“I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I also did this in Jerusalem. I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them. Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
“Whereupon as I traveled to Damascus with the authority and commission from the chief priests, at noon, O king, I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who traveled with me. When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
“I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv9, 10, 13 9. And I truly. If Paul had not spoken…
9. And I truly. If Paul had not spoken more things than those which Luke hath hitherto recited, his speech had not hanged well together. Whence we prove that which was said before, that after that he had spoken of the covenant of God, he intreated of the grace and office of Christ, as the matter required. And he repeateth the history of his conversion for this cause, not only that he may remove from himself all suspicion of lightness, but that he may testify that God had called him, and that he was even enforced by a commandment coming from heaven. For, seeing that he was, contrary to his expectation, suddenly made a sheep of a wolf, such a violent change is of no small importance to purchase credit to his doctrine.
Therefore, he amplifieth that his heat and vehement desire which he had to punish the members of Christ, and also that stubbornness whereunto he was wholly given over. If he had been nousled [brought] up in the faith of Christ from his youth, or if he had been taught by some man, he should have embraced it willingly and without resistance, he himself should have been sure of his calling, but it should not have been so well known to others. But now, seeing that being inflamed with obstinate and immoderate fury, being moved with no occasion, neither persuaded by mortal man, he changeth his mind, it appeareth that he was tamed and brought under by the hand of God.
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Therefore, this contrariety is of great weight, in that he saith that he was so puffed up with pride, that he thought he should get the victory of Christ, whereby he teacheth that he was nothing less than made a disciple of Christ through his own industry. The name of Jesus of Nazareth is taken in this place for the whole profession of the gospel, which Paul sought to extinguish, by making war ignorantly against God, as we may see.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv10–11 I consented to, and allowed of their doing: for…
I consented to, and allowed of their doing: for he was not a judge.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv9–15 9 I verily thought with myself, that I ought…
9 I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
Ver. 9. Contrary to the name, &c.] Tertullian testifieth, that in the primitive Christians, nomen damnabatur, non crimen aut scelus: solum nomen innocuum, hominibus innocuis esse pro crimine, &c. And Tacitus to the same purpose, that when Nero had set the city on fire for his pleasure, and then fathered it upon the Christians, a great company of them were presently slaughtered, haud perinde in crimine incendii, quam odio humani generis, convicti: Not for any fault whereof they could be convicted, but out of a general hatred of their persons and religion.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv9–15 The name of Jesus; the religion which teacheth Christ…
The name of Jesus; the religion which teacheth Christ is to be worshipped, and his name to be magnified.
Jesus of Nazareth; so they called our Saviour, of which see Act 22:8.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv9, 12 Here the apostle frankly declares, That he was once…
Here the apostle frankly declares, That he was once as sharp and bitter an enemy to Christ, and to all that believed in him, as any one whatever; and thought himself bound in conscience to persecute all that owned him, and with threatenings and tortures compelled them to deny Christ; and being exceedingly fierce, he forced them to fly to heathen cities to escape his fury.
Where note, 1. That we ought to be upon very good and sure grounds, before we oppose and persecute any.
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2. That some persecute others, and at the same time think they do well in so doing: I verily thought, says the apostle, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus. He spake as if his conscience would have troubled others, for that which was indeed their conscience.
Note, 3. That Paul, being a blasphemer himself, compelled the professors of the gospel to blaspheme. This he probably did two ways.
First, by his example; they imitated him in blaspheming, or speaking evil of the ways of Christ.
Or, secondly, by his cruelty: vexing them so in the professions of Christ, that some who were unsettled probably fell away, and blasphemed the name of Christ, which they had professed: He compelled them to blaspheme.
There is a compelling power and constraining force in example, especially in the example of persons in power and authority. Men sin with a kind of authority: Paul’s blasphemous example compelled others to blaspheme.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v12 All who believe a God, and have a reverence…
All who believe a God, and have a reverence for his sovereignty, must acknowledge that those who speak and act by his direction, and by warrant from him, are not to be opposed; for that is fighting against God. Now Paul here, by a plain and faithful narrative of matters of fact, makes it out to this august assembly that he had an immediate call from heaven to preach the gospel of Christ to the Gentile world, which was the thing that exasperated the Jews against him. He here shows,
I. That he was made a Christian by a divine power, notwithstanding all his prejudices against that way. He was brought into it on a sudden by the hand of heaven; not compelled to confess Christ by outward force, as he had compelled others to blaspheme him, but by a divine and spiritual energy, by a revelation of Christ from above, both to him and in him: and this when he was in the full career of his sin, going to Damascus, to suppress Christianity by persecuting the Christians there, as hot as ever in the cause, his persecuting fury not in the least spent nor tired, nor was he tempted to give it up by the failing of his friends, for he had at this time as ample an authority and commission from the chief priests to persecute Christianity as ever he had, when he was obliged by a superior power to give up that, and accept another commission to preach up Christianity. Two things bring about this surprising change, a vision from heaven and a voice from heaven, which conveyed the knowledge of Christ to him by the two learning senses of seeing and hearing.
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1. He saw a heavenly vision, the circumstances of which were such that it could not be a delusion - deciptio visus, but it was without doubt a divine appearance. (1.) He saw a great light, a light from heaven, such as could not be produced by any art, for it was not in the night, but at mid day; it was not in a house where tricks might have been played with him, but it was in the way, in the open air; it was such a light as was above the brightness of the sun, outshone and eclipsed that (Isa 24:23), and this could not be the product of Paul's own fancy, for it shone round about those that journeyed with him: they were all sensible of their being surrounded with this inundation of light, which made the sun itself to be in their eyes a less light. The force and power of this light appeared in the effects of it; they all fell to the earth upon the sight of it, such a mighty consternation did it put them into; this light was lightning for its force, yet did not pass away as lightning, but continued to shine round about them. In Old Testament times God commonly manifested himself in the thick darkness, and made that his pavilion, Ch2 6:1. He spoke to Abraham in a great darkness (Gen 15:12), for that was a dispensation of darkness; but now that life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel Christ appeared in a great light. In the creation of grace, as of the world, the first thing created is light, Co2 4:6. (2.) Christ himself appeared to him (Act 26:16): I have appeared to thee for this purpose. Christ was in this light, though those that travelled with Paul saw the light only, and not Christ in the light. It is not every knowledge that will serve to make us Christians, but it must be the knowledge of Christ.
