Context No. 2641 of 4322 · Galatians

Galatians 1:11-17: in context

11But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man. 12For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ. 13For you have heard of my way of living in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it. 14I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace, 16to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn’t immediately confer with flesh and blood, 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Then I returned to Damascus.

Paul tells the Galatians how his gospel came to him, and in the telling he reveals something about grace. He had been a violent persecutor of the church, advancing in his old religion beyond his peers, fiercely zealous for the traditions of his fathers. And yet, he says, God had set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me. The grace that stopped him on the Damascus road had, in fact, been on him since before he was born.

Read that carefully. During all the years Paul was persecuting Christians, dragging them to prison, God's gracious purpose was already on his life, waiting. He had been set apart from birth for a calling he was, at the time, violently opposing. Grace was not a late reaction to Paul's conversion; it had marked him from the womb and reached back over his whole story, even its worst chapters. That is a staggering thing to consider about one's own life. The grace that finally found me may have been on me all along, through the years I ran from it, quietly set apart for a purpose I could not yet see.

Can I believe God's gracious purpose was on my life even before I knew him, even through my rebellious years, set apart from birth for something I could not yet see?

Sources

Galatians 1:15: when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace.
Galatians 1:13: how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it.
Galatians 1:16: to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.