. . . God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles . . . Galatians 1:15-16
In referring to his own conversion experience, Paul states that God revealed Christ “in” him. Why does he say it this way? Not “to” him, but “in” him.
Perhaps Paul wants to emphasize that ultimately he had an “inner” experience, even though the accounts in Acts also record that there was an event at least partially observable by others. He could be pointing out that others who were present were not witnesses to what actually transpired, but I think he is saying something else also.
Paul uses the Greek word from which we get “apocalypse”. Today the word has come to mean something like a world-ending disaster, but the word originally meant “uncovering something veiled”. That is why we translate it “reveal” and the last book in the New Testament, which John calls “the apocalypse of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1), has been called “Revelation”. To uncover something hidden is what what Paul was talking about.
For Paul, the revelation of Christ in him points to more than an interior experience, but where he discovered Christ actually to be. Christ was in him, though he was concealed.
Popular Christian language encourages us to invite Jesus into our hearts as if he is not there. Paul doesn’t think that way. It was within himself that God uncovered Christ.
Augustine echoes the same sentiment in his prayer about his search for God. In his autobiographical Confessions he says, “And behold, you were within me and I out of myself.” He admits that he was looking for God outside himself, when God was in him all along.
Perhaps we can see the basis of Paul’s thinking when we recognize we are made in God’s image and how Paul declares that Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). If we bear the image of God, and Christ is that image, then Christ has always been in us even though we were unaware.
For Paul, conversion can be described as when the grace of God reveals Christ in us. In other words, we hear the good news of our true identity as the children of God, not because of anything we have done, but because of who God has made us to be. We come to understand our true selves as the beloved of God.
We are not alien to God and his Christ, but rather bound to him from the first moment of our being. Though we may think of ourselves as separated from God, needing Jesus to come into our hearts, God is the One in whom we live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). Christ is the image of God in us.
We have always been God’s children, though wayward and blind to our true Father. We are bearers of his image, that is, of Christ himself. This reality has been covered over, and we neither knew nor dared believe it. God removes our blindness to our true identity. We discover Christ in us.
God does not want us to be his, but wants us to know that we have always been his, even when we are at our worst. Let us return to our Father who waits eagerly for us.