Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 15:7
After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
7. of James ] It would seem from this (see Stanley and Alford) that St James was an Apostle. But it does not necessarily follow that he was one of the twelve. See Professor Plumptre’s elaborate note on the brethren of our Lord in the Commentary on St James in this series.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
After that, he was seen of James – This appearance is not recorded by the evangelists. It is mentioned in the fragment of the apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is, however, of no authority. It is probable that the Lord Jesus appeared often to the disciples, since he was 40 days on earth after his resurrection, and the evangelists have only mentioned the more prominent instances, and enough to substantiate the fact of his resurrection. This James, the fathers say, was James the Less, the brother or cousin-german of the Lord Jesus. The other James was dead (see Act 12:1) when this Epistle was written. This James, the author of the Epistle that bears his name, was stationed in Jerusalem. When Paul went there, after his return from Arabia, he had an interview with James (see Gal 1:19, But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lords brother), and it is highly probable that Paul would state to him the vision which he had of the Lord Jesus on his way to Damascus, and that James also would state to Paul the fact that he had seen him after he rose. This may be the reason why Paul here mentions the fact, because he had it from the lips of James himself.
Then of all the apostles – By all the apostles. Perhaps the occasion at the sea of Galilee, recorded in Joh 21:14. Or it is possible that he frequently met the apostles assembled together, and that Paul means to say, that during the forty days after his resurrection he was often seen by them.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. After that, he was seen of James] But where, and on what occasion, we are not told; nor indeed do we know which James is intended; James the son of Zebedee, or James the son of Alpheus. But one thing is sufficiently evident, from what is here said, that this James, of whom the apostle speaks, was still alive; for the apostle’s manner of speaking justifies this conclusion.
Then of all the apostles.] Including, not only the eleven, but, as some suppose, the seventy-two disciples.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The Scripture tells us nothing, in the history of the gospel, of Christs appearing to James; but we read of two appearances to the apostles besides these, which the apostle had before mentioned.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. seen of Jamesthe Less, thebrother of our Lord (Ga 1:19).The Gospel according to the Hebrews, quoted by JEROME[On Illustrious Men, p. 170 D.], records that “Jamesswore he would not eat bread from the hour that he drank the cup ofthe Lord, till he should see Him rising again from the dead.”
all the apostlesTheterm here includes many others besides “the Twelve” alreadyenumerated (1Co 15:5): perhapsthe seventy disciples (Lu 10:1)[CHRYSOSTOM].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
After that he was seen of James,…. Not James the son of Zebedee, and brother of John, though he was seen by him with other disciples, Joh 20:19 who was now dead when the apostle wrote this, having been killed by Herod many years ago, Ac 12:2 and so not quite so proper a witness to be mentioned; but James the son of Alphaeus, and brother of our Lord, a man of great fame and credit with the Jews, and still living, and therefore a proper and pertinent evidence. This appearance was made unto him when alone; and though the Scripture elsewhere makes no mention of it, there is no room to doubt it, since the apostle here affirms it. As for the account of the appearance of Christ to this James, immediately, after his resurrection, recorded by Jerom as he found it in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, it seems to be fabulous. His account is this h;
“the Gospel written according to the Hebrews, which was lately translated by me into the Greek and Latin tongues, and which Origen often uses, relates, after the resurrection of the Saviour, that when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the priest’s servant, he went to James, and appeared to him: for James had swore that he would not taste any bread from the time he had drank the cup of the Lord, until he saw him rising from the dead. Again, a little after, bring me, says the Lord, the table and the bread; and it is immediately added, he took the bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave it to James the just, and said unto him, my brother, eat thy bread, for the son of man is risen from the dead.”
Then of all the apostles; at the Mount of Olives, when he led them out of Jerusalem, as far as Bethany, blessed them, and was parted from them, and ascended to heaven out of their sight, Lu 24:50 so that this was the last appearance of him on earth after his resurrection.
h Catalog. Script. Eccles. sect. 3. fol. 90. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
To James (). The brother of the Lord. This fact explains the presence of the brothers of Jesus in the upper room (Ac 1:14).
To all the apostles ( ). The Ascension of Christ from Olivet.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “After that he was seen of James,” (epeita ophthe lakobo) “Afterward he was seen by James.” After his resurrection, James, later pastor of the Jerusalem church, saw the Lord.
2) “Then of all the apostles.” (eita tois apostolois pasin) “then by all the apostles.” Paul then simply asserted that all of the apostles had seen the risen Lord. What a band of reliable witnesses to the validity of the claim of the resurrection of our Lord, Act 1:3-11, a matter that had come to be questioned by some of the Corinth brethren.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
7. James Half brother of the Lord, bishop of Jerusalem, author of the Epistle of James. See notes on Mat 10:3; and Act 12:2.
All the apostles Probably the same as mentioned in Act 1:4.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Co 15:7. Then of all the Apostles. The change of phrase from that in the conclusion of the 5th verse, is very remarkable, and probably intimates, that they who were there called the twelve, (that is, the greatest part of the company who used to be so denominated) were not, even the whole eleven. On which circumstance a probable conjecture is grounded, that James might, by some accident, have been detained from meeting his brethren, both on the day of the resurrection and that day se’nnight; and likewise at the time when Christ appeared to the five hundred: and that he might in this respect be upon a level with them, our Lord appeared to him alone, after all the appearances mentioned before.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 15:7 . Both of these appearances also are otherwise unknow.
] The non-addition of any distinguishing epithet makes it more than probable that the person meant is he who was then the James , James the Just, [30] not one of the Twelve, but universally known as the brother of the Lord (see on 1Co 9:4 ). Perhaps it was this appearance which made him become decided for the cause and service of his divine brother. Comp. Michaelis on our passage. The apocryphal narrative of the Evang. sec. Hebr . in Jerome, de vir. ill . 2, is, even as regards time, here irrelevant (in opposition to Grotius).
] , since it takes in James also (comp. Gal 1:19 ), must stand here in a wider sense than , but includes them along with others. In the Book of Acts, Barnabas, for instance, is called an apostle (1Co 14:4 ; 1Co 14:14 ); and in 1Th 2:7 , Timothy and Silvanus are comprehended under the conception , of whom, of course, Timothy at least cannot be as yet included here. Chrysostom supposes the Seventy to be included. Comp. on 1Co 12:28 . In no case is it simply the Twelve again who are meant, whom Hofmann conceives to be designated here in their relation to the church . How arbitrary that is, and how superfluous such a designation would be! But stands decidedly opposed to it; Paul would have required to write . Notice also the strict marking off of the original apostles by , an expression which Paul uses in no other place .
[30] Comp. Plitt in the Zeitschrift f. Luth. Theol . 1864, p. 28 ff.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
XXXII
CHRIST’S APPEARANCES AND COMMISSIONS (CONTINUED)
Harmony, pages 228-231 and Mat 28:16-20
The next commission is found on page 228 of the Harmony, Matthew’s account, Mat 28:16-20 : “But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth, go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” By the side of it is Mark’s account, also a statement by Paul about five hundred being present. This is what is called the Great Commission. The points of it are: (1) Before he was put to death he appointed this place, a mountain in Galilee, for the assembling of his disciples; and Paul says five hundred brethren were there, and we have already seen that the women were there also. In his appearances to the women he told them to be present, so we must put the number at anywhere between five and six hundred. The gathering is a specially appointed one. He appointed the women after his resurrection to remind them of it. It was to be the gathering of the general body of his disciples apostles, other men and women. The supposable reasons for assembling them at this particular place are: (a) Most of his disciples were Galileans, and (b) by having this big gathering in Galilee, it would avoid creating a disturbance, for if a meeting had been held in Jerusalem, not so many could have attended, and there they would be liable to interruption by the excited people. (2) The next point is that this was the most eventful, far-reaching, important gathering of God’s people between his death and his ascension. (3) Let us analyze the Commission itself. Dr. Landrum once preached a sermon on the Commission, calling attention to the “alls”: (a) “all” authority; (b) go to “all” the nations; (c) observe “all things”; (d) “I am with you all the days,” as it is expressed in the margin.
