Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2185
Delivered on Friday Morning, April 25, 1890
Galatians 1:11.
To me it is a pitiful sight to see Paul defending himself as an Apostle and, doing this, not against the gainsaying world, but against cold-hearted members of the Church! They said that he was not truly an Apostle, for he had not seen the Lord. And they uttered a great many other things derogatory to him. To maintain his claim to the Apostleship, he was driven to commence his Epistles with, “Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ,” though his work was a self-evident proof of his call. If, after God has blessed us to the conversion of many, some of these should raise a question as to our call to the ministry, we may count it a fiery trial—but we shall not conclude that a strange thing has happened to us. There is much more room to question our call to the ministry than to cast a doubt upon Paul’s Apostleship! This indignity, if it is put upon us, we can, by His Grace, cheerfully bear for our Master’s sake. We need not wonder, dear Brothers, if our ministry should be the subject of attack, because this has been the lot of those who have gone before us—and we should lack one great seal of our acceptance with God if we did not receive the unconscious homage of enmity which is always paid to the faithful by the ungodly world! When the devil is not troubled by us, he does not trouble us. If his kingdom is not shaken, he will not care about us or our work, but will let us enjoy inglorious ease. Be comforted by the experience of the Apostle of the Gentiles—he is peculiarly our Apostle—and we may regard his experience as a type of what we may expect while we labor among the Gentiles of our own day.
The treatment which has been given to eminent men while they have lived has been prophetic of the treatment of their reputations after death. This evil world is unchangeable in antagonism to true principles, whether their advocates are dead or living. They said, more than 1,800 years ago—“Paul, what of him?” They still say so. It is not unusual to hear dubious persons profess to differ from the Apostle and they even dare to say, “There, I do not agree with Paul.” I remember the first time that I heard this expression. I looked at the individual with astonishment. I was amazed that such a pigmy as he should say this of the great Apostle! Altogether apart from Paul’s Inspiration, it seemed like a cheese-mite differing from a cherub, or a handful of chaff discussing the verdict of the fire! The individual was so utterly beneath observation that I could not but marvel that his conceit should have been so outspokenly shameless. Notwithstanding this objection, even when supported by learned critics, we still agree with the Inspired servant of God. It is our firm conviction that to differ from Paul’s Epistles is to differ from the Holy Spirit—and to differ from the Lord Jesus Christ, whose mind Paul has fully expressed! It is remarkable that Paul’s writings should be so assailed! But this warns us that when we have gone to our reward, our names will not be free from aspersion, nor our teaching from opposition. The noblest of the departed are still slandered. Be not careful as to human judgment of yourself in death or in life, for what does it matter? Your real character, no man can injure but yourself, and if you are enabled to keep your garments clean, all else is not worth a thought.
To come more closely to our text. We do not claim to be able to use Paul’s words exactly in the full sense which he could throw into them, but there is a sense in which, I trust, we can each one say, “I make known to you, Brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man.” We may not only say this, but we ought to be able to say it with thorough truthfulness. The form of expression goes as far as Paul was known to go towards an oath when he says, “I
make known to you, brethren.” He means, I assure you most certainly—I would have you to be certain of it—“that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man.” On this point he would have all the brethren know past all doubt.
From the context we are sure that he meant, first of all, that his Gospel was not received by him from men. His reception of it, in his own mind, was not after men. And next, he meant, that the Gospel itself was not invented by men. If I can hammer out these two statements, we will then draw practical conclusions from them.
I. First, TO US THE GOSPEL IS NOT AFTER MEN AS TO THE MODE BY WHICH WE HAVE RECEIVED IT. In a certain sense we received it from men as to the outward part of the reception, for we were called by the Grace of God through parental influence, or through a Sunday school teacher, or by the ministry of the Word, or by the reading of a godly book, or by other agency. But in Paul’s case, none of these things were used! He was distinctly called by the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, speaking to him from Heaven and revealing Himself in His own light. It was necessary that Paul should not be indebted to Peter, or James, or John—even in the way in which many of us are indebted to instrumentality—so that he might truly say, “I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Yet we also can say this in another sense. We, also, have received the Gospel in a way beyond the power of man to convey it to us—men brought it to our ears, but the Lord, Himself, applied it to our heart. The best of the saints could not have brought it home to our hearts, so as to regenerate, convert and sanctify us by it. There was a distinct act of God, the Holy Spirit, by which the instrumentality was made effectual and the truth was rendered operative upon our souls.