Paul, A Dog With A Very Precious Bone

Why was Paul such a staunch and immovable proponent of grace? God knows you may not wonder or much care. And though ultimately any and all gifting(s) of revelation start and end with the Alpha and Omega Himself, and that answer is never anything less than right, there are things any man may discover, as Paul did, that can help see as Paul also did…in regards to those matters of which he was given to speak and write.

If starting with his call one will find much, that place he speaks of in “when it pleased God to reveal His son in me”.

He recounts it, and others also recorded it. How that on the way to Damascus having letters of authority to imprison all or any who were calling upon the name of Jesus, He was spoken to by HIm. Christ revealed Himself as Lord to him.

What had Paul done? Did he make some confession of Christ, come to some place of repentance and implore that particular Lord of that name for salvation? Or was he altogether in the most severe opposition and loathing of that name? And that Saul was never Saul after that.

And he knew it, confessed it, would trumpet and unrelentingly seek after all that was in that name…both to our good, his benefit…but most assuredly and primarily, (unless one doubts) Christ’s glory.

Now, before any unwholesome thoughts take advantage, or seek to, to infer what is being implied is that “one must absolutely hate the Lord and in all work against Him” and then position oneself to that in order to be saved, that is not being said. Nor that every conversion will in all matters mimic his. Yet, he did not deny his experience nor estate of “breathing out threatenings” against all of that name…in and up to that very moment in which Christ appeared to him.

One might then think it plain that unless or until such revelation (and in such power to Saul/Paul) be made in the “seeing” of God’s Christ (no, not with natural eye) the heart is not touched, the new birth has yet to be revealed. But Saul/Paul knew. He knew, even while some disciples doubted in fear of him, this was real and true to and in him, and he would not deny.

But, there is more and far more; for Saul (our Paul) was once of a particular sort a man of such observance (and observance of the law) that now in seeking to know and understand that Christ of God by his new observance in light…those many prior things of which he was once so convinced of merit (and advantage to himself) now only served to obscure the Christ if allowed to rise in his heart. His labors, such as they were, to see and “know Him” in fullness he found were met by what opposed that seeing.

And God had made him diligent…at least (and to our gratitude) far more in another diligence that once persuaded him. He saw pride easily generated in any attitude of what would take advantage of any of man’s doing or doings and that such false elevation in pridealso worked against proper perspective of “looking up to” or looking away to Christ which rightly elevates a man to heavenly vision.

And he came to hate all of such matters whereby such advantage might be taken of pride…calling them all dung. And he held in himself…even by the word of truth in the One who qualifies and qualified him, that such had, if left unattended, a danger of disqualification. And though this may be strange to many if not most, such are not given as threat…but worthy words of keeping as caution…that sobers a soul to and for salvation. Only the believer will understand God is not threatening to any loss, but rightly informing a soul so that “true north” always be the heading.

Christ and Christ alone, God’s mercy shown there and in Him, God’s purpose and election by grace established in all by His sovereignty and vindicated plainly in His calling and choosing…so that no man may boast. Except in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is not , as it first might be imagined or inferred to some exercise of God for the man’s shaming or denigration (as though lying in wait to pull a trump card against him) but that the end of all salvation, the seeing of the Lord “as He is” be fully accomplished in any believing man for his good, whose end is to glorifying God’s Christ.

Which is God’s good pleasure, for whom all things are created.

Do not be so naive as to think much opposition will not present, neither be so craven as to imagine the blame of that opposition is all and only attributable as elsewhere; whereby others may be blamed in some clever fashion of victim hood.

Paul understood upon what ground such contest took place, and what was battlefield…and what could take by occasion to have a man only “beating at the air”. Religiosity (even our own religiosity), perverseness, obstruction and resistance always lay closer to home than we would at first either care to imagine, much less confess.

Yes God has begun and is cleansing the earth by fire; first set to such kindling even by Him who wished it already were kindled. Like a man in the fiercest rains and winds with only one match, he performed flawlessly.

But He knew His calling and election to it…and would not relent…to God His father’s glory and our good.

We can easily be swayed and made drunk by what we once considered our authority or such that would grant us that before men, even as Saul. But Paul to come to love the Author and Authority of all entails a right heaping of dung…and even right shame and shaming toward what once caused us to seek to elevate ourselves. And that shovel, provided only by the spirit…has in it an also power of working to the uncovering things once hidden to us.

The glory in the Christ of God.

God’s economy is always perfect, the doing of a seeming “one” thing cannot but also accomplish another. While one digs for treasure one cannot help but toss that dirt somewhere.