As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’
Acts 9:3-6 NIVUK
I grew up in a bad neighbourhood. We were surrounded by rogues and rascals and people whose mental health we seriously doubted was in any great shape.
But one of our neighbours was worse than all the others. He went to a bar, got into a fight with someone, shot the guy, sliced up his body and shoved it into a sewer.
This was not the most intelligent move. Not when there was a sewage works just up the road. He was caught, found very guilty and sent to prison for a long time.
While in prison, he was high on drugs one night when he heard a voice saying that he should take out the Bible that had been placed there by the Gideons. He took it out, read it, and with tears in his eyes collapsed to his knees and gave his life to Christ.
He had given our family a terrible time. More than once while drunk he had shouted abuse at us. But then he repented of what he did and wrote us an apology letter.
God had broken into the life of this terrible man and transformed him.
What we are studying now is a very significant event in the history of Christianity, because it concerns the conversion of a very important man in the history of Christianity. There are many now who decry and seek to kick out against the teachings of Saul/Paul of Tarsus.
However, they cannot doubt his importance even for one second.
Peter had an angry disagreement with Paul, which Paul himself recounts in Galatians 2:11-21, yet even Peter wrote these words about him:
Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
2 Peter 3:15-16 NIVUK
So Peter here not only recognises Paul’s teachings, he also elevates them to the level of ‘Scripture’. As the commentator Adam Clarke said, ‘It is worthy of remark that Paul’s epistles are ranked among the Scriptures; a term applied to those writings which are divinely inspired, and to those only.’
Paul, therefore, is a highly significant man.
And this should be obvious to us. He is one of only a handful of people whose conversions are so important that they are recorded in Acts and the convert is specifically named, as if readers would know instantly who he was.
Since Paul is instrumental in explaining the mechanism of repentance and conversion and what it involves, we should understand his conversion.
I see four stages in these verses. The first is intention, in verses 1-2.
Or rather, maybe this shouldn’t be a stage, because Saul seems to have had no intention whatsoever to follow Jesus. In fact, quite the opposite: he sets out on a long six-day trip to the Syrian capital Damascus – a major city well outside the borders of Israel – with the expressed intention of rounding Christians up like vermin, dragging them back to Jerusalem, and placing them on trial.
And the purpose of this dreadful behaviour?
To have them legally killed.
But what could have led to this ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’ (Philippians 3:5) becoming a psychotic murderer of the faithful? What could possibly have radicalised him?
Paul presents himself while on trial in Acts 22:3 as a student of Gamaliel, a highly regarded Pharisee and teacher. Yet when Gamaliel first appears in Acts 5:34-40, we see that he had a rather calmer, more conciliatory, less confrontational approach to dealing with the Apostles.
Unless something happened in the meantime, we have little evidence that he was the source of Saul’s radicalisation.
However, further investigation reveals a possible source.
Saul was an approving witness to the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7:54-8:1). It was following this violent event that Saul set out on his bloodthirsty quest to annihilate the church (Acts 8:1-3).
But Stephen’s martyrdom is not the only factor. Paul himself adds this to an explanation of his conversion later on in Acts, while on trial for his life:
We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
Acts 26:14 NIVUK
A goad was a pointed stick used to keep oxen in line when they were pulling a plough behind them so that they would plough a straight furrow. In other words, Jesus told Paul that Paul had been rebelling against His work in Paul’s life, and this rebellion was causing Paul pain. Astonishingly, for a man who was causing so much pain in other people’s lives – Christians at that – Jesus has compassion on Paul and tells Paul to stop inflicting pain on himself!
So a cause of Paul’s radicalisation against Christians could be that he was frustrated and angry at God for trying to lead him away from his life as a respected Pharisee.
We see this in Philippians:
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
Philippians 3:4-6 NIVUK
So here was a young man (the Greek indicates he was between twenty and forty years old) attempting to distinguish himself among his peers by ‘excelling’ in being a ‘blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man’ (1 Timothy 1:13), yet all the time it seems that God was working in his life to bring him to his senses and help him to plough a straight furrow for Him.
And that work, which God would carry on to completion, caused his pain, irritation, anger and frustration at the life he would have to leave behind, which manifested itself in extreme and bitter hatred towards the church.
However, in the midst of the fear and the violence, there is one thing we can take great encouragement from:
God was still at work. God’s plan could not be thwarted or frustrated. Despite this man’s appalling behaviour and his determination to destroy what God was building, God was not finished with him yet.
And that is an awesome truth.
So we move from Saul’s intention – to destroy the church – to Jesus’ intervention.
And what an intervention!
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
Acts 9:3 NIVUK
Travel was normally done in daytime. It was safer and easier. So this light would have been blinding – Acts 26:13 says it was brighter than the sun.
But what was this light?
I can think of only one thing, given what follows:
After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.
Mark 9:2-3 NIVUK
Saul of Tarsus, the arch-persecutor of Christians, sees the glory of Christ, and is blinded by it.
Jesus Christ reveals Himself in all His glory to the one who is masterminding the persecution of His followers.
And just look at this encounter:
He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’
Acts 9:4-6 NIVUK
There is an invocation: Jesus calls Saul by his name, twice, indicating the depth of his knowledge of him and the urgency for Saul to grasp that.
We see a question: why was Saul persecuting Jesus?
And that is glorious. Jesus is identifying Himself with His followers who are suffering under Saul. But that should not be a surprise:
‘The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Matthew 25:40 NIVUK
We see identification: Jesus identifies Himself.
Now this is also important. God dwells in unapproachable light, as Paul himself noted (1 Timothy 6:15-16), as did Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4).
So this vision of Jesus in blinding light would have told Saul that Jesus was divine – He was God.
