And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.
Paul saw the risen Lord Himself on the Damascus road, no mere fancy or imagination but a real vision of the ascended Redeemer. When he calls himself an abortion, he means he was vile, unworthy, loathsome, unfit for apostolic office, like a stillborn thing set against a living child.
AI summary
Christ showed Himself to me alive and glorious, which sufficed to prove His resurrection as firmly as to any other. I call myself one born prematurely because the Lord cast me forth from the womb when I had scarcely received the vital spark, by sudden conversion rather than by the regular course of formation He gave the others.
AI summary
I am the abortion in the family of apostles, called out of regular course by sudden power, not by long instruction like the rest. A puny supernumerary, scarcely worthy of the name apostle, yet taken into the college by the Lord's own appearance to me on the Damascus road.
AI summary