“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Second Timothy, Part 1
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:1)
As the apostle Paul draws near the end of his life, his vocation and calling are still as clear to him as it became in the days after his transformation on the Damascus road. He is a commissioned apostle, one sent out, and the one who appeared to him and sent him was Christ Jesus. But Christ Jesus does not act autonomously now, any more than He did during the time of His earthly ministry. The sending of Paul by Christ was in fulfillment of the will of God. This in turn was a will that lined up with the promised life that is in Christ Jesus. In other words, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, God had repeatedly promised life to His people, and that life would come to them through the Messiah, Christ Jesus. In fulfillment of that promise, God determined that Jesus Christ should commission the persecutor Saul as an apostle, which is why the Lord appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road. All things converge in Christ; He is the intersection of all God’s purposes and designs.