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How did St. Paul come to speak of himself under the personality of another?

1. Natural diffidence. For the more refined a man is the more he will avoid direct mention of himself. All along he has been forced to speak of self. Fact after fact was wrung out.

2. St. Paul speaks of a divided experience of two selves: one Paul in the third heaven, enjoying the beatific vision; another on earth, buffeted by Satan. The former he chose rather to regard as the Paul that was to be. He dwelt on the latter as the actual Paul, lest he should mistake himself in the midst of the heavenly revelations. Such a double nature is in us all. In all there is an Adam and a Christ — an ideal and a real. Witness the strange discrepancy often between the writings of the poet or the sermons of the preacher and their actual lives. And yet in this there is no necessary hypocrisy, for the one represents the man's aspiration, the other his attainment. But the apostle felt that it was dangerous to be satisfied with mere aspirations and fine sayings, and therefore he chose to take the lowest — the actual self — treating the highest as, for the time, another man (ver. 5). Were the caterpillar to feel within himself the wings that are to be, and be haunted with instinctive forebodings of the time when he shall hover about flowers and meadows, yet the wisdom of that caterpillar would be to remember his present business on the leaf, lest, losing himself in dreams, he should never become a winged insect at all.

I. THE TIME WHEN THIS VISION TOOK PLACE. The date is vague — "about fourteen years ago." Some have identified it with that recorded (Acts 9) at his conversion. But —

1. The words in that transaction were not "unlawful to utter." They are three times recorded.

2. There was no doubt as to St. Paul's own locality in that vision. So far from being exalted, he was stricken to the ground.

3. The vision was of an humbling character: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"

II. PAUL HAD KNOWN MANY SUCH VISIONS (ver. 7).

1. This marks out the man. Indeed, to comprehend the visions we must comprehend the man. For God does not reveal His mysteries to men of selfish or hard or phlegmatic temperaments, but to those of spiritual sensitiveness. There are physically certain sensitivenesses to sound and colour that qualify men to become gifted musicians and painters — so spiritually there are certain susceptibilities, and on these God bestows strange gifts, sights, and feelings not to be uttered in human language. The Jewish temperament — its fervour, moral sense, veneration, indomitable will, adapted it to be the organ of revelation.

2. Now all this was, in its fulness, in St. Paul. A heart, a brain, and a soul of fire; all his life a suppressed volcano; his acts "living things with hands and feet," his words "half battles." A man, consequently, of terrible inward conflicts (read Romans 7.). You will find there no dull metaphysics; all is intensely personal. So, too, in Acts 16. He had no abstract perception of Macedonia's need of the gospel. To his soul a man of Macedonia cries, "Come over and help us." Again (Acts 18), a message came in a vision. St. Paul's life was with God, his very dreams were of God. He saw a Form which others did not see, and heard a Voice which others could not hear (Acts 27:23).

3. But such things are seen and heard under certain conditions. Many of St. Paul's visions were when he was —

(1) "Fasting." "Fulness of bread " and abundance of idleness are not the conditions in which we can see the things of God.

(2) In the midst of trial. In the prison, during the shipwreck, while "the thorn was in his flesh."

4. This was the experience of Christ Himself. God does not lavish His choicest gifts, but reserves them.

5. Yet though inspiration is granted in its fulness only to rare, choice spirits, in degree it belongs to all Christians. There have been moments, surely, in our experience, when the vision of God was clear. They were not moments of fulness or success. In some season of desertion you have in solitary longing seen the sky-ladder as Jacob saw it, or in childish purity — for "Heaven lies around us in our infancy" — heard a voice as Samuel did; or in feebleness of health, when the weight of the bodily frame was taken off, Faith brightened her eagle eye, and saw far into the tranquil things of death; or in prayer you have been conscious of a Hand in yours, and a Voice, and you could almost feel the Eternal Breath upon your brow.

III. THE THINGS SEEN ARE UNUTTERABLE.

1. They are "unspeakable" because they are untranslatable into language. The fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, etc. — how can these be explained in words? Our feelings, convictions, aspirations, devotions, what sentences of earth can express them? In Revelations 4 John in high symbolic language attempts, but inadequately, to shadow forth the glory which his spirit realised, but which his sense saw not. For heaven is not scenery, nor anything appreciable by ear or eye; heaven is God felt.

2. They are "not lawful for a man to utter." Christian modesty forbids. There are transfiguration moments, bridal hours of the soul, and not easily forgiven are those who would utter the secrets of its high intercourse with its Lord. You cannot discuss such subjects without vulgarising them. God dwells in the thick darkness. Silence knows more of Him than speech. His name is secret, therefore beware how you profane His stillness. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. To each of His servants He giveth "a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it."

(F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

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KJV: It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.

WEB: It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. For I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.