This is the first of three subsections in Paul's autobiographical account, the historical portion of the epistle. It relates Paul's early Christian experience and his first meeting with the church leaders in Jerusalem. The other subsections record his meeting with the Jerusalem leaders over the scope and sphere of his missionary work (2:1-10) and his confrontation with Peter in Antioch (2:11-21). This all builds up to his pronouncement that justification is by faith alone.
Paul clarified the source of his gospel message in this pericope to convince his readers that the gospel he had preached to them was the true gospel. What the false teachers were presenting was heresy. He began an autobiographical section here (1:11-2:14). It fills one-fifth of the entire epistle. In it he went to great pains to prove that both his gospel and his commission to preach it came directly from Jesus Christ on the Damascus road (vv. 15-16). It did not come to him from any intermediary.
1:11-12 Paul did not receive his gospel from traditional sources (his teachers) nor did he learn it through traditional means (the curriculum of his formal education). It came to him as a special revelation from Jesus Christ, and it was a revelation of who Jesus Christ really is. "According to"(v. 11; Gr. kata) means "from."
". . . it was the gospel of justification by faith which came to Paul as the result of a direct revelation of Jesus Christ."28
1:13-14 Paul was an unusually promising young man in Judaism before his conversion. He was surpassing his contemporaries.
"This probably does not mean that he became more pious than they, but rather that he was more highly esteemed by those in positions of influence, which would have resulted in his being entrusted with more important assignments, such as the trip to Damascus during which he was converted."29
The apostle's actions following that revelation on the Damascus Road supported his claim to having received a divine revelation. The whole direction of his life changed. He had violently rejected the gospel he now preached and had tried to stamp it out believing it was blasphemous heresy. He had followed his ancestral traditions (his teachers' interpretations of the Old Testament). Moreover he had been uncommonly zealous to obey them, to teach them, and to see that the Jews carried them out. "Beyond measure"(Gr. hyperbole) means "to an extraordinary degree."
"Paul's extreme zeal for the law as the reason for his persecution of the Church indicates that he probably belonged to the radical wing of the Pharisaic movement, perhaps the school of Shammai (certainly, Gal. 3:10 and especially 5:3 are more representative of that school than of the school of Hillel). If so, the likelihood is that he was rather hostile to the Gentiles and had little interest in winning them for Judaism.'"30
"Paul's main point in vv. 13-14 was to show that there was nothing in his religious background and preconversion life that could have in any way prepared him for a positive response to the gospel. Quite the contrary."31
1:15-17 What totally revolutionized Paul was God's choice to reveal Himself to him (cf. Isa. 6:1-9; 49:1-6; Jer. 1:4; Ezek. 1:4-3:11).32God had taken the initiative in grace; Paul had simply responded to that grace. God's purpose generally was to manifest Christ through him, His purpose for every believer. Specifically God's purpose was that Paul would become an evangelist to the Gentiles. This calling had been God's intent from the time of Paul's birth.
"Paul had emphasized that he did not receive his message from men before or at the time of his conversion. Now he affirmed that he was free from human influences afterward as well."33
Since his calling had been undoubtedly supernatural and abundantly clear, Paul did not need to consult with anyone natural (i.e., less than supernatural).34He did not need the approval of the other apostles who had also seen and received commissions by the risen Christ either. Paul's revelation was just as authoritative as any they had received. Instead he went to an undefined area of Arabia. Damascus stood on its northwestern edge. He did so apparently to restudy the Scriptural revelations of Messiah but mainly to preach the gospel as an apostle (v. 16).35Then he returned to Damascus, rather than Jerusalem, still feeling no need to obtain the blessing of the other apostles but preaching the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 11:26-27).
Paul was not being arrogant or uncooperative by behaving as he did. He simply believed in the divine origin and authority of his commission.
