In me as chief Christ Jesus showed forth all His long-suffering.... Now to the King of the ages be honour and glory for ever. Amen." Who, reading the Apostle's story, does not echo that _Amen_? No wonder that Paul became the Apostle of _grace_; even as John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," must perforce be the Apostle of _love_. First to him was God's grace revealed in its largest affluence, that through him it might be known to all men and to all ages. II. Side by side with the grace of God, we find in ver. 21 _the death of Christ_. He sets aside the former, the Apostle argues, who by admitting legal righteousness nullifies the latter. While grace embodies Paul's fundamental conception of the Divine character, the death of Christ is the fundamental fact in which that character manifests itself. So the cross becomes the centre of Paul's theology. But it was, in the first place, the basis of his personal life. "Faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me," is the foundation of "the life he now lives in the flesh." Here lay the stumbling-block of Judaism. Theocratic pride, Pharisaic tradition, could not, as we say, _get over_ it. A crucified Messiah! How revolting the bare idea. But when, as in Paul's case, Judaistic pride did surmount this huge scandal and in spite of the offence of the cross arrive at faith in Jesus, it was at the cost of a severe fall. It was broken in pieces,--destroyed once and for ever. With the elder Apostles the change had been more gradual; they were never steeped in Judaism as Saul was. For him to accept the faith of Jesus was a revolution the most complete and drastic possible. As a Judaist, the preaching of the cross was an outrage on his faith and his Messianic hopes; now it was that which most of all subdued and entranced him. Its power was extreme, whether to attract or repel. The more he had loathed and mocked at it before, the more he is bound henceforth to exalt the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. A proof of the Divine anger against the Nazarene he had once deemed it; now he sees in it the token of God's grace in Him to the whole world.