2. He heard a heavenly voice, an articulate one, speaking to him; it is here said to be in the Hebrew tongue (which was not taken notice of before), his native language, the language of his religion, to intimate to him that though he must be sent among the Gentiles, yet he must not forget that he was a Hebrew, nor make himself a stranger to the Hebrew language. In what Christ said to him we may observe, (1.) That he called him by his name, and repeated it (Saul, Saul), which would surprise and startle him; and the more because he was now in a strange place, where he thought nobody knew him. (2.) That he convinced him of sin, of that great sin which he was now in the commission of, the sin of persecuting the Christians, and showed him the absurdity of it. (3.) That he interested himself in the sufferings of his followers: Thou persecutest me (Act 26:14), and again, It is Jesus whom thou persecutest, Act 26:15. Little did Paul think, when he was trampling upon those that he looked upon as the burdens and blemishes of this earth, that he was insulting one that was so much the glory of heaven. (4.) That he checked him for his wilful resistance of those convictions: It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks, or goads, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Paul's spirit at first perhaps began to rise, but he is told it is at his peril, and then he yields. Or, it was spoken by way of caution: "Take heed lest thou resist these convictions, for they are designed to affect thee, not to affront thee." (5.) That, upon his enquiry, Christ made himself known to him. Paul asked (Act 26:15), "Who art thou, Lord? Let me know who it is that speaks to me from heaven, that I may answer him accordingly?" And he said, "I am Jesus; he whom thou hast despised, and hated, and vilified; I bear that name which thou hast made so odious, and the naming of it criminal." Paul thought Jesus was buried in the earth, and, though stolen out of his own sepulchre, yet laid in some other. All the Jews were taught to say so, and therefore he is amazed to hear him speak from heaven, to see him surrounded with all this glory whom he had loaded with all possible ignominy. This convinced him that the doctrine of Jesus was divine and heavenly, and not only not to be opposed, but to be cordially embraced: That Jesus is the Messiah, for he has not only risen from the dead, but he has received from God the Father honour and glory; and this is enough to make him a Christian immediately, to quit the society of the persecutors, whom the Lord from heaven thus appears against, and to join himself with the society of the persecuted, whom the Lord from heaven thus appears for.
II. That he was made a minister by a divine authority: That the same Jesus that appeared to him in that glorious light ordered him to go and preach the gospel to the Gentiles; he did not run without sending, nor was he sent by men like himself, but by him whom the Father sent, Joh 20:21. What is said of his being an apostle is here joined immediately to that which was said to him by the way, but it appears by Act 9:15, and Act 22:15, Act 22:17, etc., that it was spoken to him afterwards; but he puts the two together for brevity-sake: Rise, and stand upon thy feet. Those whom Christ, by the light of his gospel, casts down in humiliation for sin, shall find that it is in order to their rising and standing upon their feet, in spiritual grace, strength, and comfort. If Christ has torn, it is that he may heal; if he has cast down, it is that he may raise up. Rise then, and shake thyself from the dust (Isa 52:2), help thyself, and Christ shall help thee. He must stand up, for Christ shall help thee. He must stand up, for Christ has work for him to do - has an errand, and a very great errand, to send him upon: I have appeared to thee to make thee a minister. Christ has the making of his own ministers; they have both their qualifications and their commissions from him. Paul thanks Christ Jesus who put him into the ministry, Ti1 1:12. Christ appeared to him to make him a minister. One way or other, Christ will manifest himself to all those whom he makes his ministers; for how can those preach him who do not know him? And how can those know him to whom he does not by his spirit make himself known? Observe,
1. The office to which Paul is appointed: he is made a minister, to attend on Christ, and act for him, as a witness - to give evidence in his cause, and attest the truth of his doctrine. He must testify the gospel of the grace of God; Christ appeared to him that he might appear for Christ before men.
2. The matter of Paul's testimony: he must give an account to the world, (1.) Of the things which he had seen, now at this time, must tell people of Christ's manifesting himself to him by the way, and what he said to him. He saw these things that he might publish them, and he did take all occasions to publish them, as here, and before, ch. 22. (2.) Of those things in which he would appear to him. Christ now settled a correspondence with Paul, which he designed afterwards to keep up, and only told him now that he should hear further from him. Paul at first had but confused notions of the gospel, till Christ appeared to him and gave him fuller instructions. The gospel he preached he received from Christ immediately (Gal 1:12); but he received it gradually, some at one time and some at another, as there was occasion. Christ often appeared to Paul, oftener, it is likely, than is recorded, and still taught him, that he might still teach the people knowledge.
3. The spiritual protection he was taken under, while he was thus employed as Christ's witness: all the powers of darkness could not prevail against him till he had finished his testimony (Act 26:17), delivering thee from the people of the Jews and from the Gentiles. Note, Christ's witnesses are under his special care, and, though they may fall into the hands of the enemies, yet he will take care to deliver them out of their hands, and he knows how to do it. Christ had shown Paul at this time what great things he must suffer (Act 9:16), and yet tells him here he will deliver him from the people. Note, Great sufferings are reconcilable to the promise of the deliverance of God's people, for it is not promised that they shall be kept from trouble, but kept through it; and sometimes God delivers them into the hands of their persecutors that he may have the honour of delivering them out of their hands.
4. The special commission given him to go among the Gentiles, and the errand upon which he is sent to them; it was some years after Paul's conversion before he was sent to the Gentiles, or (for aught that appears) knew any thing of his being designed for that purpose (see Act 22:21); but at length he is ordered to steer his course that way.
(1.) There is great work to be done among the Gentiles, and Paul must be instrumental in doing it. Two things must be done, which their case calls for the doing of: - [1.] A world that sits in darkness must be enlightened; those must be brought to know the things that belong to their everlasting peace who are yet ignorant of them, to know God as their end, and Christ as their way, who as yet know nothing of either. He is sent to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light. His preaching shall not only make known to them those things which they had not before heard of, but shall be the vehicle of that divine grace and power by which their understandings shall be enlightened to receive those things, and bid them welcome. Thus he shall open their eyes, which before were shut against the light, and they shall be willing to understand themselves, their own case and interest. Christ opens the heart by opening the eyes, does not lead men blindfold, but gives them to see their own way. He is sent not only to open their eyes for the present, but to keep them open, to turn them from darkness to light, that is, from following false and blind guides, their oracles, divinations, and superstitious usages, received by tradition from their fathers, and the corrupt notions and ideas they had of their gods, to follow a divine revelation of unquestionable certainty and truth. This was turning them from darkness to light, from the ways of darkness to those on which the light shines. The great design of the gospel is to instruct the ignorant, and to rectify the mistakes of those who are in error, that things may be set and seen in a true light. [2.] A world that lies in wickedness, in the wicked one, must be sanctified and reformed; it is not enough for them to have their eyes opened, they must have their hearts renewed; not enough to be turned from darkness to light, but they must be turned from the power of Satan unto God, which will follow of course; for Satan rules by the power of darkness, and God by the convincing evidence of light. Sinners are under the power of Satan; idolaters were so in a special manner, they paid their homage to devils. All sinners are under the influence of his temptations, yield themselves captives to him, are at his beck; converting grace turns them from under the dominion of Satan, and brings them into subjection to God, to conform to the rules of his word and comply with the dictates and directions of his Spirit, translates them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son. When gracious dispositions are strong in the soul (as corrupt and sinful dispositions had been), it is then turned from the power of Satan unto God.
