The Inwardness of Revelation
11 To reveal His Son in me.” — Gal. i. 16.
St. Paul is here describing the process of his own conversion, the light which he saw from heaven. He sa)Ts that it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. Why in him? Wherefore does he not say, “It pleased God to reveal His Son to me “? Was not the light which he saw an outer vision? Did it not arrest him at midday with a glory above the brightness of the sun? Did it not bar the way to his old nature, and bid his life to pause in the midst of his journey? Surely that picture of his Lord was a vision to his eye. Nay, but can any picture be a vision to the eye? Can a thing be revealed to me which has not been revealed in me? Is the landscape on which I gaze revealed only to my outward vision? Nay, or it would not be revealed at all; there could be no beauty without if there were not a sense of beauty within. Is the music to which I listen revealed only to my outward ear? Nay, or I would be deaf to it for evermore; there could be no harmony without if there wTere not a sense of harmony within. So is it with the beauty of Him wdio is fairer than the children of men. Often have I envied the lot of those wrho were permitted to gaze upon His outward form, to see the beam on His face, to hear the thrill in His voice. Yet w7as it not the very chief of these to whom the words wrere spoken, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee.” It was not the eye which saw the beam, it wras not the ear wrhich heard the thrill; it was the soul, the heart, the life, the responsive spirit bearing witness with His Spirit, the kindred sympathy that ran out to meet its counterpart, and found in Him all its salvation because it found in Him all its desire.
My God, reveal Thy Son in me. I ask for more than an audible voice, because I need more. It would not help me to behold Thy handwriting on the clouds of heaven; it would be but the letters of a book to the child that cannot read. Teach me the meaning of Thy words. No description of Thy heavens could declare their glory to the born blind; no description of Thy Christ could manifest His greatness to the loveless soul. Therefore, 0 Spirit of love, breathe into this heart the new sensation of loving, the new experience of being loved. Inspire this consciousness with that thought which transcends all the channels of the natural sense. Unseal the inner eye, unstop the spiritual ear, that the symmetries and the harmonies of all worlds may be revealed. It is in Thy light alone that we shall see light. Only they who are rooted and grounded in love shall be able to comprehend that love of Thine, which, although familiar to all saints, passeth finite knowledge. I shall see the King in His beauty when His beauty shall be revealed in me.