The reference to the authority which he received is to show them that in telling them to do something, and so great a something, and so important a something, he had the authority to do it; “all authority” in heaven and on earth, is given unto him. That is because of his faithful obedience to the divine law, and particularly because he had expiated sin by his own death on the cross. Now he is to be exalted to be above all angels and men; the dominion of the universe is to be in his hands, and from this time on. It is so now. He today sits on the throne of the universe and rules the world; all authority in heaven and on earth is given unto him.
That is the question which always is to be determined when a man starts out to do a thing: “By what authority do you do this?” If you, on going out to preach, should be asked, “By what authority do you preach, and are you not taking the honor on yourself?” you answer that he sent you.
We are to see what he told them to do, and we will compare the Commission to a suspension bridge across a river. On one side of the river is an abutment, the authority of Jesus Christ. And at the other end of the bridge we will take this for the abutment: “And lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the age.” On one side of the river stands the authority, and on the other side stands the presence of Jesus Christ Christ in the Holy Spirit. That is to be until the end of the age. Suspended between these two, and dependent on these two, and resting on these two, is the bridge. Let us see exactly, then, what they are to do: First, to “go therefore.” The “therefore” refers to the authority; second, “make disciples of all the nations.” So there are three parts to this first item of the Commission: To go, what to go for, and to whom. If we are Missionary Baptists indeed, this Commission is the greatest of all authority.
One of the deacons, when I took charge of the First Baptist Church at Waco, said to me on one occasion, when I was taking up a foreign mission offering, “Brother Carroll, I am interested in helping you reach these Waco people, and I will help some on associational missions, and state missions, but when it comes to these Chinese and Japs, if you will just bring me one of them, I will try to convert him.” I said to him, “You don’t read your Commission right. You are not under orders to wait until somebody brings you a Jap; you are to go; you are the one to get up and go yourself. You can’t wrap up in that excuse.”
This Commission makes the moving on the part of the commissioned the people of God; they are to go to these people wherever they are. If they are Laplanders, go; if Esquimaux, go; if they are in the tropics, you must go there; if in the temperate region, you must go there; anywhere from the center of the earth to its remotest bounds. That is what makes it missionary one sent, and being sent, he goes. And we can’t send anybody unless he goes somewhere. The first thought, then, is the going. It does not say, “Make the earth come to you,” but “you are to go to them,” and that involves raising the necessary means to get you there. The command to go involves the means essential to going. That is the going law. If the United States shall send one of its diplomats to England, that involves the paying of the expenses of the going.
The next thing is, What are you to do when you get there? You are to make disciples. There are two words here in the Greek one, matheteusate , which means “to make disciples”; the other, didaskontes , which means “teaching.” You do not teach them first, but you make disciples out of them. Now come the questions: How make a disciple? What is discipleship? That will answer the other question, What is necessary to the remission of sins? When is a man a disciple? How far do you have to go in order to make him a disciple? The way to answer that question is to look at what John the Baptist and Christ did. The Gospel of John tells us that John the Baptist made and baptized disciples; that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John did. John made disciples before he baptized them; Jesus made disciples before he baptized them, not afterward. John did not baptize them before he made them disciples; he did not leave off the baptism after he disciplined them. The question of order here is one of great importance. There are three things to be done: (1) Make disciples; (2) baptize disciples; (3) then teach them all things whatsoever Christ commanded. And you must take them in their order. It is not worth while to try to teach a man to do everything that Jesus did when he refuses to be a disciple. Don’t baptize him before he is a disciple. You must not baptize him in order to make him a disciple; you must not attempt to instruct him in Christian duties until he is a disciple.
How important is the answering of that question: “How do you make a disciple?” John made disciples this way: Paul says that John preached repentance toward God, and that they should believe on Jesus to come, i.e., a man who has repented toward God and exercised faith in Jesus Christ, was a disciple; then John baptized him. The Pharisees came to be baptized, but John refused, saying to them: “Think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our Father: for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” “Do not think that entitles you to baptism; that does not at all entitle you to baptism; but you bring forth fruits worthy of your repentance, then I will baptize you, ye offspring of vipers.” And Jesus went forth and preached: “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” So that from time immemorial the Baptists have contended that the terms of discipleship, or the terms of remission of sins, are repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said that he everywhere testified to both Greeks and Jews, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. I sometimes change that a little by putting first the contrition, or godly sorrow; the Spirit convicts a man, and under that conviction he becomes contrite, has godly sorrow; that contrition leads him to repentance; that leads him to faith, then he is a child of God, right there: “We are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
This is a great part of your qualification to be a preacher that you know how to tell a man what to do to be saved; to know what to tell him. You don’t bury a man to kill him. Baptism is a burial. You bury dead men, but not till they are dead. Nor do you bury a live, raw sinner. You must wait till the Spirit kills him to sin.
Major Penn told of a man who had been lost in the woods. It was in the heat of the day, and he was very thirsty. Late in the day he found his way to a shady little nook, where, bursting from a rock, was a cool mountain spring, and hanging up over the spring was an old-fashioned gourd. He dipped that gourd in the spring and held the water up a little and let it run down his throat, and gloried in drinking out of a gourd. Major Penn made such an apt description of it that one man came up and said, “I’ll go and get me a gourd; that is the best drinking vessel; I know by the way you talk about it.” So he went to a farmer and asked for a gourd. The farmer picked him a green gourd. He cut off the top of it and dipped it into the water. He commenced sipping and drinking. When he discovered the bitter taste he asked, “What in the world is the matter with this gourd?” An old woman said to him, “Why, you were not such a fool as to drink out of a green gourd, were you? You let that gourd get thoroughly ripe; then open it, take out the insides, boil it, let it get dry, and it will be fit to drink out of.” Major Penn said to baptize a man a dry sinner is to bring him up a wet sinner, and it is like drinking out of a green gourd.
This is the answer to the question, What are the terms of discipleship, or, How do you make a disciple? He has godly sorrow. That godly sorrow leads him to repentance a change of mind; that leads him to the Saviour, and when he accepts Jesus Christ he is a child of God. Now you know how to approach a sinner, but don’t you put him under the water at the wrong time and with the wrong object in view.
This brings up another question: Who is to do this baptizing? Is the command here to be baptized, or is it to baptize? Which comes first? Any lawyer will tell you that the command to do a thing, in which you must submit to the act of another, must specify the authorized party to whom you must submit in that act. For example, suppose that after you had come to the United States from a foreign country, you speak to your friends and ask, “How did you settle in the United States?” They tell you that they took out naturalization papers. Then you meet a man and ask him, “Will you give me some naturalization papers?” He gives you the naturalization papers, and says, “You are a citizen of the United States.” Being now a citizen, you come up to vote, but the judge of the election says, “Are you a foreigner?” “Yes, I was till I was naturalized.” Then he asks for your papers. Looking at them he says, “Why, this man was not authorized to do it. The law tells how you shall be naturalized, and you have just picked up a fellow on the streets here that did not count at all.” The law tells us in every state who shall issue naturalization papers, otherwise the citizenship of the state would be vested in a “Tom-Dick-and-Harry” everybody and nobody. It is just that way about baptizing.
I know some who teach that the command is simply to be baptized. I said to one of them once, “Does it make any difference who does the baptizing?” “Well,” he said, “no it doesn’t; the command is simply to be baptized.” I said, “I will give you $100 if you will show me a command to be baptized, with no authorized administrator standing there to administer the ordinance.” “Well,” he said, “look at Paul’s case: Ananias said, ‘Arise and be baptized.’ ” I said, “Who sent Ananias? Ananias had authority from God to baptize Paul. Who sent Philip into the desert? The eunuch said, ‘Here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?’ but there was the administrator talking to him, a sent administrator.”
And this question is thereby raised: Jesus ascended to heaven and vested this authority to disciple and to baptize, in whom? Here’s a big gathering, not apostles only, because here are five hundred besides those women. Not in that particular crowd alone, for he said, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”
There is no escape from it, that when he gave this Commission, he gave it to an ecclesiastical body the church. That is why the great church gathered. It is a perpetual commission. No man can deny that these disciples were acting representatively.
