It pleased God

'It pleased God'

— Galatians 1:15

Though to many Paul’s conversion, his experience of grace, might seem extraordinary, he tells its us that the method of God’s grace with him was a pattern, revealing the method of God’s grace with all his elect (I Tim.1: 16). The apostle also tells us plainly what the order and method of God’s grace is: ‘When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood’ (Gal. 1: 15-16). This is the way God saves sinners. The order of grace never changes. The method of grace never varies.

Salvation begins in the will and pleasure of God: ‘When it pleased God’. The source of saving grace is the will of God. The cause of salvation is not the will of man, but the will of God (Rom. 9:11-18). Having willed to save some of Adam’s fallen race, God separated his own elect from the rest of mankind: ‘Who separated me from my mother’s womb.’ This act of separation is God’s unconditional election of his people in Christ, before the foundation of the world (2 Thess. 2:13;2 Tim. 1:19). The phrase ‘from my mother’s womb’ implies the fact that this election took place before we had done anything good or bad. It is teaching God’s sovereignty in election (Jer. 1:4-5). Then, at the time appointed, God calls all of his elect by effectual and irresistible grace: ‘And called me by his grace’. Those who were sanctified in the womb of election are given life by the call of the spirit. This call of the Spirit is always effectual because, in calling his elect to life and faith, God graciously reveals his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in his elect: ‘To reveal his Son in me’. Salvation comes when Christ is revealed. As the result of this revelation of Christ in the heart, God makes his elect people willingly obedient servants to his Son. God’s purpose was that Paul should willingly serve him, and serve him he did. Good works will never cause God to be gracious; but God’s grace always causes his people to walk willingly in good works.