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Paul
1 Corinthians 15:10
After the death of Judas Iscariot and his replacement with Matthias, our Lord was still not done calling apostles. There’s one more significant individual who’s added like a kind of attachment onto the 12, and this is Paul, who calls himself an apostle untimely born. Now, the calling of Paul illustrates something important about the disciples and about all Christians. Paul was not seeking Jesus. Quite the opposite, he was seeking Jesus’ followers to imprison them. He was a Pharisee, but believed that serving God would mean snuffing out this new Christian church. Paul later, by his own confession, calls himself a blasphemer, a persecutor, a violent man.
Some of the other disciples could give us the impression that Christ called them because they were worthy. They measured up. They met some standard. Therefore, we might think we have to measure up and meet some standard before Christ will accept us or use us in his church.
Paul illustrates that we will all end up opposing God’s will on our own. You know, Paul also had the name of Saul, which reminds us of that first king of God’s Old Testament people, Saul, who started out trying to be faithful to God’s word as Paul did as a Pharisee, but ended up failing and actually opposing God’s will, just as Paul did. And that would be our fate too.
The risen Christ confronted Paul while Paul was traveling to Damascus to further persecute Christians, convinced him that he was truly the Lord. Paul believes and is baptized, and not only did this sinner become a justified saint, but the persecutor became a preacher. Paul’s life becomes a sermon on grace. He writes in 1 Corinthians 15,
By the grace of God, I am what I am, (1 Corinthians 15:10)
Paul would go on to plant churches, preach the gospel in all kinds of places. He wrote these inspired letters which make up, by word count, almost a quarter of the New Testament, Romans through Philemon in your Bible. And in those letters, we get some of the clearest expressions about sin, justification, how we are saved, the person of Christ, the sacraments, the end of the world, and the Christian life. So be assured that your worthiness, too, does not depend on what you’ve done for God, but alone on Christ’s mercy, who lived and died to win you forgiveness and righteousness before your Father.
And be assured that in all times, God has only used in his church this one class of people, which includes Paul and it includes you, sinners saved by grace.
