PAUL THE APOSTLE
in order to seek the recognition and instruction of the heads of the Church there, but ‘ went off into Arabia,’ where he remained for some time in com- parative solitude (vv.!” 15), In this connexion Paul speaks of the Twelve as ‘ the ΒΡΌΠΟΙΘΕ before me,’ since the manner of his call put him on an equality with them as one commissioned by Jesus Christ in person; for he had ‘seen Jesus our Lord’ in His visible human form, and had ‘ heard’—no mere spiritual call such as every servant of Christ hears —but ‘a word from His mouth’ (Ac 22), In this sense he introduces himself to the Romans (1"5) as ‘a bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apoeile one separated [marked off from others by his call] to proclaim God’s good news about His Son.’ It is noticeable that in the Address both of Romans and Galatians, where Paul reminds himself of the unique character of his apostleship, he speaks with emphasis of the resurrection of Christ, for it was the risen Saviour the sight of whom had changed everything for him. ‘The glory of that light’ reflects itself in many passages of Ἔξ. Paul's letters, —2 Th 1% 25, 1 Co 154 (‘ the image of the Heavenly One’), Ro 8'&, 1 Ti 6'5-16 2 ‘Tj 1101; and especially Ph 3%-* (‘the body of His glory’). Often, and more feelingly as time goes on, he dilates on the astonishing grace of God that called him, a violent enemy of the ospel, to be its bearer to all nations,—Gal 1)% 1 , 1Co 15% 1, Eph ota ete
While miraculous in the means that effected it, Paul’s conversion was no act of violence. There was an inward preparation for the revelation of Jesus, which brought to its issue a long struggle in the nature of Saul, and opened the door of escape from a moral situation that had become miserable beyond endurance to the proud and strict young Pharisee. The words of Jesus, ‘ Hard is it for thee to kick against the goad(s),’ touched the secret of the hearer’s heart. The ‘ goad’ of Ac 26 is the pedagogus and prison-keeper of Gal 3, ‘the law’ of 3. 4. 7 that ‘works out wrath,’ ‘the power of sin’ of 1Co 15%,—that, good in itself, supplied to sin the instrument by which it ‘wrought out death’ to Saul, setting his reason and flesh at internecine war. Beech as Saul attacked the name of the Nazarene, he carried a more devouring strife within his breast. That Judaic law which he strove to honour by extir- pating its contemners, through its impracticable
et most just demands was meanwhile driving
im, though he knew it not, into their ranks. Such was the irony of the situation revealed by this illuminating word of Jesus. St. Paul’s subsequent doctrine of the impotence of the moral law as a means of salvation is the transcript of this experi- ence. As he rode to Damascus, Saul was labouring under the painfully suppressed conviction of his powerlessness, and the powerlessness of his people, to fulfil the legal righteousness and therefore to attain the Messianic salvation which depended, he believed, upon this one condition. This inward rage made him a more furious persecutor. He was ‘kicking against’ a ‘ goad’ which wounded his soul; he was fighting down his secret misgivings respecting Judaism. Until this moment, however, Saul had no suspicion that the Nazarenes were in the right. he crucifixion had falsified the
* The interpretation here given to the words por πέντρα λακτίζων, more into the figure than is usual; but this fuller meaning appears to be forced upon us by the data of the Epp., the main doctrines of which are a product and reflex of the writer’s vital experience. Paul’s teaching on the Law and Faith rehearses the process that turned him from a Pharisee into a Christian. His soul had been pierced and lacerated by his sense of moral impotence in face of the Law. Like a stupid beast, Saul knew not whither this incessant goad was driving him, nor whose was the hand that plied it; he had struggled in wild and vain resistance, till the appearance and words of Jesus explained everything.
PAUL THE APOSTLE
104 apostles’ (the plural is inexact ; Peter and James ΠΟ eae: ie the Twelve), standing sponsor for him.
he disciples’ were shy of their old tormentor ; his disappearance from Damascus and the delay of his return had probably Sy area their sus- picions. It did not take long for Saul’s preaching to rouse the hatred of the murderers of Stephen, who looked on him as a traitor. The urgency of ‘the brethren’ seconded the command of the Lord in the temple vision, and Saul was ‘ brought down to Cesarea, and sent forth (by ship) to Tarsus.’ Saul had little opportunity during the fortnight to make acquaintance amongst the Christian com- munity in and around Jerus.; ‘and,’ he says, ‘I re- mained unknown by face to the Churches of Judea that are in Christ. Only they heard from time to time that our former persecutor is now preaching the faith of which he once made havoc’ (Gal 1”),
(a) With his arrival at Tarsus, in the second or third year after his conversion (‘after three years,’ Gal 1%, reckoning by years current), St. Paul’s missionary activity propany, begins,—when he ‘came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia’ (v.™: Cilicia was a dependency of Syria ; and Paul here zacludes his whole ministry up to the time of the Jerusalem Council, 3). This jirst period, of more retired and preparatory labour, extended from the year 37 A.D., or thereabouts, to 44,* when Barnabas summoned Saul to assist him at Antioch (Ac 11*-%), It was a seven years’ apprenticeship for the Gentile apostle. The language of Gal 1, and the reference of Ac 15% to ‘the brethren from among the Gentiles throughout Cilicia,’ as well as ‘Antioch and Syria,’ imply that numerous Churches were formed during this period in Saul’s native province. St. Paul’s work in his homeland, how- ever, lay outside that main course of the Ckurch’s development which Luke made it his business to sketch ; and we have no letters from him to Cilicia. But these oy τὸΘ years served important ends, in ripening St. Paul’s convictions, maturing his plans, and giving him mastery of the weapons of spiritual warfare that he was to ply upon a larger field. Independently, under no human master, he learnt his business as a missionary to the heathen. Over his relations to his family at Tarsus a veil is drawn ; but it seems unlikely that Paul would have stayed in this district so long had those relations been altogether hostile (cf. Ac 9315),