Why Paul?

By Tammy Lacock

This week, Warren Litzman focuses on the very possible reasons why God raised up only Paul to reveal the “mystery” of Christ living in him and to deliver this new gospel to us.

Paul was not a follower of Jesus of Nazareth like the apostles. He was not a member of the early church of the New Testament when God chose him for this mission. He knew about Jesus and believed to be doing God’s will by persecuting His followers, making Paul the meanest man on earth at the time. He was rank-and-file Judaic, as Warren simply puts it. He was extremely learned in the Torah and Moses’s Law.

God needed a special, bold voice to deliver His gospel of grace to a world inundated by fear, sin, and law. Christ knew that, by the help of the Holy Spirit, Paul would be the perfect man to deliver a new gospel, one that had been hidden since the world began, yet now revealed to him.

“Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:25-27)

In John, chapter 14, Christ spoke of the “mystery,” this revelation knowledge, that would be revealed to believers by the Holy Spirit. He spoke of the Holy Spirit’s role as Comforter and Spirit of Truth. He spoke of going from a believing mind to a knowing mind. He tells us, only the Holy Spirit will reveal truth, new knowledge of Him, and He will speak only of Christ, not Himself.

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” (John 16:13)

“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” (John 15:26)

By this revelation knowledge, he tells us, we will be comforted and will know the truth, that is, knowing He lives in us and is now our very life. No separation. Christ sums it up in John 14:20, speaking of the Day of Pentecost, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

We are one by Christ and we are one in Christ (John 17:21-23). He is joined to our spirits making us one spirit in Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). By Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, God’s grace poured out into humanity, and we are now freed from this world, a world of law, sin, and death. Christ made a way for us to live with our Heavenly Father. He made a way for us to come out of an old mindset corrupted by the sin-nature, passed down through Adam by the curse of Satan, and ushered us into a brand-new mindset of grace and love. He made a way, the only way, we could now live who God created us to be. In Christ, we are now complete. We are now free in Him. As our new life, He now comes through us. By Him we can bear His fruit.

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Christ raised up only Paul to deliver this revelation knowledge to humanity.

Throughout his epistles, Paul “suffered the loss of all things” for Christ. Nothing else mattered to him than to know Christ, the Person of Christ, living in him. He wanted nothing more than to reciprocate the love and grace that his Savior poured out on the cross for him, and now through him.

“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:8)