for us today. His third defense comes from his Post Conversion Experience. Let’s take a peak at the rest of verse 16 and verse 17: “I did not immediately consult with anyone; 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.”

The point that Paul is making here is that no one discipled him or instructed him after his conversion. Jesus when He appeared to Paul, did not say, “Now go and study with the apostles.” Instead, we are told he goes into Arabia and then Damascus for three years, and as soon as he arrived, we are told in Acts 19 that he immediately began to preach the gospel. And he makes this point to show that his message was a not a hand-me-down from other men. Verse 17 tells us that he did seek out the other apostles for instruction after his conversion because all of his instruction, all of his teaching came directly from the Second Person of the Trinity, directly from Jesus, just like a true apostle.

Paul’s next defense is that even when he did finally meet another apostle, after three years in Arabia and Damascus, it was very limited contact. Let’s read verse 18 and 19: “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas (Peter) and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.”

Paul is explaining that he had extremely limited exposure to the other apostles, in fact he only saw two of them and for only 15 days. He did not see Luke, he did not see John or Thomas or any of others. Only Peter and John, Jesus earthly brother and for only a span of 15 days. Paul’s point is that his understanding of the council of God, of the breadth and depth and majesty of the gospel could not have come from a mere 15 day visit with these two apostles. And this fact could not possibly support the Judaizers contention that Paul was only a secondhand disciple of the apostles in Jerusalem.

Finally, Paul’s last defense of his apostleship comes in verses 20-24 and ties into the previous two; his early ministry. Let’s read these verses: “(In what I am writing you, I do not lie!) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They were only hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.”

Paul is saying here that after his very brief stint in Jerusalem with Peter and James, he left for the relatively remote places of Syria and Cilicia in the North and Northwest of Judea, where Jerusalem was located which meant, as verse 22 states that he was unknown to the churches in Judea, to the largest, and most influential churches in the world at that time!

The point here is this: If Paul had truly been an understudy of the apostles in Jerusalem, then these churches in Judea would have been precisely where he would have worked! The churches down there would be well acquainted with him, know what he looks like, and know the sound of his voice, they would be familiar with him. But they weren’t! He was all but unknown to them, only knowing stories of his miraculous conversion, nothing more.

Now, Paul’s argument all through this passage is the same; his apostleship did not come through man and no opinion from man informed his doctrine or beliefs. He was a true apostle in every sense of the word, learning everything he knew and taught directly at the feet of Jesus.

Now, all of this was a bit tedious and technical and you may be wondering why we needed a whole sermon on the life of Paul. Well, the jokes on you because we are about to have two sermons on the life of Paul, just check out the first half of chapter two! But to see the reason why this passage is so important for us today is by understanding that authority and truth are the central issues here and there are two messages, as Martin Luther points out, that are vying for our allegiance; Paul’s and the Judaizers. And friends, the difference between the two is heaven and hell. And believing the true message is the most important thing in the world for you and for me. And in this passage, Paul is thrusting this issue of truth upon us, as uncomfortable as it may be.

You see, if the Judaizers are right, and Paul’s apostleship is false, then everything that he says in this book to the Galatians and every other book he has written is false. If the Judaizers are right, and the message of grace that Paul preached is simply a figment of Paul’s or someone elses imagination, then there is no reason for us to not live hedonistic lives where we eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die because there is no ever after. Or, on the flip side, we believe there is salvation to be had, but it must come through not just faith but in the works of our flesh, by the sweat of our brow, and we will work and toil all for a chance, just a shot in the dark that maybe we have done enough in our lives to outweigh all our sins and please God. And rest and peace will be as far out of our grasp as the stars.

But if Paul’s right, and the defenses of his apostleship are true, then that means two things for you and I:

The first is that the gospel of grace is true! Jesus, the Holy God, truly died by crucifixion to save us, sinners! And as Johnathan Edwards said, we contribute nothing to our own salvation but the sin that made it necessary! He gives forgiveness of sin and eternal life to those who trust in Him. The preacher Charles Spurgeon spoke of the gospel like this, “The heart of Christ became like a reservoir in the midst of the mountains. All the tributary streams of iniquity, and every drop of the sins of his people, ran down and gathered into one vast lake, deep as hell and shoreless as eternity. All these met, as it were, in Christ’s heart, and he endured them all for us.” Believe this friends, place your faith in the work that Jesus did on the cross!

Secondly, and please here me with love, it means that all other messages that differ from the gospel of Jesus Christ are false. Remember Paul’s words in verse 8 and 9, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached you, let him be accursed (eternally condemned). As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

Friends, we live in a world that despises claims of absolute religious truth. The world, the culture around us views it as intolerant that any one religion would dare claim it is the true and only way to God. Isn’t it ironic, then, that Jesus calls Himself in John 14:6 the truth. You see, Jesus says that there are not many ways to heaven and all religions are not valid, in fact they are damning. Jesus is the only truth, and He says that He alone is the only way to the Father. Acts 4:12 tells us clearly that Salvation comes from no one else, and there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.”

We must know that ultimate reality does not conform around what we want or wish to be true about spiritual things. God does not contort Himself to fit the opinions and feelings that we have about the way we think He should operate. His ways are far too great and good to be contained by the wishful thinking of human beings. And friends, the real truth is that the mercy and love and grace of God is far sweeter than anything we could ever concoct in our imaginations! It is a mercy and love and grace that forgives and makes clean even a murderous zealot like Paul. That can forgive and make clean even a sinner like me and you.

I kind of got off on a tangent there but bringing this boat back around to the apostleship of Paul, if his words are true, if he is a true apostle whose words we read are the exact words that Jesus spoke to him, that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, then let us lean forward, and pay attention to the gospel of grace he preaches.

Let’s pray