Galatians 1:16, commentary and pictures

To reveal His Son in Paul meant his apostleship and commission to preach Christ among the Gentiles came from God, not from human appointment or instruction. It meant his grasp of the gospel came by special revelation from Jesus Christ, who showed Himself to him as the Son of God in divine glory and turned him from a persecutor into a penitent believer and apostle. After his first preaching in Damascus Paul went apart into Arabia, and there he conferred alone with God in communion, prayer, searching of heart and study, where Jesus established him in the faith and gave him wisdom, grace and assurance of pardon for the work before him. The same revealing is to take place within every believer, with Christ abiding in mind and heart and His image and love made manifest as the person yields and works in harmony with God. Therefore to confer not with flesh and blood means to obey at once what is seen at the foot of the cross without consulting human reasoning or delay, and to stand firm to principle by God's express command when brought into strait places in the closing conflict.

Paul's Divine Commission

To reveal His Son in Paul meant that his apostleship and commission to preach Christ among the Gentiles came from God, not from human appointment or instruction. His grasp of the gospel and its doctrines came by special revelation from Jesus Christ, not from human teachers, and his conversion and early Christian experience gave him settled confidence in warning the Galatians. Christ revealed Himself to him as the Son of God in divine glory, and that revelation led him to devote his life to preaching Christ among the Gentiles.

It changed him from a persecutor into a sincere, penitent believer and apostle and messenger of God. The vision first filled him with terror but afterward became a great consolation, as God's transforming mercy made him a new man. His words are therefore to be received as true and sacred instruction bearing divine authority and the stamp of heaven, showing the high position to be maintained by the Seventh-day Adventist church. After his first preaching in Damascus, with his life in danger, he was sent by God to Arabia apart from the apostles, and he did not go to Jerusalem until three years later, when he stayed only fifteen days before preaching the gospel to the Gentiles.

In Arabian solitude he conferred not with flesh and blood and did not communicate with the apostles, but conferred alone with God in communion, contemplation, searching of heart, deepened repentance, prayer and study. He did this to prepare for a work that appeared too great and important for him. There Jesus communed with him in close connection with heaven, established him in faith, and bestowed wisdom and grace upon him for his ministry. He sought God earnestly until he knew for certain that his repentance was accepted, his great sin pardoned, and that Jesus would be with him and sustain him in his coming ministry. His eyes blinded by the heavenly light remained as a bodily mark of Christ's glory and of his need of constant sustaining grace.

Christ Revealed Within

To reveal his Son in me means Christ is to be revealed in the believer, with His own image and love unveiled in the human mind and heart as Jesus abides within. This inward revelation takes place only as the person allows it and cooperates with God, willing that God shall work and working in harmony with Him. It is the combining of the human with the divine that brings victory and converting power. It requires falling upon the Rock and being broken in the cleft of the rock, with pride and self and folly and wickedness and dishonesty and corruption of heart and licentiousness and impurity broken in pieces. That breaking produces a decided change in ideas and feelings, making ready for Christ's coming.

Obeying Without Conferring

To be prepared to stand in the day of the Lord a person must come low to the foot of the cross and obey at once what is seen, without consulting human reasoning or delaying over what is not understood. The clouded mind must take the one step it does see in order to see the next, kindle its taper from the divine altar, and right wrongs and remove stumbling blocks without delay before it is everlastingly too late. In doing so God will help that person to see personal weakness and inefficiency and the glory and majesty of Christ.

In the last closing conflict God's commandment-keeping servants when brought into straight places must not confer with flesh and blood but stand firm as a rock to principle and obey God's express command. This holds when many are imprisoned, flee for their lives from cities and towns, become martyrs for Christ in defense of the truth, and are brought before kings and rulers and councils to meet false, absurd, and lying accusations. There is then no time to confer with flesh and blood but absolute need of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Satan's power is apparently in supremacy as he seeks to turn all things in the world to his own purpose and to imbue human beings with his own spirit and nature. The resulting conflict is terrible, with minds and hearts surcharged with hostility against divine revelation, passions stirred with envy against purity and holiness and devotion to God and His requirements, the will set like granite against all that is called God or that is worshiped, and satanic agencies confederated with evil men as instruments of unrighteousness throwing their whole force into the battlefield of evil against good.

Not conferring with flesh and blood is to work for God and not for man by drawing power from the Lord Jesus Christ as the highest Authority. It is pleading earnestly for power to win souls to the truth, showing constantly increasing devotion to God's service while leaving the measurement of the work with Him, laying hold of God's promises without complaint, laboring with a heart melted with the love of God for those who know not the truth, and asking what the Lord would have done. It is to confer no longer with flesh and blood by no longer looking to any human as perfect or depending on human influence for salvation, and by offering no excuse at the final reckoning that others did not meet expectations as Christians. When a person knows what the Lord will accept as a perfect sacrifice, it is doing duty for Christ's sake at once, learning His meekness and lowliness by wearing His yoke and lifting His burdens. Believers must not consult human inclination but must inquire what the Lord says and what Jesus requires of them. They are to give to God all He purchased with His own blood — mental powers, ability, and every organ of the body — because they are bought with an infinite price and are not their own. They must not draw back from the cross of Christ as too hard to lift, for the cross must be lifted, and in lifting it it lifts the bearer as the pledge of everlasting life, requiring denying self and sacrificing at every step as Christ did in order to sit with Him upon His throne and receive everlasting life and an eternal weight of glory.