They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’

Galatians 1:23

    

Paul was on his way to Damascus in the early stages of the news of Jesus spreading fast to kill and capture anyone who belonged to the ‘Way’ (Acts 9:1-2). But instead, he met the risen Jesus on the way, and after the encounter, Paul seems to have wrestled with it alone for three years in Arabia, probably meaning Mt. Sinai, as he mentions later on in 4:25. Moses was alone on Mt. Sinai (Horeb is another name for the same mountain) with God many times. There, Moses met God, who introduced himself as ‘I am who I am’. That ‘I am’ is going to be in Paul through the dwelling of the Spirit and in all saints who will come to hear him and believe. This was the work of Jesus he persecuted (Acts 26:15).

We easily think that when Paul’s zeal met God’s grace, it was only the direction of Paul’s zeal that changed. But that is not the whole story. When the zeal met grace, the origin of the zeal died (1 Cor 15:31; Gal 2:20). And only grace took over. On the outside, it might look like the same Paul at work, but the same zeal that used to persecute the church (Phil 3:6) cannot possibly prepare it to be the bride of Christ (2 Cor 11:2). Paul is completely ‘born again’. That ‘I am’ has given him birth, and He has given the new Paul new zeal that belongs to Himself.

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Lord, when you give us birth, you do not just fix us here and there to make us usable; you make us into completely new beings. Lord, let us break away from the thought that we must have at least some good in us. Because of your powerful but subtle work, we easily but mistakenly believe that we are more or less the same beings then and now. But unless you bear us anew completely, we are not your children; we are your enemies who try to destroy your work. Let us come to understand the mystery of our births.