It would have again confirmed that it was Jesus he was persecuting – Saul had been not seeking to harm men, but God.
And we also see direction – that this man who had lived a disobedient, rebellious and violent life, despite being convinced he was doing a service for God (John 16:2), should finally obey God and go to the city where he had intended to do so much harm, and wait there for his next instructions.
What can he do now? Saul obeys.
But there is something about this intervention that we must notice, even if it difficult for our modern ears to hear:
Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
Acts 9:8-9 NIVUK
This intervention had a very real, very physical effect on Paul. He was blinded: blinded by the very glory of the Risen Lord.
As much as this does not fit with the image of a ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, this is a firmly established pattern in the Old Testament. God often uses physical ailments to bring people to their senses.
For example, Jacob wrestles the angel and spends the rest of his days with a dislocated hip (Genesis 32:25-32).
Miriam became temporarily leprous (Numbers 12:10).
Balaam's donkey crushes his foot against a wall (Numbers 22:21-35).
King Uzziah attempted to worship as a priest and became leprous (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).
Even the great king Nebuchadnezzar is brought to heal by a dramatic psychological ailment (Daniel 4).
But in case we think for one second that this is just the actions of the ‘Old Testament God’ and that somehow the ‘New Testament God’ is different (this is a complete falsehood – they are the same God), then look at these verses, written by Paul himself:
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIVUK
God is willing, and well capable, to use hardship and suffering to bring us to our knees and produce in us a willingness to repent.
But before we protest, we should consider this illustration. Chemotherapy is tough. It creates pain, ulcers, reduces your immune system and can cause hair loss. Those who undergo it usually endure a measure of suffering. But we understand this suffering because it prolongs life.
What if God, in His love and care for us, inflicts a little suffering on us now to avoid a greater suffering later? Would we not prefer it?
So here is a tough question we all have to answer: what will it take for you to repent?
After intention and intervention, we see mission – an encounter that tells us much about the nature of mission:
In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, ‘Ananias!’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he answered. The Lord told him, ‘Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.’ ‘Lord,’ Ananias answered, ‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.’ But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’
Acts 9:10-16 NIVUK
The first thing we see is an unlikely means. God calls Ananias to go to Saul, but Ananias has no desire to go. We can fully understand why. Ananias knows why Saul has come to Damascus. It seems like Saul’s reputation may have reach Damascus from Jerusalem before he did! Ananias knows that Paul has come to persecute believers, and he has zero intention of being persecuted.
We also see an unlikely cause. Who in their right mind would expect that God would send a Christian to lay hands on and pray for the arch-persecutor of Christians?
And there is also an unlikely calling.
Think about this for a second. Paul is a ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’ (Philippians 3:5). Within days of his conversion, he confounds the Jews of Damascus with his theological skills, proving conclusively, much to their profound irritation, that Jesus is the Messiah (Acts 9:20-25).
So given his background and special skills, where would you deploy man like Paul?
As apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13; Galatians 2:8, c.f. Acts 9:15)?
Perhaps not.
Yet Ananias’ mission was to be an unlikely means to deliver a thoroughly unlikely man for an unlikely cause.
What happened here is echoed throughout history. Take the late missions pioneer George Verwer. He was a complete rogue while at school, always in trouble. Yet his neighbour Dorothea Clapp took it upon herself to pray for him. He later became a believer, and then a missions adventurer, leader of one of the world’s biggest Christian mission organisations and an author of many challenging books on missions.
An unlikely man. An unlikely means. An unlikely cause.
All because someone accepted the mission.
Let me tell you: involvement in the cause of repentance and conversion and missions is always an adventure. You never know whose life you will touch next. And you never know where it will take you next.
Which is another good reason why abandoning the world to follow Christ is the right thing to do.
After intention, intervention and mission, we see vision. Paul regains his sight.
There are four parts to this.
Firstly, we see the prayer – for this once hardened sinner who has endured three days of blindness and impotence to be filled with the Holy Spirit so he can see again.
The Holy Spirit helps us to see, but not physically. Instead, He helps us to see something else – the truth:
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.
John 16:13-14 NIVUK
Then we see the miracle – Paul’s physical vision is restored.
There is a detail of this miracle that is often skipped over. Something like scales falls from his eyes (Acts 9:18). The Greek word here can apply to both fish scales, but also peel: like fruit peel. We could even think of it like the dead skin that peels off if you have been sunburnt, or like the skin that a reptile leaves behind when it sheds.
This remarkably naturalistic description to me is a picture of Paul shedding his old, hardened, dead life and gaining a different view, a new perspective.
Thirdly, we see he is baptised. This was not a small step. Baptisms were public then – a clear statement that the old life was gone and the new life had begun – and it would have taken place in the very city where he had set out to persecute Christians.
I don’t doubt for a second that this would have set tongues wagging.
And lastly, he breaks his fast. Having ceased from eating in order to approach God in prayer to find out the meaning and purpose of his divine encounter, Paul now eats because he has the answers he sought.
Paul’s conversion is dramatic. It is so important that it represents a huge change in church history.
But not every conversion is anywhere near as dramatic.
What we see here is that regardless of our intentions, God can intervene to set us in the right path. He will often use others in this mission to bring us to him, and this will often result in a brand new vision for how our life should be.
There are many, many cynics who have investigated the claims of the Gospel – sometimes even with the intention of destroying it – but who have come to believe in Jesus.
So what about you? What would it take for you to believe?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for saving a man like Saul and a person like me. Open my eyes to the life You have for me and help me to follow You. Amen.
Questions
1. Why do you think God chose to change the life of a man like Saul of Tarsus? What does this say about God?
2. Why did God need to blind Saul? Does God still do this kind of thing now? Why? Has He done it to you?
3. What will it take for you to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth?
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