Galatians 1:15
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood.
God formed Paul from the womb with the traits of a preacher. God called him on the road to Damascus. God revealed Christ to him during his three years in the desert of Arabia. The big picture here is not Election, but the fact that the Gospel was undermined in the Galatian Church, with the result that many were carried away. Paul accused the Galatians as having been brainwashed (Galatians 3:1), when yet they had once known the Gospel so well. Paul first sets up his credibility as an apostle, by reiterating that the calling of God for his life was to be a preacher, and he was, to some extent, a preacher even as a Pharisee. So God’s purpose for Paul’s life was to be a preacher, and Paul was faithful in this regard. (1st Corinthians 15:10) The Gospel that Paul preached was the “true” Gospel (not necessarily because he was of the redeemed elect, since Peter was of the redeemed elect too, and unwittingly preached a false Gospel anyway), but because Paul was faithful in the stewardship that God had entrusted to him, whereas Peter and the “establishment” were less than faithful, resulting in a Galatian catastrophe.
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “The call of the prophet is not the call to salvation but to service. Paul uses the language of Jeremiah to describe his own call. John the Baptist is a bit different, but not as much as people often believe. He also is called as a prophet from the womb and is set apart as the Preparer. While I believe all three of these men were ‘saved’ in the common sense of the term, their call did not necessitate their salvation. God can even use unrighteous prophets for his purpose.”
John Calvin: “The Lord spoke in the first chapter of Jeremiah a little differently from Paul so far as the words go, but in the same sense: ‘Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; I gave thee to be a prophet to the nations’ (I.5). For when he was not yet even begotten, God had sanctified Paul to the office of apostle, just as also Jeremiah to the office of prophet. But He is said to separate us from the womb because we are sent into the world for this purpose, that He may accomplish in us what He has decreed. The calling is delayed till its proper time, when God has adapted us for the task which He commands us to undertake. Paul’s words may therefore be resolved thus: ‘When it pleased God to reveal His Son by me, who called me as he had separated me.’ He wanted to show that this calling depended on the secret election of God, and that he was ordained as apostle, not because he had fitted himself for undertaking such an office by his own industry or because God had discerned that he was worthy of having it bestowed upon him, but because, before he was born, he had been set apart by the secret purpose of God.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, p.20, emphasis mine)
Question: Why did God show mercy to Paul?
Answer: Because he believed that he was following God faithfully, and so his persecution was based on his faith in God, being ignorant of what that God was doing in Christ, which indicates a condition for God’s bestowal of mercy to him. It was something about him that moved God to give him mercy. 1st Timothy 1:12-14 states: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.”
Question: Is Paul’s ordination as an apostle, comparable to Jeremiah’s ordination as a prophet?
Answer: Why not? Jeremiah was also set apart from his mother’s womb, as the Lord was pleased to reveal Himself to Jeremiah, so that Jeremiah might preach His message to Israel. (Jeremiah 1:5) Moreover, for God to say that He knew Jeremiah “before” he was physically formed in the womb, speaks of foreknowledge.
Question: Did the birth of the apostle Paul come about by chance?, or did it come about exactly by God’s design?, and if by design, why shouldn’t you conclude that everyone who has ever been born, has been similarly born by God’s design?
Answer: Indeed God does determine who gets born, where they are born, what they will face and when they will die. (See Acts 17:26-27)
Question: What does it mean that Paul was “set apart” from the womb to be the Lord’s apostle?
Answer: Consecration, ordination and appointment. God ordained Paul for service in the ministry of the Gospel, as Jesus stated: “...he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15-16)
Question: Is this saying that God foresaw Paul’s conversion at Damascus, and then pre-decided to save him?
Answer: That is both odd and unnecessary. Service, rather than salvation, is what is in view here. Remember that according to Paul, each has been given gifts, and the way in which God forms us from the womb, could also be in relation to those respective gifts, and then we are held accountable, accordingly. Romans 12:6-8 states: “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” 1st Corinthians 12:8-11 states: “For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles , and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.” Therefore, it is plausible that God had set Paul apart from the womb with a gift related to future evangelistic missionary work, and thus was a chosen vessel on that account.
Question: Even though God called Paul to be an evangelist, is Paul saying that he had no ability to reject this calling?
Answer: If Paul had no choice, then what did he mean when he said that he did not prove the grace of God in vain: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” (1st Corinthians 15:10-11) Therefore, there are those, unlike Paul, who indeed rendered the grace of God in vain. 2nd Corinthians 6:1-2 states: “And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain--for He says, ‘At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.’ Behold, now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation.’” Moreover, Galatians 1:6 states: “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another.” Everyone has been given a talent to serve Christ, and it can be used to serve God, or it can be used to serve the enemy. Everyone will be held accountable, according to the measure of this gift. Whether it’s a musical talent, intended for the worship of God, or a talent for teaching, or speaking, or exhortation, or whatever, everyone will be held accountable for what God had purposed them for.
Question: When did Paul come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?