(2.) There is a great happiness designed for the Gentiles by this work - that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among those who are sanctified; they are turned from the darkness of sin to the light of holiness, from the slavery of Satan to the service of God; not that God may be a gainer by them, but that they may be gainers by him. [1.] That they may be restored to his favour, which by sin they have forfeited and thrown themselves out of: That they may receive forgiveness of sins. They are delivered from the dominion of sin, that they may be saved from that death which is the wages of sin. Not that they may merit forgiveness as a debt of reward, but that they may receive it as a free gift, that they may be qualified to receive the comfort of it. They are persuaded to lay down their arms, and return to their allegiance, that they may have the benefit of the act of indemnity, and may plead it in arrest of the judgment to be given against them. [2.] That they may be happy in the fruition of him; not only that they may have their sins pardoned, but that they may have an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith that is in me. Note, First, Heaven is an inheritance, it descends to all the children of God; for, if children, then heirs. That they may have, klēron - a lot (so it might be read), alluding to the inheritances of Canaan, which were appointed by lot, and that also is the act of God, the disposal thereof is of the Lord. That they may have a right, so some read it; not by merit, but purely by grace. Secondly, All that are effectually turned from sin to God are not only pardoned, but preferred - have not only their attainder reversed, but a patent of honour given to them, and a grant of a rich inheritance. And the forgiveness of sins makes way for this inheritance, by taking that out of the way which alone hindered. Thirdly, All that shall be saved hereafter are sanctified now; those that have the heavenly inheritance must have it in this way, they must be prepared and made meet for it. None can be happy that are not holy; nor shall any be saints in heaven that are not first saints on earth. Fourthly, We need no more to make us happy than to have our lot among those that are sanctified, to fare as they fare; this is having our lot among the chosen, for they are chosen to salvation through sanctification. Those who are sanctified shall be glorified. Let us therefore now cast in our lot among them, by coming into the communion of saints, and be willing to take our lot with them, and share with them in their afflictions, which (how grievous soever) our lot with them in the inheritance will abundantly make amends for. Fifthly, We are sanctified and saved by faith in Christ. Some refer it to the word next before, sanctified by faith, for faith purifies the heart, and applies to the soul those precious promises, and subjects the soul to the influence of that grace, by which we partake of a divine nature. Others refer it to the receiving of both pardon and the inheritance; it is by faith accepting the grant: it comes all to one; for it is by faith that we are justified, sanctified, and glorified. By faith, tē eis eme - that faith which is in me; it is emphatically expressed. That faith which not only receives divine revelation in general, but which in a particular manner fastens upon Jesus Christ and his mediation, by which we rely upon Christ as the Lord our righteousness, and resign ourselves to him as the Lord our ruler. This is that by which we receive the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and eternal life.
III. That he had discharged his ministry, pursuant to his commission, by divine aid, and under divine direction and protection. God, who called him to be an apostle, owned him in his apostolical work, and carried him on in it with enlargement and success.
1. God gave him a heart to comply with the call (Act 26:19): I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, for any one would say he ought to be obedient to it. Heavenly visions have a commanding power over earthly counsels, and it is at our peril if we be disobedient to them; yet if Paul had conferred with flesh and blood, and been swayed by his secular interest, he would have done as Jonah did, gone any where rather than upon this errand; but God opened his ear, and he was not rebellious. He accepted the commission, and, having with it received his instructions, he applied himself to act accordingly.
2. God enabled him to go through a great deal of work, though in it he grappled with a great deal of difficulty, Act 26:20. He applied himself to the preaching of the gospel with all vigour. (1.) He began at Damascus, where he was converted, for he resolved to lose no time, Act 9:20. (2.) When he came to Jerusalem, where he had his education, he there witnessed for Christ, where he had most furiously set himself against him, Act 9:29. (3.) He preached throughout all the coasts of Judea, in the country towns and villages, as Christ had done; he made the first offer of the gospel to the Jews, as Christ had appointed, and did not leave them till they had wilfully thrust the gospel from them; and laid out himself for the good of their souls, labouring more abundantly than any of the apostles, nay perhaps then all put together.
3. His preaching was all practical. He did not go about to fill people's heads with airy notions, did not amuse them with nice speculations, nor set them together by the ears with matters of doubtful disputation, but he showed them, declared it, demonstrated it, that they ought, (1.) To repent of their sins, to be sorry for them and to confess them, and enter into covenant against them; they ought to bethink themselves, so the word metanoein properly signifies; they ought to change their mind and change their way, and undo what they had done amiss. (2.) To turn to God. They must not only conceive an antipathy to sin, but they must come into a conformity to God - must not only turn from that which is evil, but turn to that which is good; they must turn to God, in love and affection, and return to God in duty and obedience, and turn and return from the world and the flesh; this is that which is required from the whole revolted degenerate race of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles; epistrephein epi ton Theon - to turn back to God, even to him: to turn to him as our chief good and highest end, as our ruler and portion, turn our eye to him, turn our heart to him, and turn our feet unto his testimonies. (3.) To do works meet for repentance. This was what John preached, who was the first gospel preacher, Mat 3:8. Those that profess repentance must practise it, must live a life of repentance, must in every thing carry it as becomes penitents. It is not enough to speak penitent words, but we must do works agreeable to those words. As true faith, so true repentance, will work. Now what fault could be found with such preaching as this? Had it not a direct tendency to reform the world, and to redress its grievances, and to revive natural religion?
4. The Jews had no quarrel with him but upon this account, that he did all he could to persuade people to be religious, and to bring them to God by bringing them to Christ (Act 26:21): It was for these causes, and no other, that the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me; and let any one judge whether these were crimes worthy of death or of bonds. He suffered ill, not only for doing well himself, but for doing good to others. They attempted to kill him; it was his precious life that they hunted for, and hated, because it was a useful life; they caught him in the temple worshipping God, and there they set upon him, as if the better place the better deed
5. He had no help but from heaven; supported and carried on by that, he went on in this great work (Act 26:22): "Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day; hestēka - I have stood, my life has been preserved, and my work continued; I have stood my ground, and have not been beaten off; I have stood to what I said, and have not been afraid nor ashamed to persist in it." It was now above twenty years since Paul was converted, and all that time he had been very busy preaching the gospel in the midst of hazards; and what was it that bore him up? Not any strength of his own resolutions, but having obtained help of God; for therefore, because the work was so great and he had so much opposition, he could not otherwise have gone on in it, but by help obtained of God. Note, Those who are employed in work for God shall obtain help from God; for he will not be wanting in necessary assistances to his servants. And our continuance to this day must be attributed to help obtained of God; we had sunk, if he had not borne us up - had fallen off, if he had not carried us on; and it must be acknowledged with thankfulness to his praise. Paul mentions it as an evidence that he had his commission from God that from him he had ability to execute it. The preachers of the gospel could never have done, and suffered, and prospered, as they did, if they had not had immediate help from heaven, which they would not have had if it had not been the cause of God that they were now pleading.
