This mission, however•, he did not immediately carry out, but for the greater part of three years withdrew• into the region of Arabia (Gal. i. 17). The purpose of this withdrawal it may not be possible definitely to determine, though, front the contrast in which he places it to the alternative course of conference with the Apostles at Jerusalem, it would seem that primarily it was for the sake of meditative thought upon the spiritual revolution which had taken place in his life. At the same time. it cammt be doubted that he availed himself of such opportunity of practical work as the region afforded (Gal. i. 15-23).
Upon his return to Damascus and Jerusalem he began to preach his new-found faith. evidently with some fuller conception of the Gentile direc tion of his mission than he had had immediately .fitter his conversion (Acts ix. 19-22), especially in Jerusalem, where he singled out the Greek speaking Jew, disputing with them, doubtless largely along the lines of the ,Messialiship of Jesus (Acts. ix. 28-29; xxii. 18). His motive in making Jerusalem the place of his preaching was appar ently the courageous one of returning to the scene of his former work of persecution, and bearing testimony to Jesus before those with whom he had formerly been associated. That this, how ever. was not what the Master intended him to do is clear from the fact that while in .Jerusalem he was made conscious through a vision that he was to leave the city and give himself to work among the more distant Gentiles (Acts xxii. 17-20).
In obedience to this command, he went to his home in Cilicia, visiting on the way the regions of Syria, where in all probability he accom plished some work of a Gentile ehnracte• in the city of Antioch. Such a hypothesis at least explains the reason for the statement that refugees from the Stephen persecution in Jerusalem coming to Antioch changed the character of their ministry and preached the word to those who were not pure Jews (Acts xi. 19-201, and that, upon the successful outcome of their preaching, Paul was summoned from Tarsus to give his aid and as sistance in the development of this new movement (Acts xi. 21-26).
Antioch became thus the place of Paul's labors, and here his ministry gradually reached the full Gentile character which the Alaster had in tended it should have, resulting finally, under divine direction, in the sending out of Paul and Barnabas to the neighboring Gentile regions of Asia :Minor (Acts xiii. 1-3). The remarkable success of this mission brought Paul at last to a consciousness of the full meaning of his Gen tile commission (Acts xiii. 44-48), and also brought the Church to a full realization of the significance of this new departure. In fact, upon their return to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas were confronted with a grave and serious dispute. Parties representing the extreme Jewish element in the Mother Church came to Antioch insisting upon the need of circumcision in order to salva tion. This was so contrary to Paul's fundamental
conception of salvation by faith that surrender was impossible, and under the advice of the local Church the controversy was carried up to Jeru salem for submission to the Apostles and Elders there (Acts xv. 1-2). A clear understanding of the resultant council and the position in it of Paul and Barnabas on the one side, and the leaders of the Church on the other, can only be secured by reeognizing the development through which Paul's work had gone from his own oriei na•1 conception of it. and especially from the original conception of it held by the Jerusalem Church. That Paul had the fundamentals of his theology from the time of his conversion may he accepted, as far as our records give any light ; that these fundamentals included a clear convic tion of the prineiples of justification by faith is almost necessary, if Paul's theology is to be un derstood in any sense self-consistent—for this principle is practically essential to his thinking. But while Paul may have possessed the principle of his theology from the beginning, it is mani festly char that the prardiehl experiences of his work had an effect upon the application which he gave to these principles. Few greater experi ences, however, did he go through in his work than that of the wholesale conversion of the Gen tiles during his first mission tour. That these experiences must have given strength to his con viction of justification by faith is of course very clear; hut it is also clear that it must have widely broadened the application of that principle in the direction of the universalizing of the Gospel beyond the bounds of Judaism. 1 f, however, such was the influence of this ex perience upon Paul's own views, its effect upon the slower and more conservative views of the Jerusalem Church must have been even more significant. That Paul told them fully of his commission to a Gentile work at his first visit to the city after his conversion may not be doubted; that they fairly understood his position, and frankly accepted it, would seem to be clear from the companionship with them into which the records show him to have entered; but if Paul himself at that time had hut an undeveloped view of all his theology meant in the direction of a justification by faith, much less developed must have been the views on this point of those in the Jerusalem Church. It may be safely said that their conception of and agreement to Paul's posi tion was largely theoretical until the results of this first mission tour startled them into a realization of the full significance of his com mission. Treasuring as they did the Jewish origin of Jesus's religion and the Jewish char acter of his discipleship, this wholesale ingather ing of the uncircumcised Gentiles naturally seemed to them to herald the doom of the Church.