The Apostle Paul was not a better person than we are, nor more heroic. He simply saw something that made all his sacrifices easy:
• He saw that he would be in a hopeless grave if that “One” had not died in his place.
• He saw that even his next breath he owed to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
• He saw himself a slave bought by love, responding to the blood shed there.
• He saw that nothing he possessed he could count as really his.
He could have sung Isaac Watts’ hymn:
When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a tribute far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.
As easily as the believing Israelites were healed of their fatal snake bites, so easily does the new birth occur in the heart of anyone who “sees” the cross like Paul saw it.
Of course, he did not see it literally—he was not one of the original Twelve. He saw it by faith, and his experience is therefore an encouragement to us who also have never seen it literally. What he saw by faith seems to have made a more profound impression on him than the actual event made on those apostles who did see it. None of them seems to have caught its meaning as vividly as Paul did. That means something special for us who never saw the physical happening as did the Eleven (a thousand movies can’t portray it!). We are especially fortunate because that same faith-inspired devotion can be ours. Because of faith, Paul has to be better news than the other apostles! Faith has far sharper discernment than our physical eyes.
[From The Good News Is Better Than You Think, by Robert J. Wieland, pp. 26, 27.]
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