6. He preached no doctrine but what agreed with the scriptures of the Old Testament: He witnessed both to small and great, to young and old, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, obscure and illustrious, all being concerned in it. It was an evidence of the condescending grace of the gospel that it was witnessed to the meanest, and the poor were welcome to the knowledge of it; and of the incontestable truth and power of it that it was neither afraid nor ashamed to show itself to the greatest. The enemies of Paul objected against him that he preached something more than that men should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. These indeed were but what the prophets of the old Testament had preached; but, besides these, he had preached Christ, and his death, and his resurrection, and this was what they quarrelled with him for, as appears by Act 25:19, that he affirmed Jesus to be alive: "And so I did," says Paul, "and so I do, but therein also I say no other than that which Moses and the prophets said should come; and what greater honour can be done to them than to show that what they foretold is accomplished, and in the appointed season too - that what they said should come is come, and at the time they prefixed?" Three things they prophesied, and Paul preached: - (1.) That Christ should suffer, that the Messiah should be a sufferer - pathētos; not only a man, and capable of suffering, but that, as Messiah, he should be appointed to sufferings; that his ignominious death should be not only consistent with, but pursuant of, his undertaking. The cross of Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews, and Paul's preaching it was the great thing that exasperated them; but Paul stands to it that, in preaching that, he preached the fulfilling of the Old Testament predictions, and therefore they ought not only not to be offended at what he preached, but to embrace it, and subscribe to it. (2.) That he should be the first that should rise from the dead; not the first in time, but the first in influence - that he should be the chief of the resurrection, the head, or principal one, prōtos ex anastaseōs, in the same sense that he is called the first-begotten from the dead (Rev 1:5), and the first-born from the dead, Col 1:18. He opened the womb of the grave, as the first-born are said to do, and made way for our resurrection; and he is said to be the first-fruits of those that slept (Co1 15:20), for he sanctified the harvest. He was the first that rose from the dead to die no more; and, to show that the resurrection of all believers is in virtue of his, just when he arose many dead bodies of saints arose, and went into the holy city, Mat 27:52, Mat 27:53. (3.) That he should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles, to the people of the Jews in the first place, for he was to be the glory of his people Israel. To them he showed light by himself, and then to the Gentiles by the ministry of his apostles, for he was to be a light to enlighten those who sat in darkness. In this Paul refers to his commission (Act 26:18), To turn them from darkness to light. He rose from the dead on purpose that he might show light to the people, that he might give a convincing proof of the truth of his doctrine, and might send it with so much the greater power, both among Jews and Gentiles. This also was foretold by the Old Testament prophets, that the Gentiles should be brought to the knowledge of God by the Messiah; and what was there in all this that the Jews could justly be displeased at?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv9–15 I verily thought with myself,.... This seems to be…
I verily thought with myself,.... This seems to be a correction of himself, why he should wonder at their ignorance and unbelief, particularly with respect to Jesus being the Messiah, and his resurrection from the dead, and expostulate with them about it; when this was once his own case, it was the real sentiments of his mind, what in his conscience he believed to be right and just; namely,
that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; to him himself, to his religion, to his Gospel, and ordinances, and people; by blaspheming his name, by denying him to be the Messiah, by condemning his religion as heresy, by disputing against his doctrines, and manner of worship, and by persecuting his followers.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv9–14 I thought - When I was a Pharisee: that…
I thought - When I was a Pharisee: that I ought to do many things - Which he now enumerates.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv10–12 Verse 10. Many of the saints] From what is…
Verse 10. Many of the saints] From what is said in this verse, it seems that Paul, before his conversion, was invested with much power: he imprisoned the Christians; punished many in various synagogues; compelled them to blaspheme-to renounce, and, perhaps, to execrate Christ, in order to save their lives; and gave his voice, exerted all his influence and authority, against them, in order that they might be put to death; and from this it would seem that there were other persons put to death besides St. Stephen, though their names are not mentioned.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v12 Act 26:12-15. Whereupon, as I went to Damascus, &c.…
Act 26:12-15. Whereupon, as I went to Damascus, &c. — See notes on Act 9:3-9, and Act 22:5-11; where the substance of this paragraph occurs, and is explained. At mid-day, O king — Most seasonably, in the height of the narration, does he thus fix the king’s attention; I saw a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun — And no marvel, for what is the brightness of the created sun to the Son of righteousness, the brightness of the Father’s glory? I heard a voice speaking in the Hebrew tongue — Paul observes this, because he was not now speaking in Hebrew: when he was, (Act 22:7,) he did not add, in the Hebrew tongue. Christ used this tongue, both on earth and from heaven.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv9–12 I verily thought - I indeed μὲν men supposed.…
I verily thought - I indeed μὲν men supposed. Paul here commences the account of his conversion, and states the evidence on which he judged that he was called of God to do what he had done. He begins by saying that it was not because he was originally disposed to be a Christian, but that he was violently and conscientiously opposed to Jesus of Nazareth, and had been converted when in the full career of opposition to him and his cause.
With myself - I thought to myself; or, I myself thought. He had before stated the hopes and expectations of his countrymen, Act 26:6-8. He now speaks of his own views and purposes. “For myself, I thought,” etc.
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That I ought to do - That I was bound, or that it was a duty incumbent on me - δεῖν dein. “I thought that I owed it to my country, to my religion, and to my God, to oppose in every manner the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah.” We here see that Paul was conscientious, and that a man may be conscientious even when engaged in enormous wickedness. It is no evidence that one is right because he is conscientious. No small part of the crimes against human laws, and almost all the cruel persecutions against Christians, have been carried on under the plea of conscience. Paul here refers to his conscientiousness in persecution to show that it was no slight matter which could have changed his course. As he was governed in persecution by conscience, it could have been only by a force of demonstration, and by the urgency of conscience equally clear and strong, that he could ever have been induced to abandon this course and to become a friend of that Saviour whom he had thus persecuted.
Many things - As much as possible. He was not satisfied with a few things a few words, or purposes, or arguments; but he felt bound to do as much as possible to put down the new religion.
Contrary to the name ... - In opposition to Jesus himself, or to his claims to be the Messiah. The “name” is often used to denote the “person” himself, Act 3:6.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv10, 14 I brought the sentence.[2] That is, from those who…
I brought the sentence.[2] That is, from those who in the great council were judges of life and death, to those officers who were to put the sentence in execution. This seems to be the sense of these words, rather than, I voted, or gave my voice in condemning them; for we have no grounds to think St. Paul was one of the council, or of the judges. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Ego sententiam detuli, Greek: katenegka psephon, calculum, suffragium. It was the custom for judges to give their votes either by taking up a white or a black stone: that it, a white stone, if the persons judged were found not guilty, and a black stone, if guilty: so Ovid, Mos erat antiquis niveis, atrisque lapillis,
His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpa.
--- So that Greek: psephos was a lapillus, or a little stone made use of in giving sentence, and from thence taken for the sentence itself.
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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v9 (See on Act 9:1, &c.; and compare Act 22:4,…
(See on Act 9:1, &c.; and compare Act 22:4, &c.)
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv10, 11, 12, 14 10. I also did—The apostle paints his sad behaviour…
10. I also did—The apostle paints his sad behaviour with a copious accumulation of particulars. Perhaps a true interpretation would reduce some of his indignant and eloquent self-condemnations as hyperboles.
Saints—By this striking word here Paul asserts to Agrippa the holy character of his victims, and aggravates his own misdoing.
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They… death—The plural perhaps for the singular, as it is doubtful whether any person suffered death besides Stephen.
