To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
All Commentaries on Galatians 1:16 Go To Galatians 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
To reveal His Son in me.
Christ says in another place, No one knows who the Son is, save the Father; and who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal Him. Luke 10:22 You observe that the Father reveals the Son, and the Son the Father; so it is as to Their glory, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Father the Son; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, and, as I have glorified You. John 17:1-4 But why does he say, to reveal His Son in me, and not to me? it is to signify, that he had not only been instructed in the faith by words, but that he was richly endowed with the Spirit—that the revelation had enlightened his whole soul, and that he had Christ speaking within him.
That I might preach Him among the Gentiles. For not only his faith, but his election to the Apostolic office proceeded from God. The object, says he, of His thus specially revealing Himself to me, was not only that I might myself behold Him, but that I might also manifest Him to others. And he says not merely, others, but, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, thus touching beforehand on that great ground of his defence which lay in the respective characters of the disciples; for it was necessary to preach differently to the Jews and to the heathen.
Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.
Here he alludes to the Apostles, naming them after their physical nature; however, that he may have meant to include all mankind, I shall not deny.
