Gal. 1:11-12 “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul did not derive his message from human teaching or internal development but from direct divine encounter – and he staked his life’s mission on that claim. The evidence points to a supernatural intervention.
J.G. Machen argues forcefully that Paul’s conversion cannot be explained by subjective psychological development or by gradual change in understanding due to personal reflection, or second-hand teaching. Paul’s religion was born of a direct encounter with the risen Christ– an immediate, supernatural revelation that radically transformed Paul’s life and theology. Put differently, the content of Paul’s faith (a transcendent, divine, crucified and risen Messiah) was so radically discontinuous with his pre-conversion Jewish worldview that only an objective, supernatural revelation can account for the radical transformation of his life. Psychological explanations (e.g., hallucination, inner conflict, subconscious development) fail because they cannot explain the specific, revolutionary theology Paul immediately adopted.
In essence, Machen’s argument is:
Premise 1: Paul’s pre-conversion state was one of confident, zealous Pharisaism, not guilt-ridden struggle.
Premise 2: Paul’s post-conversion theology was a radical, immediate break with that Pharisaism, centering on a crucified and risen Messiah.
Conclusion: Therefore, the cause of the break must be an external, objective, supernatural cause– the divine revelation of the risen Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road. Any psychological explanation is a modern imposition unsupported by the textual evidence. The evidence conclusively points to the historical reality and revelation of the resurrected Christ to Paul in his Damascus experience:
Finally, there is core agreement between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles (as Machen puts it, “There was independence (Gal. 2) and harmony (1 Cor. 15:1-11).” Machen concludes, “The really astounding fact, which emerges from all discussion of the apostolic age, is that the Pauline conception of the person of Christ, whatever may be said of the Pauline doctrine of Gentile freedom, was never criticized by the original apostles. Indeed, so far as can be seen, it was never criticized even by the Judaizers themselves. Apparently it never occurred to Paul that his conception of the heavenly Christ required defense.”
All the evidence suggests that Paul’s Christology was derived from a direct revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Paul Encountered the Risen Christ in his Damascus Road Experience. OPGC Part 3/6