Voice—The Greek word signifies the pebble, which (before the invention of the modern paper) was anciently used for voting. Some have inferred from this that young Saul was a member of the Sanhedrin; erroneously, for he was not of sufficient age. Others suppose that his vote was given in the informal consultations that took place. More probably it is a metaphorical use of the word, as we would use the word suffrage to indicate one’s support of a movement.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv9–15 9. contrary to the name] i.e. to the faith…
9. contrary to the name] i.e. to the faith of Jesus Christ, into whose name believers were to be baptized. Cp. Act_5:41, note. “Name” is constantly used in O. T. as the equivalent of “Godhead,” and any Jew who heard the language of such a verse as this would understand that the Christians held Jesus to be a divine Being.
of Jesus of Nazareth] Whom we preach now as raised by God from the dead, and as the fulfiller of the promises made to the fathers.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv9, 10, 11, 12, 14 (9) I verily thought with myself . . .—The…
(9) I verily thought with myself . . .—The words have a tone of considerate sympathy and hope. He himself had been led from unbelief to faith; he will not despair of a like transition for others, even for Agrippa. (Comp. 1Ti_1:12-17.) On the relation of this account of the Apostle’s conversion to previous narratives, see Notes on Act_9:1-20.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv9–15 I verily. He gently excuses their unbelief by confessing…
I verily. He gently excuses their unbelief by confessing that he himself had once felt like them, and insinuates the hope that they would change their minds as he had, and proceeds to give them good reason for doing so. Contrary to the Name (Gal_1:13; 1Ti_1:13) Jesus of Nazareth. By so designating the Lord of glory, he avows himself a member of "the sect of the Nazarenes". (see Act_2:22 Act_3:6 Act_4:10 Act_10:33, etc.)
Vers. 9, 10. Gradations in guilt.
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The old notion that, as sin is committed against an infinite God, it must itself be an infinite evil, and that, therefore, all sins are equally heinous and offensive, is held no longer. Its logic is unsound, and our moral sense contradicts the theory. The fact is that the degrees of human guilt in the multitude of actions men perform, under a vast variety of conditions, are indefinitely numerous. Only the Omniscient can possibly discriminate and compute them. But there are some simple principles on which we may safely rely for our spiritual guidance. We judge
I THAT DELIBERATE AND DIRECT ANTAGONISM TO CHRIST IS THE GUILTIEST OF ALL POSITIONS. "Doing things contrary to Jesus Christ," when these things are done by an agent who knows what he does, reaches the very summit of iniquity. This is the condemnation, that light is come," etc. When men oppose themselves to Christian truth because" their deeds are evil," because "their craft is in danger," Because they hate the light which exposes their sin and robs them of their gains or their enjoyments, then they stand in the very front rank of criminality; they deliberately take up arms against their Maker; "They take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder," etc.; they say, "This is the Son; come, let us kill him," etc. Surely God will trouble these "with his sore displeasure". (Psa_2:5)
II THAT DELIBERATE NEUTRALITY IS A MOST SERIOUS SIN, When men refrain from taking an active part against the cause of Christ and his truth, doing "nothing contrary," etc., they shun the very worst possible thing. But when they attempt to take neutral ground, and either
(1) reject the claims which Christ makes on their personal subjection, (Mat_9:9 Mat_11:28, Mat_11:29, etc.) or
(2) refuse to render the help they can bring to his cause, (Mat_21:30 Mat_25:18, etc.) then they fall into great condemnation, and must "bear their iniquity". (see Mat_7:26, Mat_7:27; Luk_13:25-28; Jud_1:5:23)
III THAT IGNORANCE CHANGES THE CHARACTER AND MATERIALLY AFFECTS THE DEGREE OF GUILT. Clearly Paul was not so guilty in his acts of persecution as he would have been, had he not "thought that he ought to do many things contrary," etc. He himself tells us that this ignorance of his was a great mitigation of the sinfulness of his act. (1Ti_1:13) Our Lord also gave his own Divine sanction to this truth when suffering the pangs of crucifixion. (Luk_23:34)
1. Ignorance changes the character of the sin. What Paul was guilty of in those days was not the deliberate attempt to crush the work of a Divine Redeemer; he would have recoiled from so doing, had the act presented itself thus to his mind. His mistake, his condemnation, was that he had not fairly and impartially considered the claims of Jesus of Nazareth; that he had blindly assumed that his teachers were right, guiltily neglecting all the proofs which the Savior had given that he was the Messiah "that should come into the world.
2. It also greatly reduces its turpitude, not to have inquired as we should have done this is wrong and blameworthy. But it is not so serious an offence, in the sight of God or of man, as willfully and wantonly to conspire against the Lord, and to seek to positively hinder the coming of his kingdom. It may rightly comfort those who, like Paul, have to look hack on offences which they have committed, when they can say, with him,
verily thought," etc.; when it can be said to them, "Brethren, I vet that through ignorance ye did it". (Act_3:17)
IV THAT ONLY ABSOLUTE IGNORANCE EXONERATES FROM BLAME. It is conceivable that men may be so circumstanced that their ignorance is absolute, and therefore wholly faultless. In this case there is no guilt. But how seldom is it of this kind! Usually when we do "things contrary" to truth, righteousness, God, we might have known better if we had inquired more promptly or more purely. We may not excuse ourselves if we have kept out of our mind any light we might have admitted. We may apply this to
(1) the doctrines we are accepting;
(2) the leaders we are encouraging;
(3) the business we are conducting;
(4) the family we are training. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv9, 12 I verily thought with myself that I ought to…
Act_26:9-11
I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
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St. Pauls thought with himself
1. Emerson verily thought with himself that every subject was to be brought before him for his individual approval or disapproval. In nearly the last sermon he ever preached, he said, that how plainly soever such an ordinance as the Eucharist might seem, to others, to have been appointed by Christ Himself, unless it commended itself to his own judgment, he should have nothing to do with it. Paul condemned Christianity because it did not commend itself to his private judgment. He went much farther, too, than the philosopher. He not only thought, but did many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. A formidable example this of the extreme lengths to which the mind will go, when it decides against Christianity, not by testimony from without, but by the impulses of corrupt and obstinate self-will within. Then it falters not before the most terrific issues. It will try to demolish Christianity, and if it cannot accomplish quite so much in an age like this, when Christianity has become incorporate with the framework of civil society, it will, nevertheless, do its utmost in levelling its doctrines to its own equality, and pronouncing upon them as if questions of mere expediency, subject to its arbitrary and final settlement. What a parallel to Pauls havoc of the Church is the havoc which a mans thinking with himself is making in that time-honoured system of the Faith which the Church Catholic, in the ages all along, has upheld and sanctioned.
2. What cured Paul of his thinking for himself, and converted him into a believing and obedient Christian? His very first exclamation, after his restoration to moral soundness, furnishes the reply. He acted now in the spirit of that pledge which our Saviour made, when He said, If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. A pledge this so natural, that it was at once assented to by an Indian. He that is above, said Wesley to the Creek Indians, will not teach you, unless you avoid that which you already know is not good. One of the Indians answered, I believe that. He will not teach us while our hearts are not white. So then we must be content to receive the faith, as prepared for us by Gods own hands, and not manufactured out of our inward light, our unassisted mental resources. Then we shall make the grand discovery about which multitudes now fail, that the soul, when she surrenders at discretion, and leans on God, and on Gods providences to His Church, with a childs implicit trust, has a sustenance and support before undreamed of; and which reason, fretting for certainties, and often groping in the dark, or seeing as by the light of a tallow candle never can supply. (T. W. Colt, D. D.)