“But,” says one, “the Commission was given to the apostles.” But I say, “Where were the apostles?” Paul says that God set them in the church (1Co 12:28 ; Eph 4:11-16 ). He did not set anybody out in the woods. Ask those free lances who run out on the prairie, or in the woods, who set them.
God put these apostles, pastors, etc., in the church, and from the time that God gave this commission he has done the baptizing through the church. You cannot give it just in your own way or notion; you cannot just pick people up and put them in the creek, and say, “I baptize you.”
Here are the things that are essential to a valid baptism: (1) A man must be a disciple, a penitent believer in Jesus Christ; (2) The act of baptism, whatever that commission means. If it means to sprinkle, sprinkle them; if to pour, then pour; if to immerse, then immersion is the act. (3) The design or purpose: Why do it? If we baptize to “make a disciple” or in order that he may become a disciple; that he may be saved; that his sins be remitted, then I deny that it is baptism. It lacks the gospel design, or purpose. (4) It must be done by authority, and that authority is the church.
The church authorizes; the subject must be a disciple, and the act is immersion. The purpose is to make a public declaration, or confession, of faith in Jesus Christ, to symbolize the cleansing from sin, a memorial of Christ’s resurrection, and a pledge of the disciple.
According to your understanding of this commission you bring confusion into Israel, or keep it out.
While I was pastor in Waco, we received a member from another Baptist church. He heard me preach on this commission and came to me and said, “Look here, I want to preach; I believe I am called to preach, and the way you state that, I have not been baptized at all.” I said, “How is that?” “A Campbellite preacher baptized me.” “Did the Baptist church receive that baptism?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Now suppose you want to preach, and you come before this church for ordination, and they find out that fact, they won’t ordain you. But suppose they did ordain you, wherever you go that would come up against you. They would say, ‘There is a man not scripturally baptized.’ It will hamper your whole ministerial life, and bring confusion into the kingdom of God.” “Well,” he said, “what ought I to do?” I said, “Don’t do anything until you are convinced it is the right thing to do. You study this again, and let me know what your conclusions are.” About a week after he came and said, “I don’t think I have been baptized: he baptized me to make me a disciple. I did not claim to have been a disciple before he baptized me.” “Well,” I said, “did it make you one?” He said, “I do not think it did.” So the blood you must reach before you reach the water. The way is the blood. It has to be applied before you reach the water. It must be reached before you can be saved. So, the blood is before the water. A preacher’s whole future depends on how he interprets this commission.
You will see by referring to the Harmony that Dr. Broadus puts Mark’s commission beside this great Commission on Matthew, thereby indicating that they refer to the same occasion. Assuming this to be correct, I do not discuss the commission of Mark except to say that the first eight verses of Mar 16 are in the manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel, but the latter part of this (Mar 16:9-20 ) which includes the statement, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” is not in any of the ancient manuscripts. I have facsimiles of the three oldest manuscripts the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and the Alexandrian. Whenever those three agree as to what is the text of a passage we need not go further. It is usually right. But whenever those three leave out anything that is in the text, we may count it spurious. The best scholars among preachers never preach from Mar 16:9-20 , because it is so very doubtful as to whether it is to be received as Scripture. Dr. Broadus says it certainly does not belong to Mark’s Gospel, but that he believes it records what is true; and I am somewhat inclined to believe that too. I think it is true, though it was added by a later hand. Certainly, Mark did not write it. The manuscript evidence is against that part of it. Therefore, I do not consider this as a separate commission of our Lord.
We now take up the fourth commission, that is to say, the commission recorded by Luke, found in Luk 24:44-49 and 1Co 15:7 ; Harmony, pp. 229-230. The remarks upon this commission are these:
1. It is to the eleven apostles.
2. He introduces it by reminding them of his teachings before his death of the witness to him in the law, the prophets, and the psalms, especially concerning his passion, his burial, and his resurrection.
3. Especially to be noted is the fact that he gives them illumination that they may understand these scriptures, and shows the necessity of their fulfilment, in order to the salvation of men.
4. On this necessity he bases the commission here given, which is, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
5. He constitutes them his witnesses of these things.
6. He announces that he will send the promise of the Father, namely, the Holy Spirit, and commands them to wait at Jerusalem until they receive this power from on high to enable them to carry out the work of this commission.
7. The reader should note that, as in the commission recorded by John (Joh 20:22 ) he inspired them to write the New Testament Scriptures, so here he illumined their minds to understand the Old Testament Scriptures. Mark the distinction between inspiration and illumination: The object of inspiration is to enable one to speak or write infallibly; the object of illumination is to enable one to understand infallibly what is written.
8. Further note the unity of the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, and their equality in inspiration.
9. Note also the very important item that illumination settles authoritatively the apostolic interpretation of the Old Testament as to the true meaning of these Scriptures. As he inspired men to write the Old Testament, and inspired these men to write the New Testament, so now he illumines these men to understand the Old Testament and to interpret it correctly. In other words, as the Holy Spirit is the real author of the Old Testament, which he inspired, by illumination he shows these men just what he meant by those Old Testament writings. We cannot, therefore, put our unaided interpretation on an Old Testament passage against the Spirit’s own explanation of that passage by the illumination of the apostles’ minds. Due attention to this one fact would have prevented many false expositions of Old Testament Scriptures, particularly in limiting to national Israel what the Spirit spoke concerning spiritual Israel. Very many premillennial expositions of the Old Testament prophecies go astray on this point. They insist on applying to the Jews, as Jews, a great many prophecies which these illumined apostles saw referred to spiritual Israel, and not to fleshly Israel. In the same way do the expositions of the Old Testament passages by modern Jews and the limitations of meaning which destructive critics and other infidels put on the Old Testament Scriptures, go astray. It is wrong, and contrary to sane rules of interpretation, to say that you must not read into an Old Testament passage a New Testament meaning. In that way they wish to limit it to things back there only, but the Holy Spirit illumined the minds of the apostles to understand these Old Testament Scriptures better than the prophets that wrote them. Oftentimes the prophets did not know what they meant, and were very anxious to find out what they did mean. The meaning was revealed to New Testament prophets, and their minds illumined to understand them. I have just finished reading a book which as certainly misapplies about two dozen Old Testament prophecies as the sun shines. In other words, this book interprets them as a modern Jew would interpret them, and exactly contrary to what the apostles say these passages mean. When an illumined apostle tells us the meaning of an Old Testament passage, we must accept it, or else deny his illumination, one or the other. You have no idea how much you have learned if you let this one remark sink into your mind.
10. Yet again, you should especially note in this commission the inseparable relation between repentance and the remission of sins, or forgiveness. The first, repentance, must precede remission of sins, and the relation is constant and necessary in each case of all sin, whether against God, against the church, or against ourselves. If you read carefully Act 2:38 ; Act 3:19 ; Psa 51 , where the sin is against God, you find that a repentance of that sin is made a condition of forgiveness. Then if you read carefully Luk 17:3 and Mat 18:15-17 , where the sin is against ourselves or against the church, the law is, “If he repent, forgive him.”
I saw a notice in The Baptist Standard once where it was assumed that we must forgive a sin before the person who committed it against us has repented of the sin. That would make us out better than God, for God won’t do it. He won’t forgive sin against himself until there is repentance, and he says to Peter, concerning a brother’s trespass against a brother, that if he repent, forgive him. And in Mat 18:15 , it says, “If thy brother sin against thee, go right along and convict him of his sin, and if he hear thee thou hast gained thy brother; if he does not hear thee, tell it to the church; if he does not hear the church, then he is unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.” There are men who insist that you must forgive trespasses against you whether they are repented of or not, meaning that you must be in a forgiving and loving attitude; and that is correct. You must cultivate that spirit which at all times is ready to forgive when repentance comes. But the majority of people who take that position take it in order to get out of some very troublesome work resting on them, and that work is to go right along to convict a man of that sin. It is much easier to say, “I forgive,” and let him alone, than it is to go and show him that he has sinned, and lead him to repentance. And they thus dodge their duty. The largest part of the back-sliding in the church comes from that fact. “If thou seest thy brother sin, then what? Forgive him? No. If thou seest thy brother sin, whether it is a private offense or a general one, report it to the church? No, but go right along and convict him of that sin; and if you fail, take one or two brethren with you; if they fail, let the church try the case. If the church fails, forgive him? No. Let him be to thee a heathen man and a publican.” That is Bible usage.
