April
7
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.
By T. Austin-Sparks from: Revelation of
Jesus Christ - Chapter 7
This photograph is by Eric Jonas Swensson of Sound Shore Media.
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