Fallibility of conscience
Conscience in your fallen state is as likely to be wrong as your clocks and watches, and you cannot be sure of the time of day unless you go to some infallible standard of time, so you cannot decide upon right and wrong by simple reference to your own convictions. It is not a full justification of your conduct to say your conscience approved what you did. What, my brother, is the state of your conscience? You know that even with the sundial you might take to it an artificial light, and throw from the gnomon upon the figures and lines a shadow that would not index the true time of day. And if your conscience act under the artificial light of the habits and customs of mankind, and not under the power of the light of Gods light, it is no guide as to your duty. What is it that governs your conscience? Is it the will of God, or the will of man? If God do not control it, then it is no correct index of what you ought to do, or of what you ought not to do. I thought, said Saul of Tarsus--I thought that I ought to do many things contrary to Jesus of Nazareth. These were the things over which, in the course of a little time, he had most bitterly to mourn. (S. Martin.)
Pauls doctrinal petrifaction
In one sense, there is nothing that will hold a man more snugly prisoner than his own thought will. We weave the silken threads of the cocoon that we call our theology, and when we get through we are on the inside of it, as neat a prisoner as ever slept in a gaol. Some men are small simply because their ideas are small, and have been on so long, and have been put on so tight that they have not been able to burst them. Ideas are dangerous things. The possibilities of the direst bondage are in them. Probably we cannot get along in our religious life without having some system of doctrine, but I wish we could. But the next thing to it is to hold our formulae of doctrinal opinion purely as a provisional arrangement. When! say hold them as a provisional arrangement, I mean hold them just as we do the rounds of a ladder, clinging to each succeeding round only as something that will help to brace us for a new pull upward. What we want to say frankly and appreciate intensely, is that we have reached no finality in these things. And there will be no finality before eternitys sundown. But it is retorted upon me that this is to deny the tenability, and even the respectability, of any doctrinal position that any man under any circumstances can hold. Not a bit of it. A man trusts his sincere convictions, and he is bound to do so, but he is bound to trust them just exactly as in mountain climbing I put confidence in the rock that I plant my foot upon, trusting to it, trusting my whole weight to it, as something that will hold me steady till I have time to get my ice axe thrust so securely into a crevice in the overhanging cliff that I shall be able to draw myself up another length, and then plant my foot on some more rock. Now that is constructive. There is no suggestion of the negative about it. It is the only constructive theology there is. It is the only live theology. All other is either wired skeleton or stuffed skin; at any rate, a curiosity for the museum, rather than living ingredient in a live Church. That is not saying that, as expansive Christian thinkers, we are obliged to abrogate every old form and phraseology of doctrine. That would be neither sense nor Scripture. In order to be a live man you do not have to put on a new body every time you get up. But you live and enlarge, because, although your body may be old, it is the theatre of an expansive life that wins a new increment of fulness from the very morning that you wake up under. In order to have a live tree, you are not obliged to put in a new trunk every time it blossoms or unpacks a fresh leaf. The old trunk may be good enough, but the old trunk with fresh life poured into it till it rungs over and the drippings crystallise into verdure and flowers. The point in that illustration is that the life uses the trunk instead of the trunk being so rigid and gritty as to mew up the life, so that as soon as the life can get a little new influx and a little deepening of its current it is bound to break its way out into liberty and leaves. In this second sense, then, Christ is our Emancipator. The entrance of His Spirit into us enlarges us to the rending of the old shackles of indurated opinion that we have either put upon ourselves or had put on us, and so lets us out into a wider reach of truth and into a broader sweep of prospect. That is all perfectly illustrated in the case of Saul on his way to becoming Paul. Saul was a tough old fossilised Jew. His theological views, that at one time we may suppose to have been young and tender and plastic, had chilled and dried and hardened into so much doctrinal petrifaction. Anything like new, enlarged, and progressive thought we may suppose to have been arrested. The convictions he had already acquired lay in the way of more acquisitions of the same kind. His mind bounded back as from a wall, from the casing of opinion in which during all those years he had been slowly immuring himself. He was in that particular like a river which will sometimes dam its own flow by the very material which it has itself deposited. Worm and cocoon! And yet when once the power of Christ had come upon him, and the Spirit of Christ, who is the Truth, had become a swelling reservoir within him, the embankment gave way, and the new accumulation from out the sky broke forth over wide areas of new theological fertility; the inward Divine replenishment, like the deepened currents of vegetable sap in the spring, punctured the bark and let itself out all over Paul in fresh theological buds. And wherever there is a fresh increment of the Christ-Spirit made over to a Christian thinker, that is to be counted on as a certain issue. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Sincerity misguided
It is often said it is no matter what a man believes if he is only sincere. This is true of all minor truths, and false of all truths whose nature it is to fashion a mans life. It will make no difference in a mans harvest whether he think turnips have more saccharine matter than potatoes, whether corn is better than wheat. But let the man sincerely believe that seed planted without ploughing is as good as with, that January is as favourable for seed sowing as April, and that cockle seed will produce as good a harvest as wheat, and will it make no difference? A child might as well think he could reverse that ponderous marine engine which night and day, in calm and storm, ploughs its way across the deep, by sincerely taking hold of the paddle wheel, as a man might think he could reverse the action of the elements of Gods moral government through a misguided sincerity. They will roll over such a one, and whelm him in endless ruin. (H. W. Beecher.)
Compelled them to blaspheme.
Compulsory blasphemy
You, perhaps, know what that means--compel them to blaspheme. The Roman way of doing it was to say, Curse Christ. Often and often did the Roman Emperor command the martyrs to curse Christ, and you remember Polycarps answer--How can I curse Him? Sixty years have I known Him; He never did me a displeasure, and I cannot and I will not curse Him. Then the whip was applied, or the hand was held over burning coals, or the flesh was pinched with hot irons, and then the question was put again--Will you curse Christ now? Paul says that he, though probably using milder means, compelled the professor of Christs faith to blaspheme. And there may be some such here--the husband who persecutes his wife for Christs sake; the father who charges his child, upon his obedience, never to go to the sanctuary of the Lord again; the master who plagues his servant, mocks and jeers, and can never be content, except when he is saying hard things against him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv9, 12 9–11. I verily thought with myself. Next, in order…
9–11. I verily thought with myself. Next, in order to show his zeal for Judaism, he describes his course as a persecutor. He was thoroughly conscientious then in opposing Christ. For his course as a persecutor, see 7:58; 9:1, 2; 22:4.
I gave my voice against them. “Vote,” in the Revision. This has been held to indicate that he was a member of the Sanhedrim. This would hardly be doubted were it not that tradition declares that the members of the Sanhedrim had to be married and fathers of a family. Hence, some have held that Paul was a member of some lesser court appointed by the Sanhedrim to try the Christians.
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I punished them oft in every synagogue. “All the synagogues” (Revision). Scourging was a not uncommon punishment in the synagogue (Matt. 10:17; 23:34). Compelled them to blaspheme. Terrified them into denying Jesus. Even unto strange cities. Of these Damascus was one. That he was a terrible persecutor, “exceedingly mad,” raging, even fanatical cannot be doubted from his own account.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v9 Act_26:9. Commences the second part of Paul’s apology. Paul…
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_26:9. Commences the second part of Paul’s apology. Paul would not despair of converting his countrymen from doubt to belief, since he himself had undergone a similar mental revolution, and had become a believer in, and a preacher of, the resurrection of Jesus. I ought.—Paul acted from what he deemed a sense of duty when he “persecuted the Church of God” (1Co_15:9), which may be taken as his interpretation of the clause, doing many things “contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.”