On the other hand there are some people who rejoice in the thought that they do not have to forgive a man until he repents, and they keep right on hating him. You are not to hate him; you are to love him. You are to have toward him a keen desire to gain him, and under the spirit of that desire, the obligation to gain him is on you personally, and there is no excuse for you. God will not hold you guiltless if you see a brother sin on any point, whether against you, the church, or the state, and do not try to bring him to repentance. It is our duty, as Dr. Broadus puts it, “to go right along and not rave at him,” but convict him that he has sinned, saying, “Now brother, this is wrong, and I have come, not in the spirit of accusation, nor in a disciplinary manner, but as a brother interested in you, and with the earnest desire in my heart to make you see that wrong, and if you ever see it and get it on your conscience and repent and make amends, I will save my brother.”
He says that repentance and remission of sins shall be preached in all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Paul says about that, “I have testified everywhere, both to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The weakness of modern preaching is that the preachers leave repentance out.
So the modern churches leave out the faithful and loving labor which should always precede exclusion. Especially should you note in this commission the unalterable relation between repentance and remission, or forgiveness of sins. The first must precede the second, and the relation is constant and necessary in the case of all sin, whether against God, the church or against ourselves.
The fifth commission is the commission at his ascension. The scriptures bearing on this are: Act 1:6-12 ; Mar 16:19 ; Luk 24:50-53 , and the account of it is found in the Harmony on pages 229-231. Upon this last commission, given just before Jesus was taken up out of their sight, note:
Act 1:8 indicates a “gathering together,” different from any of the preceding ones, and at which they asked this question: “Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Act 1:9 shows that the occasion of this commission was his ascension into heaven.
Act 1:15 implies that 120 were present at this time. This specific number necessitates that the occasion when 500 brethren were present, mentioned by Paul, must have been at the appointed mountain in Galilee, where the great commission to the church, recorded in Mat 28:16-20 , was given. A very distinguished scholar has said, “Maybe these five hundred brethren were present at the time of his ascension.” It could not be, because one hundred and twenty is given as the number. It could not even have been at any other time than at that appointed in Galilee, where most of his converts were, and where be could get together so large a number as that. The form of the commission here is: “Ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” That is the test for the Commission.
The place where the Commission was given is thus stated: “And he led them out until they were over against Bethany,” and “from the mount called Olivet.” Another commission was given at that place. The place from which he led them is the place of their gathering, to which they returned (Act 1:13 ), and they returned to Jerusalem, to the upper room, where were a multitude together, about 120. And then the writer gives the names of those who abode there, and Peter got up and spoke to these 120.
The commission to be his witnesses suggests the simplicity and directness of their work. I heard a preacher say once with reference to what he did when he went out to an appointment, “I snowed.” He said the Spirit was not with him, and it was just like s snow. Another preacher said, “I ‘hollered,’ and I ‘hollered.’ ” Preachers lose sight of one important function of their office, and that is to be witnesses. That is a simple thing to testify. You are to stand with uplifted hands, and with elbows on the Bible you are to witness before God and to bear witness to what you know to testify.
They were to testify to his vicarious passion, his burial, and his resurrection. Paul makes these three things the gospel. He says, “I delivered unto you first of all that which also I have received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day.” Of what they were eyewitnesses we will see a little later, in some other testimony.
We come now to his sixth commission. This commission is found in Act 9:15-16 ; Act 22:10-15 ; Act 26:15-18 ; Gal 1:15-16 ; Gal 2:7-9 . These scriptures give you the commission of Paul, on which note:
While both Peter and Paul, on proper occasion, preached to both Jews and Gentiles, yet we learn from Gal 2:7-9 that while the stress of Peter’s commission was to the circumcision, the stress of Paul’s commission was to the uncircumcision. He was pre-eminently the apostle to the Gentiles.
The elements of his commission may be gathered from all these scriptures cited. Read every one of them, and you will gather together the elements of his commission. Let us see what these elements were:
(a) He was set apart to his work from his mother’s womb, and divinely chosen.
(b) Personally he must suffer great things.
(c) He received the gospel which he was to preach by direct revelation from the risen Lord. He did not get it from reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Paul’s letters were written before the Gospels were written.
He did not have them to read. He did not go to Jerusalem to talk with them, but he went into Arabia, and therefrom ;the Lord himself, and from the site of the giving of the law, whose relation to the gospel he so clearly cited, he received direct from Jesus Christ the gospel which he wrote.
(d) He was chosen to bear the Lord’s name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.
(e) He was chosen to know God’s will, and to see and hear the Just One, and then to witness to all men what he saw and heard. Now, here comes in Paul as a witness, and this is a part of his commission: “What are you testifying to, Paul?” “I know God’s will; it was revealed to me; I saw Jesus; I saw him with these eyes; Jesus raised; I heard him; I heard his voice.” What next? “He saved my soul.”
One of the most effective sermons I ever preached was on this use that Paul makes of his Christian experience. Seven times in the New Testament Paul states his Christian experience, and for a different purpose every time. When he was arraigned before Agrippa he tells his Christian experience as recorded in Act 9 . In Act 22 , standing on the stairway, looking into the faces of the howling mob of murderous men, he states his Christian experience. Writing to the Romans, as is shown in Rom 7 , he tells his Christian experience. Writing to Timothy he does the same. The man is speaking as a witness.
In one of Edward Eggleston’s books there is an account of a pugnacious Methodist preacher, who was not only ready to preach the gospel, but to fight for the gospel also. On the way to a certain community two men waylaid him and said, “Mr. McGruder, if you will just turn your horse around and go back, we will let you alone, but if you persist in going to this place and interfering with our business, we are going to beat the life out of you.” So the preacher got down off the horse, saying, “I prefer to give you the beating,” and he whipped them both unmercifully. But he got his jaw broken, and that jaw being broken, he could not say a word. In the church he took his pencil and wrote to a sixteen-year-old boy and said, “Ralph, you have got to preach today.” Ralph said, “I have just been converted, you must remember.” “Do you want me to get up here and write a sermon in lead pencil to a crowd?” continued the preacher. “Well,” said Ralph, “I don’t know any sermon.” “If you break down on preaching,” said the preacher, “tell your Christian experience.” So Ralph got up and started to preaching a sermon, looking very much scared, for he had a terror, which was what we would call stage fright. At last he remembered the direction to tell his Christian experience, and the poor boy quit trying to be eloquent, or to expound the Scriptures that he knew very little about, and just told how the Lord Jesus Christ came to him, a poor orphan boy, an outlaw, and saved his soul, and that he wanted to testify how good God was to him. Before he got through there was sobbing all over the house, and a great revival broke out there.
I am telling these things to show that men are commissioned to bear witness, and while you cannot bear witness to facts that you do not know anything about, you can tell what you do know what God has done for you. David says, “Come, all ye that fear the Lord and I will tell you what great things he hath done for my soul, whereof I am glad.” In one of the prophecies concerning Jesus it is written: “I have not hid thy righteousnesses within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation; I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great assembly.”
(f) The fulness of Paul’s commission appears best in Act 26:16-18 , as follows: “Arise, and stand upon thy feet: for to this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn: from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me.” Whenever you want to preach Paul’s sermon, take Paul’s commission and analyze it. Paul was speaking before Agrippa. Notice that besides witnessing, Paul wanted to open their eyes (they were spiritually blind) ; that they might turn from darkness to light (then they were in the dark) ; from the power of Satan unto God, (they were under the power of Satan); that they might receive the remission of sins (so that they were unpardoned; and to an inheritance among them that are sanctified (then they were without heritage). Analyze that commission and you will see what he was to do; he puts it all before you plainly in that scripture. So he said to Agrippa, “Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision,” i.e., he just went on and carried out that commission. That is the analysis of the commission of Paul.
