Galatians 1:15 · World English Bible
Galatians 1:15 Meaning But When It Was the Good Pleasure
But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace
What does Galatians 1:15 mean?
Two births are being distinguished. The mother's womb is the first birth, the ordinary entrance into flesh that makes a mortal self anchored to the senses.
From the Manifestation reading below.
Galatians 1:15 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Manifestation
MANIFESTATION
Manifestation
Two births are being distinguished. The mother's womb is the first birth, the ordinary entrance into flesh that makes a mortal self anchored to the senses. Being separated from that womb is the second birth, the one that happens not from the body of a woman but from the skull, the seat of imagination where a new self is conceived and brought forth from within. God, who is your own awareness of being, sets you apart from the old born-of-flesh identity and calls you into the new.
This calling comes by grace, which means it is not earned by argument or effort but revealed inwardly, first-hand, as certain knowledge. No teacher outside can hand it to you. The self you were told you are gives way to the self awakened in you, and that awakening is the only birth Scripture calls being called by God.
Manifestation lensGo deeper in the app
Manifestation lens
Live Galatians 1:15 today
- Sometime today, write down one sentence about yourself that you absorbed from your family and have never questioned. Read it back and ask whether you actually believe it now.
- With one person today, drop the role you usually play with them, the funny one, the capable one, the quiet one. Speak as the person you are becoming instead.
- When a stressful email or a long line pulls the old anxious version of you to the surface, stand still for one breath and let it pass without acting from it. You do not have to answer as whoever you were at seventeen.
Which self am I living from right now, the one I inherited or the one that woke up in me?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
The teachers speak of your original face, the one you had before your parents met. It is not a face you were given at birth, so it cannot be taken by anything that happens after.
Bhagavad Gita 2
The one who dwells in the body was never born and never dies. Bodies come and go around it the way clothes are changed.
Taoism · Chuang Tzu
He dreamed he was a butterfly, then woke unsure which was the dreamer. The waking matters more than the explanation.
Free · No account needed
Read all of Galatians 1 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store