"Our study of vv. 11-17 has shown that Paul's conversion is to be understood as involving (a) recognition of the risen Jesus as Messiah, Lord, and Son of God, (b) the experience of being justified by faith apart from legal works, (c) the revelation of the basic principles of the gospel, and (d) the call to be an apostle to the Gentiles."36
Verses 11-17 constitute one of six New Testament passages that describe Paul's conversion and calling (cf. Acts 9:1-7; 22:6-10; 26:12-16; 1 Cor. 9:1-2; 15:3-11).37
This section continues the point of the previous one. Paul was not dependent on the other apostles for his ministry any more than he was for the message he proclaimed. This explanation would have further convinced his readers of the divine source and authority of his message.
1:18-19 "Then"(Gr. Epeita, "Next") introduces the next event in Paul's experience chronologically (cf. v. 21; 2:1). He gave a consecutive account of his movements omitting no essential steps. He did so to show that he had functioned as an apostle before contacting other apostles. His critics seem to have been saying that the other apostles had really sent Paul.
It was three years after his conversion, not after his return to Damascus, that Paul finally revisited Jerusalem and met Peter, for the first time, and James.38He went there "to get personally acquainted with"them, not to get information from them or to make inquiry of them.39These were hardly indications that he had to check his message with them. Furthermore he only stayed 15 days and did not see any of the other apostles. If he had needed to work out a theology consistent with the teaching of the other apostles, extended meetings with all of them would have been necessary.
"These brothers [of the Lord] have been regarded (a) by the Orthodox churches as sons of Joseph by a previous marriage (the Epiphanian' view), (b) in Roman Catholic interpretation as Jesus' first cousins, the sons of Mary wife of Clopas,' who was the Virgin's sister (Jn. 19:25; the Hieronymian' view), and (c) by Protestant exegetes as Jesus' uterine brothers, sons of Joseph and Mary (the Helvidian' view). This last view accords best with the natural implications of Mk. 6:3, where the context suggests that the brothers, together with the sisters unspecified by name, were, like Jesus himself, children of Mary."40
1:20 Paul may have added this verse to help the Galatians realize not only that he was telling the truth but that he really had received his gospel by divine revelation. The truth of the gospel as he preached it was at stake in the truthfulness of what he said, as was the error of what the false teachers were proclaiming.41
1:21-24 Paul did not even spend time in Judea where he might have heard the gospel he preached from other apostles or Christians. Instead he went north into Syria (above Judea, by way of Caesarea [Acts 9:30]) and Cilicia, the province in which his home town of Tarsus stood. He was there when Barnabas found him later (Acts 11:25).
"From c. 25 BC Eastern Cilicia (including Tarsus) was united administratively with Syria to form one imperial province (Syria-Cilicia), governed by a legatus pro praetorewith his headquarters in Syrian Antioch. This arrangement lasted until AD 72, when Eastern Cilicia was detached from Syria and united with Western Cilicia (Cilicia Tracheia) to form the province of Cilicia.
"At the time when both epistles were written [i.e., Galatians and 1 Thessalonians], the Roman province of Judaea included Galilee as well as Judaea (in the narrower sense) and Samaria (as it had done since the death of Herod Agrippa I in AD 44); Judaea' may then denote here the whole of Palestine [cf. 1 Thess. 2:14]."42
Paul had so little contact with the churches in Judea that even after several years of ministry they could not recognize him by sight. They only knew him by reputation and thanked God for what He was doing through Paul, the opposite reaction of Paul's Judaizing critics. Certainly the Judean Christians would not have been so happy if Paul had preached a gospel different from the one the other apostles had been preaching and they had believed.
"It is striking proof of the large space occupied by faith' in the mind of the infant Church, that it should so soon have passed into a synonym for the Gospel. . . . Here its meaning seems to hover between the Gospel and the Church [v. 23]."43
This section (1:11-24) helps us appreciate how convincing God's revelation on the Damascus Road was to Paul. He not only repented concerning the person of Christ, but he also received an absolutely clear revelation both of his calling in life from then on and his message. He began to preach the gospel immediately without any authorization to do so from any other leaders of the church. We too have an equally clear revelation of our calling (Matt. 28:19-20) and our message (2 Cor. 5:20).