The seventh and last commission is the special commission of John Rev 1:1-2 ; Rev 1:9-11 ; Rev 1:19 . This commission is unlike any other; but it is a commission. It is a commission, not to speak, but to write; and in it we have an account of the past tenses. “What did you see, John?” “Well, I saw one of the most wonderful things in this world.” And he tells about Jesus, and how he looked in his risen glory; about the candlesticks and the stars, and what they meant; and then, having thus told what he saw in the midst of the churches, and (see chap. 4) what he saw in heaven, he looks at the present things; the churches, as they are, and heaven as it is. Then follows the last part of his commission: “Write the things which are to come.”
QUESTIONS 1. On the Great Commission (Mat 28:16-20 ) answer: What evidence that this was at an appointed meeting? Where, and who were present?
2. What are the supposable reasons for assembling at this particular place?
3. How does this occasion rank in importance?
4. What is Dr. Landrum’s analysis of this commission?
5. What authority does Christ claim in giving this commission, why was this authority given him and what the pertinency of this statement of our Lord on this particular occasion?
6. Compare this commission to a suspension bridge.
7. What does the first part of the commission prescribe to be done, or what are the three parts of the first item?
8. What does this going involve? Illustrate.
9. After going, then what three things are commanded to be done and what is the order?
10. How make disciples, and what is the teaching and example of John the Baptist and Jesus on this point?
11. Who then must do the baptizing?
12. What are the essentials to a valid baptism?
13. What can you say of Mar 16:9-20 ?
14. To whom was the Commission, recorded in Luk 24:44-49 , given?
15. How does Christ introduce this commission?
16. What does he show in this commission to be a necessity in order to the salvation of men?
17. In this commission what does he say should be done?
18. What does he constitute the disciples in this commission?
19. What promise does he announce to them in this commission?
20. What special gift does he bestow upon the disciples here, what is the difference between inspiration & illumination, and what is the object of each?
21. What especially is noted relative to Old & New Testament Scriptures?
22. What very important question does this illumination settle and how?
23. What is the necessary & constant relation between repentance & forgiveness of sins, and what the application of this principle in the case of all sin?
24. What danger, on the other hand, does the author here warn against?
25. What weakness of modern preaching churches here pointed out?
26. Give the analysis of the Commission of our Lord at the ascension.
27. To whom was Paul especially commissioned to preach?
28. What are the six elements of this commission?
29. What was the condition of the people to whom he was sent as indicated in Act 26:16-18 ?
30. What was the special commission to John, and what is the analysis of it as given in Rev 1:1-2 ; Rev 1:9-11 ; Rev 1:19 ?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XVII
SAUL’S CONVERSION, HIS CALL TO THE APOSTLESHIP AND HIS COMMISSION
Act 9:1-19
In commencing this chapter, I call attention to my address called, “The Greatest Man in History,” which you will find in The Southwestern Theological Review, Vol. I, No. II. There are ten special scriptures which bear upon the conversion of Saul, and most of them upon his call to the apostleship. The accounts given are as follows: (1) By Luke, Act 9:1-9 , A.D. 36; (2) by Barnabas, Act 9:26-28 , A.D. 39; (3) by Paul at Corinth, Gal 1:15-16 , A.D. 57; (4) by Paul at Ephesus, 1Co 15:8-10 , A.D. 57; (5) by Paul at Corinth, Rom 7:7-25 , A.D. 58; (6) by Paul at Jerusalem, Act 22:1-16 , A.D. 59; (7) by Paul at Caesarea, Act 26:1-19 , A.D. 60; (8) by Paul at Rome, Phi 3:4-14 , A.D. 62; (9) by Paul in Macedonia, 1Ti 1:12-16 , A.D. 67; (10) by Paul at Rome, 2Ti 1:9-12 , A.D. 68. In order to understand the conversion of Saul of Tarsus we must be able to interpret these ten scriptures.
To prove that Paul was under conviction before his conversion I submit two scriptures: (1) The words that Jesus said to him when he met him, “It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.” (2) What he says about his experience in Rom 7:7-25 , that he was alive without the law until the commandment came, when sin revived and he died.
As to the time and place of Paul’s conversion, the argument is overwhelming that he was converted outside Damascus. In the first place, the humility with which he asked the question, “Who art thou, Lord?” Second, the spirit of obedience which instantly followed: “Whereupon, O King Agrippa, Is was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” Again he says, “When God called me by his grace, he revealed Christ in me.” So we may count it a settled question that Paul was converted out there on the road, when the light above the brightness of the midday sun shone about him, and he fell to the ground.
The proof that his vision of Jesus was real, and not a mere mental state, is found in 1Co 9:1 , and also 1Co 15:8 , in which he expressly affirms that he had seen Jesus, and puts it in the same class with the appearances of Jesus to the other disciples, after his resurrection from the dead. It was not simply an ecstasy, nor a trance, nor a mere mental state, but he actually met Jesus, and saw him. Jesus appeared to him, not in the flesh, as on earth before his death, but in the glory of his risen body. He and Paul actually met. There was a necessity for his actually seeing the Lord. He could not otherwise have been an apostle, for one of the main functions of the apostolic office was to be an “eyewitness” that Jesus had risen from the dead. So Peter announces when Matthias was chosen to fill the place of Judas that he must be one who had continued with them from the time of the baptism of John until the Lord was taken up into the heavens, and that he must be one eyewitness of the resurrection of Christ. Other passages also bearing on his apostolic call, are, one particularly, 1Co 9:1-9 , and then what he says in the beginning of his letters: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, not of man.” I need not cite all of these beginnings. You can trace these out yourself. The second particular passage that I cite, to be put by the side of 1Co 9:1-9 , is Gal 1:15-16 .
Let us distinguish clearly between his conversion and his apostolic call, and show what part of this point experience may not be expected in conversions today, and was not a part of his Christian experience, and what the elements of his Christian experience. When I was interested in the subject of my salvation, to me, a sinner and an outsider, the distinction between Saul’s conversion and his call to the apostleship was very clear. You must understand that the light above the brightness of the midday sun was the glory of the appearance of the risen Lord to Saul, in order that he might see him to become an apostle, and the shock which Paul experienced by thus seeing the risen Lord was the shock that knocked him down, but it was not a part of his Christian experience it was a part of his call to the apostleship. You must not expect anything of that kind in order to your conversion, nor must you teach other people to expect it. But the elements of his Christian experience were these: (1) He was convicted that he was a sinner; (2) Christ was revealed to him; (3) he did believe on the Christ thus revealed as his Saviour; (4) he did then and there receive the remission of his sins, which remission was pictorially set forth in his baptism three days later.
Here it is well for us to define a Christian experience. I was once present when a man came to unite with the church, and the first question propounded to him was, “Please tell us in your own way why you think you are a Christian.” “Well,” he commenced in a sort of “sing-song” manner, “one day ah, about five o’clock ah, I just took a notion to walk around the work-fence ah, and I thought maybe I’d better take my rifle along ah, for I might see a squirrel ah,” and he went on just that way. I myself have heard, in a Negro protracted meeting on the Brazos, about eight miles below Waco, candidate after candidate tell their experiences. They commenced this way: “Well, about last Sunday night ah,” following the same “sing-song” manner, “something seemed to drop down on me like a falling star ah, and I heard the angel Gabriel toot his horn ah; I went down in the valley to pray ah,” and so on.
Therefore, I say that we ought to define accurately the Christian experience. This is a Christian experience: All those convictions, emotions, and determinations of the soul wrought by the Spirit of God in one’s passage from death unto life. That may sound like a strange definition of a Christian experience. It has in it a conviction and certain emotions, also certain determinations, or choices, and those convictions and emotions are not excited by seeing a squirrel, not in imagining that you heard Gabriel blow his horn, for it is not Gabriel that is going to blow the horn. Michael is the horn-blower. But this conviction, this emotion and the determinations of the will, are all Spirit-wrought. And a Christian experience covers every one of those in the passage from death unto life.
There are varied uses which the New Testament makes of Paul’s experience:
1. As soon as he was converted, and yet outside Damascus or at least as soon as he had entered Damascus, the Lord tells Paul’s Christian experience to Ananias in order to induce that disciple to go to him. That disciple says, “Lord, I know this man. Why, he is a holy terror! He just kills us wherever he finds us.” But the Lord says, “I tell you he is a chosen vessel unto me, and you go to him.” So the Lord made use of Paul’s experience to prepare Ananias to accept Paul, and to minister to him what ought to be ministered to him, just as God made use of the experience of Cornelius related by himself to Peter in order to prepare Peter to perceive that God was no respecter of persons.
