I
neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the
revelation of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:12
The certainty and the assurance that was right at the root of
his Christian life and service came because of this one thing: he'd seen
everything in Jesus. Everything... in Jesus. What liberation that brought to
him! What emancipation! We have often said here that there was no power in this
world that could have turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus, into a
Christian and a lover of Jesus of Nazareth. No power in this world that could
have done that, but just seeing Jesus Himself in
this way and that did it, that did it! He was emancipated, he was free! No
wonder of all his writings the fiercest, the fieriest is his letter to the
Galatians, the letter of our liberty in Christ and
it begins with this "God revealed His Son in me and that set me free from
all other things."
No use telling people that this and that, and the other thing
are a limitation and that they should seek enlargement by getting out of it.
That is an unfruitful, unprofitable, indeed that's a dangerous line to take
with anybody. But again, if only we can bring Christ... with all His
divine significance and meaning and comprehensiveness to them and the Holy
Spirit can reveal Him in their hearts... oh, that will do it! That will do it;
they will never again be content with anything that limits them to the grave
clothes of religion. It delivered Paul from Judaism as nothing else would have
done. The way of an escape, the way of enlargement, the way of endurance is to
see Jesus. It is not by learning, that is, it is not by the schools. Paul had
all of the schools, he did, of religion. He didn't get it through the schools
and we'll never get it through the schools; along that line of the technical
instruction of things Christian or religious. This is not a merely mental or
academic or intellectual thing at all. It is a work of the Holy Spirit.
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