Galatians 1:16 - Printer Friendly

ESV: was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone;

NIV: to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

NASB: to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,

CSB: to reveal his Son in me, so that I could preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone.

NLT: to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being.

KJV: To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

NKJV: to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,

Paul is telling his personal story of coming to Christ in order to convince the Galatian believers that he did not invent what he taught them. He received it from Jesus directly. After a zealous career as a Pharisee, God intervened in Paul's life. Paul understood now that God had set him apart to fill this role of being an apostle before he was even born. God was the one who called him. Paul knew he did not earn or deserve this job; it was grace.

Specifically, Paul now describes what God called him to do when He revealed to Paul His Son, Jesus (Acts 9:1–22). Paul's mission was to preach about Jesus to the Gentiles. That's what he was born to do. It's what God commissioned him to do.

Paul now comes to an important point in his argument that the gospel he taught them did not come from other human beings. When, by God's grace, Paul believed in Jesus and understood his calling, he did not immediately go find some person to start training him in the things of Christ. As the following verses will show, he went off by himself, instead. The significance of this is that the gospel Paul now preaches isn't something he is simply regurgitating from his teachers. It came to him directly from the Lord.

Galatians 1:11–24 begins with Paul's statement that he did not receive the gospel which he taught to the Galatians from any man-made religion, nor training from other people. He received it from Christ Himself. God revealed His Son Jesus to Paul, by His grace, even after Paul spent years as a Pharisee trying to destroy the Christian church. After Christ commissioned Paul to preach the good news to the Gentiles, he went off by himself for a few years and came to know the gospel through Christ directly.

Paul begins his letter to the Galatian churches abruptly, compared to his other writings. He has heard they are deserting the gospel which he preached and they believed: the good news that Jesus died to fully pay for all our sins on the cross. The Judaizers taught that these Gentiles must also follow the law of Moses to be saved and openly questioned Paul's authority. Paul makes the case that he has been made an apostle by Christ, who appeared to him and revealed the truth to him apart from the other apostles.

Galatians 1 begins one of the most-loved books about God's grace in all of Scripture. This and the following chapter detail Paul's biography, as he makes the case that he has been made an apostle by Christ and therefore his message is trustworthy. Chapters 3 and 4 go into depth about exactly what the gospel of God's grace is and why it is true. In chapters 5 and 6, Paul teaches about how Christians should live in the world as people who have received the grace of God through faith in Christ.

Galatians is sometimes called “a short Romans” for its similar themes of justification and sanctification through faith. A group of Christians known as “Judaizers” were preaching a gospel of legalism, rather than grace. Paul’s main purpose in writing the letter to the Galatians was to reiterate the true nature of the gospel: we are justified (made righteous) and sanctified (made more Christlike) through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. This letter was probably written shortly before the church elders in Jerusalem issued their official refutation of the Judaizers, commonly called the Jerusalem Council.