2. The second use made is by Barnabas in Act 9:26-28 . Paul came to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, and essayed to join himself to the disciples, but they would not receive him: “You? Take you? Accept you? Why, this whole city is full of the memories of your persecutions.” But Barnabas took up for him, and related how this Saul had met Jesus, and how he was a believer in this gospel, and a preacher. And the relating of Saul’s experience to the Jerusalem church removed all of their objections to him, and prepared them to receive him among them, so the record says, “he went in and out among them.”
It is for such objects that the Christian experience should be related to the church. God requires it as the second ceremonial act that the man shall publicly confess the change that has taken place in him before he can be received into the church, and I will be sorry whenever, if ever, the Baptists leave that out. A man must not only be converted inside, but in order to join the church there must be a confession of that conversion.
In this particular case it was exceedingly appropriate for Barnabas to relate it, as they would not be disposed to believe Paul. The general rule should be that each candidate tell his own experience. It is better to let the candidate just get up and tell the church why he thinks he is a Christian, in his own way. Some people object to it. They say it is too embarrassing to the women. I have never found it so, but Is have seen men so “shaky” when they went to get married that they answered so low I could hardly hear them. But women are always assertive. A woman knows she loves him. She knows what she is doing, and she doesn’t mind saying so.
I remember a Christian experience related to our old First Church at Waco. A Mrs. Warren gave it. I talked with her privately, saying, “When you come before the church, don’t let anybody suggest to you what you are to say, and don’t you say anything because somebody else has said it; you just simply say what has happened to you.” When I put the question to her, she opened her Bible and put her finger on the passage from which she heard a sermon, and showed how that sermon took hold of her; told how it led her to pray; she then turned to another passage, showing that through faith she believed in Jesus Christ; and she thus turned from passage to passage. I considered her’s the most intelligent and the most impressive Christian experience I had ever heard. That kind of testimony does a world of good.
3. The third use of it Paul himself makes in his letter to the Galatians. He says, “God, who separated me even from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me.” Thus he goes on to make use of his Christian experience. He says, “Therefore, now first I was converted, and then called as an independent apostle. That is why I do not go to Jerusalem to submit my experience to Peter or John, having derived this direct authority from God, from Christ, who alone can call an apostle. That is why I did not submit to the instruction of man.”
4. The next use he makes of it is what is told in Rom 7 , and he there tells his experience in order to show the use of the law in the conversion of a man that the law does not convert the man; that it discovers sin to him: “I had not known sin except the law said, Thou shall and shalt not do this or that. I was not even conscious that I was a sinner until the law showed me I was a sinner. Apart from the law I felt all right, about as good as anybody, but when the law came, sin revived and I died.” And then he goes on to show that this mere sight of sin through the law cannot put one at peace with God, neither can it deliver one; it does not enable one to follow the right that he sees in order to evade the wrong that he would not; that it leads one to cry out, “Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” But when he says, “I thank God through Christ Jesus our Lord,” he then shows how his conversion, through faith in Jesus Christ was led up to by the law: the law was a schoolmaster to lead him to Christ.
5. In the letter to the Corinthians he makes another use of it. He explains that he is so different from what he was, saying, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” In other words, “You need not come to me and say, ‘Why, Paul, when did you commence to do better, to work out your own righteousness? You are so different from what you were when I first heard of you; you then were breathing out threatenings,’ for I say to you, By the grace of God I am what I am.”
6. We see another when he stands on the stairway in Jerusalem, giving an explanation as to why he quit one crowd and then went to another crowd. They were howling against him for going over to the Christians after being so zealous as a Jew, and he asked the brethren to hear him. He admits all that they said as to what he had been, and to justify his occupying the position he now occupies, he says, “I will tell you my Christian experience,” and he proceeds to do it. If a leader of wild young men, up to all sorts of mischief and devilment, should go off for a few days, and come back changed, and the boys say, “Come down to the saloon tonight, and let us have a good time,” and he would then say, “No,” they would wonder what had come to him and would ask, “What has come over you lately? Come and let us have a game of cards.” But, “No,” he says, “boys, I will tell you why I cannot do that.” Then he explains why, and he leaves that crowd because he can’t stay with it any more. So Paul explained why he left the persecuting crowd, and could not go with them any more. He had had a Christian experience.
7. In Act 26 there is another instance recorded in which he made use of it. He was at Caesarea, arraigned on trial for his life, before Festus and King Agrippa. He is asked to speak in his own defense. In defending himself against the accusations of his enemies he relates his Christian experience.
8. In the letter to the Philippians he relates his Christian experience in order to show the impossibility of any man’s becoming righteous through his own righteousness, and to show that Christ laid hold of him. He uses his own experience now to show that his righteousness can never save him, and that though regenerate, he cannot claim to be perfectly holy and sinless.
9. In 1Ti 1:12-16 he relates his Christian experience in order to explain two poles of those who are salvable: (a) “God forgave me because I did it through ignorance,” and (b) to show that any man who has not committed the unpardonable sin, may be saved, since he, the chief of sinners, was saved.
10. Then, in the last letter to Timothy, and just before he died, he recites his Christian experience. He says, “I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day,” i.e., “I committed my soul to him on that day when he came to me and met me; I knew him before I committed it to him, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep it.” He made that use of his Christian experience because he was under the sentence of death, expecting in a few hours to be executed. This is his farewell to earth and to time, so he closes his letter with the statement that the time of his exodus is at hand; that he is ready to be poured out as a libation; that he has fought a good fight, has kept the faith, and that he feels sure that there is laid up for him a crown which God the righteous Judge will give to him at his appearing, i.e., the appearing of Jesus. The relating of that experience came from the lips of a dying man, showing that the ground of his assurance gives calmness the calmness of God’s peace.
A startling fact confronts us in these many uses of his experience. We do not find many uses of Peter’s experience, or John’s, or Matthew’s, or Mark’s, or Luke’s. Paul is the only man in the New Testament whose experience is held up before us in ten distinct passages of scripture. To account for the fact, let us expound the two reasons for this particular man’s conversion (1Ti 1:13-16 ), in which he says, “Howbeit I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief . . . howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as the chief [of sinners] might Jesus Christ show forth all his longsuffering, for an ensample, . . .” the conclusion of which is this: All these uses are made of Paul’s experience because as Abraham had the model faith, which is the pattern for all generations, so Paul is a model in Christian experience he is the pattern. If you preach on the faith of Abraham you have the model faith of the world; if you preach on the experience of Saul of Tarsus you have the model experience of the world.
The principal lesson to us is that as it was in the particular case of Paul, so it is in our case, that the most stupendous fact in our history is not when we were born according to the flesh, but when we were born according to the Spirit. That is our real birthday. It is the most significant and the most far-reaching fact of anybody’s lifetime and an abundant use may be made of it.
For instance, John Jasper, the Negro preacher, with his Christian experience could always reply to any atheist even to President Eliot, of Harvard, about a new religion. He would say to President Eliot, “When you say there is no such thing as the religion that has been preached, you ought to say, ‘Not as you knows of.’ I have it, and since I have got it and you haven’t, I am higher authority on that than you.”
In Edward Eggleston’s Circuit Rider is the story of a fighting preacher, who was going to his appointment, and certain rough men stopped him on the way and told him that he must turn round and go home, and not fill that appointment. “No,” he said, “I am going to fill it; I’m not going home.” “Well, then, we will take you down from your horse and give you such a beating that you will not feel like preaching.” “Well, you ought not to do that,” he said. “You get down,” they said. He got down and whipped both of them outrageously, but in the fight he got his jaw badly bruised and marred, and when he got to where he was to preach he could not preach. There was a big crowd, and no preacher who could preach. So he looked around and took a poor, thin, long-haired, black-eyed young fellow who had been very wild, but who had just been converted just a boy. The preacher said, “Ralph, get up here and preach.” “Why,” he says, “I am no preacher; I have not been a Christian long; I have not been licensed, nor ordained.” “But,” said the preacher, “get up here and preach.” “Why,” said the boy, “I do not know any sermons.” “Well, if you try to make a sermon and fail, then throw your sermon down, and tell your Christian experience before this crowd.” So that boy got up and made a failure of trying to preach a sermon like preachers preach. Then, weeping, he said, “Brethren, I can tell you how God for Christ’s sake forgave my sins,” and he became more eloquent in telling his experience than Demosthenes or Cicero, and that whole crowd was weeping under the power of the boy’s simple recounting of the salvation of his soul. He could not possibly have done any better than just what he did that day.
