June 2

That I might preach him among the heathen. - Galatians 1:16.

THE Apostle preached the gospel to the Gentiles long before he preached it to the Jews at all. “I am the Apostle of the Gentiles,” says he; “I magnify mine office.” The Jews in general, having been the peculiar people of God, were exceedingly jealous of the extension of these privileges to others. It has been supposed that, for the announcement of this, Isaiah was sawn asunder. The Apostle cites this as an instance of great moral heroism. Isaiah is very bold, and says, “I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by name.” And even the minds of our Lord’s own immediate disciples were beclouded by this prejudice, and it required a miracle to deliver the Apostle Peter from this tendency.

But it was otherwise with this Hebrew of the Hebrews. Oh what a noble soul had he from the beginning! He rejoiced in proportion as the blessings of the gospel became common and general. “Would to God,” said he before Agrippa, “that all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” It delighted him to think his head would not sparkle alone, but that the heads of them also that love the Saviour’s appearing would be equally adorned with the same crown.

Thus it was God’s design that the Gentiles should become partakers of the promises of Christ by the gospel. While “without Christ” they had been “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, living without hope, and without God in the world;” enveloped in ignorance, darkness, idolatry, superstition, and every kind of vice and wretchedness. But it was predicted that “in his name should the Gentiles trust,” and to him should “the Gentiles seek.” Simeon was enabled to perceive this when he embraced the infant Saviour, and blessed God that he had seen his salvation, “which was prepared before the face of all people: a light to lighten the Gentiles,” as well as “the glory of his people Israel.” The Jews had despised them; considering themselves children, they always called them “dogs”-viewing themselves as “citizens,” they considered them only as “outcasts.”

But, says our Saviour, “Go ye out into the highways and hedges, and bring in the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.” What goodness, yea, what abounding grace was here! It says to the most unworthy,

“Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream.

Let us therefore be encouraged, when most sensible of our guilt and misery. Unto us, as well as unto these Gentiles, has been sent “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”