Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
What then is this “grace for grace”? By faith we first win God’s favor; and for us who were not worthy to have our sins forgiven, from the very fact that, though unworthy, we received so great a gift, it is called grace. What is grace? That which is given gratuitously. That which is bestowed, not paid back. If it was owed, recompense was paid, not grace bestowed…. Having acquired this grace of faith, you will be just by faith. “For the just man lives by faith.” And you will first win God’s favor from living by faith. When you have won God’s favor from living by faith, you will receive as a reward immortality and everlasting life. And that is grace…. Paul acknowledges this grace when he says that he had before been a blasphemer and a persecutor, and insulting, “but I obtained mercy.”
From being a persecutor he was changed into “a preacher and the teacher of the nations.” “Previously,” he says, “I was a blasphemer and persecutor and an insolent man. But the reason I obtained mercy was this, that Christ Jesus might demonstrate his forbearance first of all in me, and for the instruction of those who were going to trust him for eternal life.” It is by the grace of God, you see, that we are saved from our sins, in which we are languishing. God alone is the medicine that cures the soul. The soul was well able to injure itself but quite unable to cure itself. In the body, too, after all, people have it in their power to get sick, but not equally in their power to get better. I mean, if they exceed the proper limits, and live selfindulgent lives and do all the things that undermine the constitution and are injurious to health, the day comes, if that’s what they want, when they fall sick. When they’ve so fallen, though, they don’t get better. In order to fall sick, you see,...
We heard the reading from the apostle, and perhaps some of you may be worried by what is written there, “According to the justice which is from the law, I was without reproach. Whatever was a gain for me, that I have regarded as a dead loss on account of Christ.” Then he went on to say, “I have reckoned it to be not only a dead loss, but even muck, that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having my own justice which is from the law, but the justice which is from the faith of Jesus Christ.” The question is, how could he consider conducting himself without reproach according to the justice which is from the law, to be so much muck and loss? After all, who gave the law? … But let us listen to what he says in another place, “It was not as a result of works,” he says, “which we have done ourselves, but according to his own mercy that he saved us, by means of the bath of rebirth.” And again, “I, who was previously a blasphemer and persecutor, and an overbearing man; but I obtained...
For one who errs by simplicity may be pardoned, as the blessed Apostle Paul says of himself, "I who at first was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; yet obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly."
At this point in my discourse I confess my amazement at the wise dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in limiting the epistles of the others to a small number but granting grace to Paul, the former persecutor, to write fourteen. For it was not as though Peter and John were less than Paul that he withheld the gift in their case—God forbid!—but that his doctrine might be beyond question, he gave the grace to the former enemy and persecutor to write more, that thus we might all be confirmed in our faith. Indeed, all were astonished at Paul and said, “Is not this he who used to make havoc” previously “and who has come here for the purpose of taking us in bonds to Jerusalem?” Do not be astonished, Paul says, “I know that ‘it is hard for me to kick against the goad.’ I know that ‘I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,’ but ‘I acted ignorantly.’ For I considered the preaching of Christ to be the destruction of the law, for I did not know that he came ‘to ...
Because I did it ignorantly in unbelief, or in incredulity. Not that we can think it an invincible and altogether an in culpable ignorance, such as would have made St. Paul blameless in the sight of God. It was through his pure mercy that he called St. Paul, when his great sins and false zeal made him a greater object of the divine mercy: and God in him was pleased to make known to all men his wonderful patience, that no sinner might despair. The grace of God was super abounding, or exceedingly abundant in him. (Witham)
Why then did other Jews not obtain mercy? Because what they did, they did not ignorantly but willfully, well knowing what they did…. Thus their love of power was everywhere an obstacle in their way. When they admitted that no one can forgive sins but God alone and Christ immediately did that very thing—forgive sin—which they had confessed to be a sign of divinity, this could not be a case of ignorance. But did Paul act out of such ignorance? … Paul did not act, as some other Jews did, from the love of power, but from zeal. For what was the motive of his journey to Damascus? He thought the doctrine pernicious and was afraid that the preaching of it would spread everywhere…. It is for this he condemns himself, saying, “I am not fit to be called an apostle.” It is for this he confesses his ignorance, which was a consequence of his disbelief.
Thus we see him acknowledge both his own part and that of God, and while he ascribes the greater part to the providence of God, he extenuates his own, yet so far only, as we said before, as was consistent with free will. And what is this, Who enabled me? I will tell you. He had so heavy a burden to sustain, that he needed much aid from above. For think what it was to be exposed to daily insults, and mockeries, and snares, and dangers, scoffs, and reproaches, and deaths; and not to faint, or slip, or turn backward, but though assaulted every day with darts innumerable, to bear up manfully, and remain firm and imperturbable. This was the effect of no human power, and yet not of Divine influence alone, but of his own resolution also. For that Christ chose him with a foreknowledge of what he would be, is plain from the testimony He bore to him before the commencement of his preaching. He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings. Acts 9:15 For as those who b...
Paul introduces a new kind of admonition by exhorting others “by the mercy of God.” Why does he not exhort through God’s might, or majesty, or glory? Why by his mercy? Because it was through that mercy alone that Paul escaped from the criminal state of a persecutor and obtained the dignity of his great apostolate. He himself tells us this, “For I formerly was a blasphemer, a persecutor and a bitter adversary; but I obtained the mercy of God.” … “I exhort you by the mercy of God.” Paul asks—rather, God himself is asking through Paul—for God has greater desire to be loved than feared. God is asking because he wants to be not so much a Lord as a Father.
