Gal 1:11 For I make known to you, brothers, concerning the gospel announced by me, that it is not according to man. 12 For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation by Jesus Christ. 15 But when it pleased God... 16 To reveal His Son in me that I might announce Him as the gospel among the Gentiles, immediately I did not confer with flesh and blood,
Paul told us in Galatians that the word he preached was according to revelation because it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. Through revelation, Paul received genuine spiritual knowledge of Christ. As a result, he did not confer with flesh and blood; instead, he preached the Christ whom he knew through revelation to the Gentiles. Paul was able to work because he first allowed God to work in him; he allowed God to work Himself into him. First God revealed His Son through the Spirit in Paul; he came to know Christ according to spiritual reality and not according to flesh (2 Cor. 5:16). Then Paul was able to preach this Christ he had received to others. Paul did not preach an objective Christ; he did not preach an intangible Christ. He preached a Christ whom he had experienced personally. Christ was as real in him as his very self. Christ was in him, and he was in Christ. Christ was in his thoughts, his words, and his actions. Christ was the Lord within Paul, and Paul was Christ's outward expression. You may say that he was Paul. You may also say that Christ was seen in him and that he was Christ, for indeed he was taken possession of by Christ (Phil. 3:12, Darby's New Translation). Paul's preaching was based on what he had. The measure of Christ that he knew became the measure of Christ he preached to others. Therefore, being a fellow worker of God does not mean that we should work for God. Rather, it means that we should first allow God to work Christ into us. Only then can we tell others about the Christ we know through revelation. The work is still the Lord's; man is only there to report His work. Paul asked the Corinthian saints, "Are you not my work in the Lord?" (1 Cor. 9:1). Their being in the Lord was the result of Paul's preaching the Christ he knew to them and of their receiving.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Watchman Nee, General Messages, Vol. 38, The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, pp. 265-266. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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