There is a myth that when Jupiter made a man he put a pair of saddlebags on his shoulders. In one of the saddlebags was the man’s own sins and in the other were the sins of his neighbors, and when the man threw the saddlebags on his shoulder the sins of his neighbors were in front of him and the other saddlebag with his own sins was behind him so that he could not see them, but his eyes were always on the sins of his neighbors. But when conversion comes God reverses the saddlebags, and putting the man’s own sins in front, he places the sins of his neighbors behind him, so that he never thinks about what a sinner A, B or C is, but, “Oh,” he says, “what a sinner I am!” That is the way of it in the Christian experience. Some think that it was the thought underlying this myth which caused Paul to call himself the chief of sinners, i.e., that it was because he saw his own sins, but not the sins of other people. My belief is that all of us feel that way the first time we quit looking at our neighbors’ sins and begin looking at our own sins, but it is not the explanation of Paul’s statement, because that does not make a pattern of the case. He says, “Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief: howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long-suffering, for an ensample of them that should thereafter believe on him unto eternal life.” Note that his case was a pattern to them that should thereafter believe. That was the reason, and not simply that of looking at his own sins instead of his neighbors.
What particular act, or series of acts, or state of mind constituted him the chief of sinners, is e., was it because he was a persecutor, blasphemer, or injurious? No. I have showed in a previous chapter that Louis XIV and Alva in the lowlands persecuted worse than all. Others have gone before him in blaspheming, and there have been more injurious men than he. The answer is this: He was a “Pharisee of the Pharisees,” that is, he was an extremist, going to the fine points of Pharisaism, the acme, the pinnacle, the apex of Pharisaism, which is self-righteousness, and Paul was the most self-righteous man in the world. What is the sin of self-righteousness? It says, “I am not depraved by nature; I do not need the new birth, the re-birth of the Holy Spirit; I need no atonement; I am the ‘pink of perfection.’ ” That is the greatest sin that man ever committed, because it rejects the Father’s love. It rejects the Saviour’s expiatory death, and his priesthood. It rejects the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification. Hence it is the culmination of sin. While other people are self-righteous, Paul was the outside man, which means that if all the sinners from Adam to the end of the world were put in a row and graded according to their heinousness, this one a sinner) this one more a sinner, that one even more, and to the outside man, the worst, the one next to hell, that man was Saul of Tarsus. That is what is meant by being the outside man as a pattern. He topped them all, to be held up before other sinners, so as to say, “If the outside man was saved, you need not despair.” The value of this man’s conversion to the church and to the world is very great. It marked the turning point in the direction of the labors of the church in a worldwide way, and it established forever the foundations of the new covenant as against the old covenant.
His apostolic call and independent gospel knocks the foundation out from under the Romanist claim that Peter was the first Pope, because it shows that he did not derive from Peter his apostolic authority; that he did not even go to see Peter before he commenced exercising his call; that he did not get from Peter one syllable of his gospel; and whenever an issue came up between him and Peter the latter went down and not Paul. That one fact destroys the entire claim of the papacy that Peter was the first Pope.
There are some things in this connection that need explanation. First, the falling of the scales from his eyes. Literally, there was no falling of the scales from his eyes, but the glory of Christ blinded him. His physical eyes could not see. It was not his soul that was blinded, but his physical eyes; and “the scales” that fell from his eyes was this temporary suspension of sight caused by this glory of the Lord. If you hold your eye open a little and let me put a red hot iron, not against your eye, but close to it, it will make you as blind as a bat, but if you shut your eye it won’t do it, because the tears in your eyes will break the conduction of the heat. Paul’s case is just as when you are standing out of doors on a dark night and there comes an intense flash of lightning. When it is gone you cannot see for a moment. That is the scales.
Second, Paul was unable to eat and drink for three days. The experience that had come to him was turning the world upside down. He had meat to eat that the ordinary man knows not of. The disciples were astonished that Jesus, sitting at the well of Sychar, was not hungry. He says, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” Hundreds of times I have been in that condition, after a great illumination in God’s work, and some powerful demonstration in a meeting, that I could not eat anything. The things of heaven tasted so much better than the things of earth. No man eats for a while in the shock of such tremendous experience as that Paul passed through.
Third, the Lord said to Ananias, “Behold, he prayeth.” The question arises, What was he praying for? What do you pray for? You are converted. The Lord said to Ananias, “Paul prayeth.” It was used as a proof that he was converted, and, “therefore Ananias, you may go to him.” Ananias was afraid to go. So the Lord said, “Why, you need not be afraid to go; he is not persecuting now, he is praying; there has a change come over him.” I do more praying and quicker praying after an extraordinary visitation of God’s grace than at any other time.
QUESTIONS 1. What address commended for study in connection with this chapter, and have you read it?
2. What the scriptures bearing on the theme, and what the corresponding date of each?
3 Prove that Paul was under conviction before his conversion?
4. Through whose ministry was Paul convicted?
5. At what point in the story was he converted when he met Jesus outside Damascus, at the end of three days in Damascus, or at his baptism?
6. What the proof that his vision of Jesus was real, and not a mere mental state?
7. What was the necessity for his actually seeing the Lord?
8. Cite other passages also bearing on his apostolic call.
9. Distinguish clearly between his conversion and his apostolic call, and show what part of this joint experience may not be expected in conversions today, and was not a part of his Christian experience.
10. Define a Christian experience.
11. What varied uses does the New Testament make of Paul’s experience?
12. What startling fact confronts us in these many uses of his experience?
13. To account for the fact expound the two reasons for this particular man’s conversion (1Ti 1:13-16 ) in which be says, “Howbeit Is obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief; . . . howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as the chief of sinners] might Jesus Christ show forth all his long-suffering, for an ensample, etc.”
14. What the lessons to us of the use to be made of our experience, and what illustration of it?
15. Cite the myth of Jupiter concerning the man and the saddlebags.
16. Was it the thought underlying this myth which caused Paul to call himself the chief of sinners, i.e., was it because he saw his own sins, but not the sins of other people? Explain fully.
17. What particular act, or series of acts, or state of mind constituted him the chief of sinners, i.e., was it because he was a persecutor, blasphemer, or injurious?
18. What is the value of this man’s conversion to the church and the world?
19. What is the bearing of his apostolic call and his independent gospel on the Romanist claim that Peter was the first Pope?
20. Explain the falling of the scales from his eyes.
21. Explain his not eating and drinking for three days.
22. The Lord said to Ananias, “Behold, he prayeth.” What was he waiting for?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
Ver. 7. Seen of James ] This is not mentioned in the Gospel, as neither that of Peter, 1Co 15:5 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
7. ] Probably, from no distinguishing epithet being added, the celebrated James, the brother of the Lord : see Gal 1:19 . So Chrys.: , , p. 355. See notes on ch. 1Co 9:5 , Mat 13:55 , and the Prolegg. to the Epistle of James. On Wieseler’s view that this is the appearance on the road to Emmaus, see note on Luk 24:13 . This appearance cannot however be identical with that traditional one quoted by Jerome (from the Gospel according to the Hebrews), Catal. Script. Eccles. ii. vol. ii. p. 831 f.: “Juraverat enim Jacobus, se non comesturum panem ab illa hora qua biberat calicem Domini, donec videret eum resurgentem a mortuis.” This would imply that the appearance was very soon after the Resurrection, and before any of those to large collections of believers, in which James would naturally be present.
