p. 50 | DECISION OF CHARACTER by Jos. Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 9, 1877

DECISION OF CHARACTER.

By Jos. Clarke

“IMMEDIATELY I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Gal. 1:16.

In the first and second chapters of Galatians, Paul relates his experience. He tells us how he was called of God to the ministry, and then how promptly he obeyed the summons, not hesitating or doubting in the least.

Paul was a man of great energy and ability, and he also possessed decision, and prudence, and honesty of purpose. Tarsus, as we learn from Acts 22, was his native city, his birthplace; it was a place where were congregated men of all nations and languages. This city was a center for trade, and a thoroughfare of commerce and travel. Paul early learned practical lessons of human life. His parents gave him opportunities of education, of social standing, and of mental and physical improvement, both at home and abroad. They also gave him a trade and taught him habits of industry and economy.

Paul was not only a good mechanic and diligent scholar, but he was also a professional man, a lawyer, a Pharisee. Probably he was a graduate from the school of Gamaliel, the greatest teacher of that age.

Believing in the truths of Inspiration, and having unbounded confidence in the Rabbis of his time, Paul did not for a moment doubt the correctness of the teachings of the Rabbis, or the justice of the decisions of the Jewish Sanhedrim. He was honest, true to what he believed to be right, and zealous to such a degree as to merit the title of a cruel persecutor of the church.

Having proved his fitness for the office of persecutor, he proposed a raid upon the Christian church in Damascus. Armed with documents and bills of indictment, he set out on his way to this beautiful city. His spirits were yet buoyant with youth, and he was elated at the prospect of soon enjoying the fragrant air, the mild climate, and the beautiful scenery of the city of Abraham, with its cooling baths, and its delicious fruits, and refined society. Not a doubt crossed his mind but that Jesus was, as the Rabbis had represented to him, a base pretender. Still it is highly probable that the spirit he had seen manifested on both sides of the question had roused his mind to inquiry, and he was anxious to know something more certainly of the man of whom so much had been said and surmised.

But his curiosity is to be fully satisfied. He journeys on, and comes near to the city. Its palaces of marble, its gardens and groves, are spread out before him in all their richness and beauty. And he is no doubt sustained by the consideration that he is the accredited agent to this city of the Jewish Sanhedrim, to destroy and crush out of existence the most dangerous heresy that had yet arisen. He fortifies his mind to endure the tears and prayers of the victims his peers have doomed to destruction at his hand. The young and the old, the beautiful youth and the dignified and noble in age and station, all must yield, and he must brave out the scenes he is well aware are to follow his mission.

But suddenly a light from heaven appears, growing more and more brilliant, until the proud persecutor and his guards are prostrate on the earth; and a voice of terrible majesty asks of Paul, “Why persecutest thou me?” Ah, indeed! the tables are turned. The great inquisitor, with his girdle full of documents and the hated sect almost within his grasp, is now on the ground blinded by the presence of the heavenly messenger, and with a trembling voice he inquires what Jesus would have him do.

Paul now changed his base of operations. Would he confer with those base men who had deceived him, and led him on to destroy the cause of the Man of sorrows? What could he hope for from them? There was only one way for him, and that was to look to the Lord alone, who left him not in this important crisis.

But what were the feelings and experience of Paul during those three days of blindness, in which he neither ate nor drank? Was not the whole plan of redemption unfolded to his mind, and the agreement of prophecy with facts in the life and death of Christ all made clear to him?

What a surprise was this to the mind of the rising Pharisee! How it dispelled his visions of earthly honor and glory! How small did the things of earth appear to him as he thought of the voice which said, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.” Alas! how terrible the thought that he had delivered to death the innocent and the good. He vowed entire consecration to the cause he came to destroy. Damascus was not the theater of his authority now, but a place of bitter repentance and sorrow of heart. How could it be that he could make war with Omnipotence?

But it is over now, and Paul delays not to go forth on his new mission and with his new-found authority. No documents from the high priest encumber his girdle now (he does not tell what became of those important State papers); but he bears in his heart, on his brow, and on his lips a seal of high authority. Every obstacle has to be removed from his path, devils tremble at his approach, and diseases are healed.

Paul’s commission bears its own evidence, and he has no need to confer with flesh and blood. He does not even need instruction in this new doctrine. It is all made clear to him as the noonday sun by the Spirit of God. Jos. CLARKE.