Galatians 1:11-12 But I certify you, brothers, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. Revelation is distinguished from ordinary moral and spiritual influences by its suddenness. It shows us in an instant, what, under ordinary circumstances, would grow up gradually and insensibly. In the individual it is accompanied by a sudden transition from darkness to light; in the world at large it is an anticipation of moral truth and of the course of human experience. Reducible to no natural laws, it is to our ordinary moral and spiritual nature what peculiar cataleptic conditions are to our bodily, constitution. It seems to come from without, and is not; to be confounded with any inward emotion, any more than a dream or the sight of a painting. As compared with prophecy, it is nearer to us, representing as in a picture the things that shall shortly come to pass, and yet embracing a wider range; not, like the prophets of old, describing the fortunes of an individual nation, as it may have crossed the path of the Jewish people, but lifting up the veil from the whole invisible world. In all its different senses it retains this external, present, immediate character. Whether it be the future kingdom of Christ, or the fall of Jerusalem or of Rome, or the world lying in wickedness, that is described, all is displayed immediately before us as on some mount of transfiguration — the figures near to us, and the colours bright. (B. Jowett, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. |
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