. ] This is decisive for the much wider use of the term than as applying to the Twelve only: and a strong presumption that James, just mentioned, and evidently here and Gal 1:19 , included among the , was not one of the Twelve. Chrys. (ubi supra) extends the term to the Seventy of Luk 10 and others: , .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 15:7 . “After that, He appeared to James” sc . James, the brother of the Lord , as elsewhere in P. (Gal 1:19 ; Gal 2:9 ; Gal 2:12 ), included in the . of 1Co 9:5 above (see note); associated with P. in Act 15:13 ; Act 21:18 (see notes). The manifestation to James only mentioned here the chief of our Lord’s formerly unbelieving brothers (Joh 7:5 ), explains the presence of “His brothers” amongst the 120 disciples at Jerus. (Act 1:14 ) and James’ subsequent leadership in the mother Church. His high position at the time of writing accounts for his citation in this place. Paul made acquaintance with James as well as Peter on his first visit to the Jerus. Church (Gal 1:18 f.). The well-known story about the meeting of Jesus with James told by Jerome ( De viris illustr ., 2) implies an earlier date for this than Paul’s narrative admits of, since signifies succession in time ; succession of rank cannot be intended. “After that, to all the apostles”: in this formal enumeration, bears its strictest sense, and could hardly include James (see Act 1:13 f.; he is not certainly so styled in Gal 1:19 ). Paul was, presumably, aware of the absence of Thomas on the occasion of 1Co 15:5 , and his consequent scepticism (Joh 20:24 ff.); he therefore says distinctly that all participated in this latter sight, which coincides in point of time with Act 1:6-12 , not Joh 20:26 . The witness of the First App. to the resurrection was complete and unqualified.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
James. See App-182.
all, &c. Luk 24:50-52. Act 1:6-9.
apostles. App-189
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
7. ] Probably, from no distinguishing epithet being added, the celebrated James, the brother of the Lord: see Gal 1:19. So Chrys.: , , p. 355. See notes on ch. 1Co 9:5, Mat 13:55, and the Prolegg. to the Epistle of James. On Wieselers view that this is the appearance on the road to Emmaus, see note on Luk 24:13. This appearance cannot however be identical with that traditional one quoted by Jerome (from the Gospel according to the Hebrews), Catal. Script. Eccles. ii. vol. ii. p. 831 f.: Juraverat enim Jacobus, se non comesturum panem ab illa hora qua biberat calicem Domini, donec videret eum resurgentem a mortuis. This would imply that the appearance was very soon after the Resurrection, and before any of those to large collections of believers, in which James would naturally be present.
. ] This is decisive for the much wider use of the term than as applying to the Twelve only: and a strong presumption that James, just mentioned, and evidently here and Gal 1:19, included among the , was not one of the Twelve. Chrys. (ubi supra) extends the term to the Seventy of Luke 10 and others: , .
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 15:7. [135] , by all) More seem here to be called Apostles than the twelve, 1Co 15:5; and yet the term is used in a stricter sense than at Rom 16:7.
[135] , James) the Less.-V. g.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 15:7
1Co 15:7
then he appeared to James;-Of this appearance we have no other mention. [There can be little doubt that this James was the Lords brother (Gal 1:19), who became so prominent in the church in Jerusalem (Gal 2:9), and is placed here among the chief witnesses because of his prominent position. He was not a believer during the Lords personal ministry (Joh 7:5); but he was united with the apostles, and with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus in the upper chamber, immediately after the ascension (Act 1:14).]
then to all the apostles;-This appearance was on the day of the ascension. (Act 1:4-11; Luk 24:44-51). [From the expressions-being assembled together with them, and they therefore, when they were come together-it is evident that this gathering was the result of a convocation on the part of Jesus. It was to be his final appearance to the apostles. They must all be present, and Jesus had provided that none of them should be wanting.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
then: Luk 24:50, Act 1:2-12
Reciprocal: Mat 10:2 – James Mar 3:18 – James Act 1:13 – James Act 12:17 – James
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 15:7. This James was not one of the twelve apostles, but was the one named in Act 15:13 and Gal 2:9, and is the author of the epistle of James. All the apostles means the eleven (Judas having killed himself), and Luk 24:33-36 gives the account of their seeing Him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 15:7. then he appeared to Jamesthe James of the Acts (Act 12:17; Act 15:13; Act 21:18not Act 12:2). This James, we believe, was James the Lords brother, not James the apostle. It has been thought that this special manifestation was what removed his last misgivings as to the claims of Jesus (Meyer); for up to a pretty late period of His public ministry, even His brethren did not believe in Him (Joh 7:5)that is, they were from time to time shaken by unfavourable appearances. It has been thought, too, that this special manifestation to Jamesno doubt communicated to the apostlesalong with his blood-relationship to the Lord Himself, had something to do with the leading place assigned to him at Jerusalem.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 7. After that He was seen of James, then of all the apostles.
The reading , afterwards, is preferable here; for we come now to the last appearances granted to the apostles. That given to James no doubt preceded by a short time the appearing on the day of the ascension, which immediately follows. This James can only be the one who played a considerable part in the Church of Jerusalem, as head of its council of elders (Act 15:13; Act 21:18), and who is called, Gal 1:19, the Lord’s brother, and 1Co 2:9, one of the pillars of the Church. He was not a believer during the Lord’s lifetime (Joh 7:5); but we find him united with the apostles and holy women, in the upper chamber, immediately after the ascension (Act 1:14). This extraordinary change was no doubt brought about by the appearance here mentioned, which should not be confounded with that described by a legend preserved in the Gospel of the Hebrews (Jerome, de viris illustr. c. 2); for had there been a foundation of truth in this narrative of the apocryphal book, the fact must have immediately followed the resurrection.
The subsequent appearance to all the apostles can only be that of the day of ascension. But why the adjective all, and why is it placed so emphatically after the substantive? Meyer thinks Paul wishes thereby to indicate a larger circle of persons than that of the Twelve properly so called (1Co 15:5), including, for example, James or others, such as Barnabas or Silas, who sometimes in the New Testament bear the title of apostles; comp. Act 14:4; Act 14:14; 1Th 2:6. But the expression all the apostles does not naturally express the idea of a circle larger than the Twelve, and at the time when this appearance took place, before Pentecost, no apostles different from the Twelve could possibly be thought of (see Holsten). On the other hand, if the expression all the apostles has the same meaning as that which was used in 1Co 15:5 (the Twelve), why this wholly different expression here? Hofmann answers: Because in 1Co 15:5 the apostles were mentioned as forming the intimate companions of Jesus, while here they are mentioned as founders of the Church. Holsten rightly regards this distinction as arbitrary, and on this, according to him, inexplicable difference of expression he again fastens the suspicion of inauthenticity, which he throws on the last words of 1Co 15:5. But this is a very risky conclusion. Perhaps the particular expression used here is explained by the special character of this last gathering of the apostles round their Master. One is struck with the two expressions in Luke’s narrative, Act 1:4; Act 1:6 : , and having assembled them; then: , they, therefore, having come together. It is obvious that this gathering was, like that of 1Co 15:6, the result of a positive and solemn convocation on the part of Jesus. It was to be the last, His adieu to the apostles, as that of 1Co 15:6 had been His adieu to the Church. The apostolic college must be there in full, and Jesus had provided that none of the apostles should be wanting. This explains the , all, especially if we think of Thomas, who was absent the first time (the appearance of 1Co 15:5), and must on no account be wanting this last time. The term apostles reminds us of their mission to the world, of which the ascension was about to become the signal.
Finally, Paul mentions the fact which closed the series of the appearances of the risen One, and which was separated from all the preceding by a much greater interval than those which had separated these from one another.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
then he appeared to James [This was the one called “the brother of our Lord,” and “James the just.” Though Paul speaks of him as an apostle (Gal 1:19), he was not one of the twelve. But he was prominent in that day as a chief elder at Jerusalem (Act 15:13; Act 21:18; Gal 2:9; Gal 2:11). He was author of the Epistle which bears his name. The appearance here mentioned evidently converted James, for before the resurrection the brethren of our Lord did not believe on him–comp. Joh 12:3-5; Act 1:14; Act 9:5]; then to all the apostles [Act 1:3];
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
This James was most likely the half-brother of Jesus. He became the leader of the Jerusalem church (cf. Act 15:13-21). The apostles as a group included Matthias, who was not one of the 12 original disciples. This probably refers to a collective appearance to all the apostles.