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Act_26:10. The saints.—This designation, intelligible only to Christians (see Act_9:13), Paul did not use when addressing the Jews, but now employs before Agrippa, perhaps because he deemed caution no longer necessary, and wished both to put honour on the followers of the Nazarene and to aggravate his own guilt (compare Birk’s Horæ Apostolicæ vii. viii.). The disciples of the Crucified were “the ‘holy ones of God’s people, Israel—what the Chasidim, or ‘devout ones’ (the ‘Assideans’ of 1Ma_7:13; 2Ma_14:6), had been in an earlier generation” (Plumptre). I gave my voice—lit., I cast my voting stone, calculum adjeci, against them.—Whether this should be taken literally, as signifying that Paul actually voted against the Christians (Conybeare and Howson, Alford, Holtzmann, Hausrath, Plumptre), or figuratively (Bengel, Kuinoel, De Wette, Meyer, Lechler, Zockler, Hackett, Stier), that he assented to their condemnation, is debated. If the former interpretation be the right one, then the probability is that Paul had been a member of the Sanhedrim, and over thirty years of age, as well as married and the father of a family. As, however, Paul’s age at the time of Stephen’s murder is uncertain, and as Scripture does not mention either wife or child of the apostle (but see Hints on Act_26:10), it is held by others that the latter interpretation should be preferred.
Act_26:11. I … compelled them.—Lit., I was compelling them—i.e., I strove to make them—blaspheme.—It does not follow that he succeeded, though “that among the many who suffered this violence, every one preserved his fidelity, it would be unreasonable to affirm” (Hackett). Pliny (Ep., x. 97) speaks of ordering the Bithynian Christians—maledicere Christo—but adds that it could not be done—quorum nihil cogi posse dicuntur qui sunt revera Christiani. Strange cities were foreign cities, outside of Palestine, like Damascus.
Act_26:12. Whereupon.—Lit., in which (persecutions) being engaged. Compare Act_24:18.
Act_26:13. At midday.—A note, omitted in Luke’s narration (Act_9:3) but corresponding to Paul’s previous statement “about noon” (Act_22:6). A light from heaven.—As in Act_9:3; spoken of as great in Act_22:6, to which corresponds the next clause, above the brightness of the sun.—This light is now said to have encompassed, not Paul alone (Act_9:3; Act_22:6), but his companions as well
Act_26:14. Remarks that these companions, as well as the apostle, were all struck to the ground in terror, though they appear to have recovered from their fright earlier than he (Act_9:7). The voice which Paul heard, Luke says they also heard (Act_9:7), though Paul affirms they heard it not (Act_22:9), as conversely Luke reports they saw no man (Act_9:7), while Paul asserts they beheld the light (Act_20:9). On these supposed contradictions see Act_9:7, and Act_22:6, and compare Dan_10:7; 3Ma_6:18, and Joh_12:29, which all seem to imply that heavenly voices and visions are understood and seen only by those for whom they are intended. Paul mentioned that the voice spoke to him in the Hebrew tongue, because he was then himself speaking in Greek, not in Hebrew, as in 22 (see Hints on Act_26:14). It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.—Or, goads. The meaning was that his resistance to the cause and will of Christ would be foolish and unavailing, as well as painful to himself. The ox-goad, six or eight feet long, and pointed with iron, was held by the Oriental ploughman in one hand, while the other grasped the one-handled plough. The refractory animal, when pierced or pricked with the iron-pointed goad, would, of course, kick against it. Examples of this proverb have been produced from Greek and Latin writers (see Æschylus, Agam., 1624: πρὸς κέντρα μὴ λάκτιζε; and Terence, Phormio, I. ii. 27: “Nam quæ inscitia est advorsum stimulum oalces”).
Act_26:16. Which thou halt seen.—According to the best authorities this should be wherein thou hast seen Me.
Act_26:18. To turn them should be that they may turn from darkness to light, the verb being intransitive (see Act_26:20; Act_14:15).
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_26:9-18
Paul’s Rehearsal of An Old Story; or, the Secret of his Conversion Explained
I. The character of his pre-Christian life.—Briefly, one of opposition to the name of Jesus, and to all who bore it.
1. Conscientious. Paul distinctly claimed that at that time he was as truly conscientious as he had been since his conversion. He imagined, ignorantly of course (1Ti_1:13), that in so opposing, hindering, persecuting, and destroying Christians, he was actually doing God service. He did not avow that, though acting, as he believed, from conscientious motives, he was thereby free from guilt; otherwise he could not have written, “Howbeit I obtained mercy.” Paul had by this time arrived at the perception of this fundamental principle in morals, that while man is responsible for acting in accordance with conscience, he is no less accountable for the education and enlightenment of his conscience. It is only conscience enlightened by the word of God which is an absolutely safe guide for the Christian.
2. Active. His hostility towards the name of Jesus and its bearers was not confined to the region of sentiment and feeling, but was no sooner formed than translated into word and deed. Having concluded in the court of conscience that he ought to harry out the Christians from Jerusalem and Judæa, and hunt them, if that were possible, from off the face of the earth, he adopted every method in his power to give effect to his ferocious purpose. Armed with authority from the chief priests, he became a furious inquisitor, persecutor, and oppressor—
(1) shutting up the saints in prison wherever and whenever they fell into his clutches;
(2) voting against them when they were put to death, either actually, as a member of the Sanhedrim, or metaphorically, by mentally assenting to their condemnation, thus constituting himself participem criminis, or (to use a Scottish law phrase) “art and part,” a sharer in the wickedness of shedding their innocent blood;
(3) punishing them in every synagogue in which they were found, in order to make them blaspheme that holy name wherewith they were called (Jas_2:7); and even
(4) following them to strange cities, such as Damascus, in order to arrest them and fetch them, bound, to Jerusalem.
3. Passionate. Nor was it merely as an unpleasant task that this ferocious and bloody occupation was undertaken and carried through by him, but as a business into which he had enlisted all the energy and enthusiasm of his soul, and from which he derived the most intoxicating and fiendish delight. He was mad exceedingly, and, as Luke reports, breathed out threatenings and slaughter against them.
4. Extensive. His efforts were not restricted to Jerusalem or Judæa, but passed beyond the limits of the Holy Land, even to foreign cities. From Paul’s description of his early career we can see that Luke’s account (Act_9:1-18) is in no degree exaggerated, while Agrippa might have inferred, had he wished, that something extraordinary must have happened to produce the change in Paul which he and all men beheld—a something hardly less supernatural than that which Paul next proceeded to relate—viz., the appearance to him of the risen Christ.
II. The story of his miraculous conversion—
1. The place where it occurred. In the vicinity of that very Damascus to which he had been journeying on the unhallowed errand just described. Paul was not likely to forget a spot so sacred as that on which he passed so suddenly, completely, and for ever from the darkness of sin and Satan into God’s own marvellous light. It can hardly be supposed that the Eunuch would ever cease to remember the desert road to Gaza, where he met with Philip the evangelist and found the key to the Bible in the person of the Saviour (Act_8:26); or that Lydia would ever become unmindful of the place of prayer by the river side in Philippi, where the Lord opened her heart to attend unto the things that were spoken by Paul (Act_16:13). 2 The time when it happened. “At mid-day, O king.” This also was engraven ineffaceably on the tablets of his memory, as was the tenth hour on the memory of Andrew (Joh_1:39). Many who have undergone the same spiritual change as Paul, the change of conversion, find it difficult to state precisely the moment when the blinding scales of ignorance and unbelief fell from their eyes, and the light of saving truth flashed in upon their understandings. But no such uncertainty could exist with Paul, any more than with the just named Lydia (Act_16:14), or with the Philippian gaoler (Act_16:34).
