“To reveal His Son30 in me.” 11 Christ says in another place, “No one knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; and who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him.” (Luke x. 22.) You observe that the Father reveals the Son, and the Son the Father; so it is as to Their glory, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Father the Son; “glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee,” and, “as I have glorified Thee.” (John xvii. 1, 4.) But why does he say, “to reveal His Son in me,” and not “to me?” it is to signify, that he had not only been instructed in the faith by words, but that he was richly endowed with the Spirit;—that the revelation had enlightened his whole soul, and that he had Christ speaking within him.31 “That I might preach Him among the Gentiles.” For not only his faith, but his election to the Apostolic office proceeded from God. The object, says he, of His thus specially revealing Himself to me, was not only that I might myself behold Him, but that I might also manifest Him to others. And he says not merely, “others,” but, “that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,” thus touching beforehand on that great ground of his defence which lay in the respective characters of the disciples; for it was necessary to preach differently to the Jews and to the heathen. “Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Here he alludes to the Apostles, naming them after their physical nature; however, that he may have meant to include all mankind, I shall not deny.32 Ver. 17. “Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me.” These words weighed by themselves seem to breath an arrogant spirit, and to be foreign to the Apostolic temper. For to give one’s suffrage for one’s self, and to admit no man to share one’s counsel, is a sign of folly. It is said, “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him;” (Prov. xxvi. 12.) and, “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isa. v. 21.) and Paul himself in another place, “Be not wise in your own conceits.” (Rom. xii. 16.) Surely one who had been thus taught, and had thus admonished others, would not fall into such an error, even were he an ordinary man; much less then Paul himself. Nevertheless, as I said, this expression nakedly considered may easily prove a snare and offence to many hearers. But if the cause of it is subjoined, all will applaud and admire the speaker. This then let us do; for it is not the right course to weigh the mere words, nor examine the language by itself, as many errors 30 [“In his pre-Christian blindness Paul had known Christ κατὰ σάρκα, 2 Cor. v. 16.”—Meyer.—G.A.] 31 [“Εν ἐμοί means ‘in my mind,’ ‘in my consciousness.’ 2 Cor. iv. 6,” in opposition to Lightfoot who says, “‘In me’ means, as the context shows, not a revelation made inwardly to himself, but through him to oth- ers.”—G.A.] 32 [“Flesh and blood,” is twice used elsewhere (Mat. 16: 17 and Eph. 6: 12,) to denote “weak human nature,” “feeble man.”—G.A.] 25 Galatians 1:1--3