Answer: Sometime after Jesus intercepted him on the road to Damascus. (Acts 9:9)
Question: When did the Father reveal His Son in Paul?
Answer: During his three year private seminary with God in the desert of Arabia. (Galatians 1:17-18)
John Calvin: “What, before he was born, had Paul that deserved so high an honour?” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, p.20, emphasis mine)
Absolutely nothing, but with such a great gift, comes great responsibility, and accountability.
Calvin adds: “Paul benefited from innumerable gifts of God before he was called to faith in Christ, and he could have tasted God’s fatherly kindness through these, as he had been brought up from infancy in the teachings of the law. But Paul remained in darkness so that he had no sense of God’s kindness until the Spirit enlightened his mind, and Christ came as a witness and pledge of God the Father’s grace. For without Christ, we remain strangers to the Father’s grace. So Paul is saying that God’s loving-kindness is revealed only by the light of faith.” (1 & 2 Timothy & Titus: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, pp.202-203, emphasis mine)
Calvin’s phrase “until the Spirit enlightened his mind,” was intended to convey Irresistible Grace, but the reality is that the Holy Spirit had been convicting Paul for some time, but Paul had been resisting God: “And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’” (Acts 26:14) The reality is that Paul remained in darkness, until Jesus confronted him (along the road to Damascus), and once again, with such a great gift, comes great responsibility and accountability.
Calvinist, James White: “When did Paul come into relationship with Jesus Christ? Was it when he ‘chose’ to ‘accept Jesus’? No, it was when God was pleased to reveal His Son in Paul. Not before, not after. God chose the time and the place and the method, and when that time came, no power in heaven or on earth could stop Him from accomplishing His purpose in Paul’s life. Indeed, how could it be otherwise?” (Debating Calvinism, p.205, emphasis mine)
Paul first came into a saving relationship with Jesus when Jesus met him along the road to Damascus, in which three days after, Paul remained blind, and went without food and water, pondering the events that had shaken the foundations of his life. (Acts 9:8-9) In terms of when God was pleased to reveal Jesus to him, that presumably occurred during the three years that Paul was studying in Arabia (Galatians 1:18), when he began to receive revelations of Christ: “For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12)
White continues: “What if Paul had continued in his rebellion, despite being struck blind? Are we to imagine God wringing His hands, wondering what He was going to do now, since the very missionary He was going to use to bring the message to a major portion of the world just refused to ‘cooperate’?” (Debating Calvinism, p.205, emphasis mine)
Question: Do you mean like Jonah?
Answer: What did God do with stubborn Jonah?
Irresistible Grace? Jonah did what Jonah did, and
God did what God did, and Jonah submitted. No
irresistible grace. Ironic, isn’t it?, that both Jonah
and Paul were, for three days, in their respective
trials? (Jonah 1:17; Acts 9:9)
God is all-knowing, all-wise and all-powerful,
sufficient enough to handle anyone’s free-will.
Calvinists, however, don’t seem to be all that
confident that God really could handle free-will.
White concludes: “And so at the appointed time He drew Saul of Tarsus, who had surely not ‘disposed himself’ to eternal life, into union with Jesus Christ. He took out the heart of stone and gave him a heart of flesh. Paul could no more stop this divine resurrection than Lazarus could have stopped the Messiah from commanding Him to come forth.” (Debating Calvinism, p.205-206, emphasis mine)
First, of all, Jesus never cited the raising of Lazarus as an illustration of the spiritual state of man. Lazarus was physically dead, whereas Saul of Tarsus was spiritually dead. The Gospel can be heard by a spiritually dead person, and receive “faith” from it (Romans 10:17), because of its supernatural properties, being “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), whereas a physically dead person cannot hear anything at all, because their soul, that is, their consciousness, lies elsewhere. (Luke 16:19-31) Dead in sin, simply means being lost, separated from God, judged and condemned in sin, that is, if you remain in Adam. Compare with Ephesians 2:1. Nevertheless, James White infers an unconscious, preemptive Regeneration (i.e. Calvinistic Irresistible Grace), that is involuntary, unconscious and unilateral. Yet, what really happened was that Jesus met Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, while on his way to murder Christians, and Jesus convicted him of his actions, and enlightened him to the fact that not only was he not right with God, but that he was also directly fighting against God, both inwardly and outwardly. Having been blinded, and remaining so for three days, Paul prayed and fasted while en route to Ananias, whom Jesus directed to restore his sight, upon which time he then received (three days later) the spiritual surgery of Regeneration, being sealed with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13), in being made into a new creature in Christ, as per 2nd Corinthians 5:17. In contrast, Calvinism is about a preemptive heart-transplant, rather than about God working on the unregenerate heart, opening it, pleading with it, convicting it, piercing it, and goading it.
In summary, Calvinists must read Irresistible Grace into Galatians 1:15-16, which is simply not there. The real challenge of Calvinism is just how much Calvinists are forced to presume upon Scripture, and Calvinists wield an arsenal of philosophical tools in order to accomplish this, in their aggressive pursuit of “Reformation,” i.e. converting Christians to Calvinism.