3. The instrumentality that effected it. “A light from heaven.”
(1) That this was no mere flash of lightning or other natural phenomenon, but a supernatural illumination, is proved by four things: its splendour, which was above the brightness of the sun; its time, which was mid-day, when the sun is at its brightest, and lightning, should it occur then, is scarcely visible; its locality, which was not the broad expanse of the firmament, but the vicinity of the apostle and his companions—the light shone round about them; its effect—it hurled the apostle and his companions to the ground, probably threw them from the beasts on which they rode, filling the apostle’s companions with terror, and striking the apostle himself with blindness (Act_9:7-8), though the apostle does not now deem it necessary to introduce these details into his speech.
(2) That the light was the glory nimbus of the exalted Saviour is apparent from the circumstances next narrated by Paul—that he heard a voice issuing from it which he afterwards recognised to be that of Jesus, whom he had been persecuting, and that he carried on a conversation with that same Jesus, whose glorified form he discerned in the midst of the light.
4. The power that wrought it. This was not the light, which was simply the radiant symbol of Jesus presence, or the alarm into which he, no less than his companions, had been thrown, since, though fear may awaken conviction, it cannot convert; but the grace of Him who had, in this mysterious fashion, appeared to him on the way. “It is the Spirit (of Christ) that quickeneth” (Joh_6:63). Souls are born again, “not of flesh or of blood, or by the will of man, but by the power of God” (Joh_1:13).
5. The process by which it was completed. The conversation carried on by Christ with his soul.
(1) The double form of address—“Saul! Saul!”—indicative of earnestness; the pathetic interrogation—“Why persecutest thou Me?”; and the solemn declaration, “It is hard for thee to kick against the goads”;—made it evident that he was standing before One who not only knew his name and the details of his past career, but was acquainted with the interior history of his soul, and understood the moods of mind through which he had been passing on the road to Damascus, and probably ever since he had witnessed the trial and execution of Stephen. If Paul on that day remembered the words of Scripture at all, it is far from unlikely that these were the words which instinctively leapt into his thoughts: “O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me.…” (Psa_139:1-12).
(2) The answer returned by Christ to his question, “Who art Thou, Lord?”—“I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest”—must have discovered to his mind three things of which he had been previously unaware, and up to that moment had presumably not imagined could be true: that Jesus of Nazareth was no longer dead, but risen, as the Christians affirmed, and was the Messiah; that his conception of himself and his past career as highly pleasing to God was fundamentally and totally wrong; and that in persecuting the followers of the Way he was practically fighting against God. All which must have humbled him in the dust of penitence and self-abasement.
(3) The command of Jesus that he should rise, stand upon his feet, and proceed upon a different mission—not against, but for, the cause he had been seeking to destroy—could not fail to inspire within him hopes of pardon and acceptance, notwithstanding his heinous wickedness and sin. When Paul found that Jesus did not strike him into death, confound him with terrors, or declare against him bitter and relentless enmity, what could he conclude but that Jesus was willing to forgive the past? If doubt lingered in his soul, it must have been for ever banished when Christ proceeded to talk about employing him as a preacher of the faith?
III. The tenor of his apostolical commission.—This was—
1. Based upon the fact that Christ had now appeared to him, as to all the other apostolic persons. Paul afterwards relied on this as a sufficient guarantee of his apostolical authority (1Co_9:1; 1Co_15:8).
2. Defined as a witness-bearing about the things in which Christ both had appeared and would appear to him. In conformity with this Paul constantly claimed that his gospel had not been derived indirectly from man, but had been communicated to him directly by Christ (Gal_1:12).
3. Directed to the Gentiles—not exclusively, but ultimately and chiefly. It is not in accordance with fact that Paul originally did not contemplate a Gentile mission (Baur, Hausrath), but was only reluctantly compelled by circumstances to adopt this, because of the refusal of his countrymen, the Jews, to hear the gospel (Act_13:47). That Paul did not start at once with a Gentile mission constituted no proof that that formed not his intention from the first, or that he was not aware of his Divine designation for such an enterprise, but only attested his wisdom in
(1) waiting for heavenly leading to open up his path, and
(2) seeking a point of connection for himself and his gospel with the heathen, through the synagogues, in which these mingled as proselytes with the Jews. Besides, had Paul not commenced with the Jews he would have both given to his hearers an erroneous impression of his gospel, which was no entirely new religion, but the necessary, because Divinely arranged, development of the old faith of the Hebrews, and would have lacked a congenial soil for it to fix its first roots in.
4. Designed for the salvation of the heathen: by
(1) opening their eyes—i.e., imparting to them spiritual illumination (Luk_1:79; Eph_1:18);
(2) turning them, as the result of such enlightenment, from darkness unto light (Eph_5:11; Col_1:13; 1Pe_2:9), and from the power of Satan unto God (Eph_2:2; Rom_16:20);
(3) bestowing on them forgiveness—i.e., remission of sins (Rom_3:25); and
(4) securing for them an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Christ (Act_20:22; Eph_1:11; Eph_1:14; Eph_1:18; Col_1:12; 1Pe_1:4). “An excellent description of St. Paul’s commission to preach, by the five ends or effects of it, viz., conversion, faith, remission of sins, sanctification, salvation” (Trapp).
5. Accompanied by a promise of protection against the machinations of both Jews and Gentiles, a promise which his past history and present position showed had been marvellously fulfilled.
Learn—
1. That to follow conscience (unless it is enlightened) is no guarantee that one will not commit sin and incur guilt.
2. That men have justified the greatest wickedness by appealing to the dictates of conscience.
3. That men’s judgments on their characters and lives differ greatly according to the standpoints from which they are pronounced.
4. That Divine grace can change the worst of sinners.
5. That nothing transpiring on earth is or can be hid from the eyes of Jesus Christ (Heb_4:13; Rev_1:14).
6. That when Christ appoints a messenger He gives him a message.
7. That the grand end of the ministry is the salvation of them that hear (1Co_1:21; 1Ti_4:16).
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_26:9. Paul’s Mistaken Thoughts.
I. That Jesus of Nazareth was an imposter.—Not a few regard Christ in this light still. Many consider Him to have been a mere man, and Divine in no sense, in which others may not also be Divine.
II. That the followers of Jesus should be persecuted and put to death.—This opinion is not yet extinct. Many who would tolerate Christianity hold that other religions should be put down and their professors suppressed by force. To punish men for their religious views, besides being a blunder, is a sin.
III. That the favour of Heaven could be secured only by them who obeyed the law, and observed the ritual, of Moses.—Thousands still hold that none can be saved outside of their sect, and thousands more that salvation is possible only to them who seek it through the works of the law—both of which opinions are delusions.
IV. That the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was a fiction.—So numerous unbelievers still hold. But as Paul was undeceived on this point, so will they eventually be.
Act_26:10. Was Paul a Member of the Sanhedrim?—The answer to this question largely turns on the other, Was Paul married? That he was, Luther and the Reformers generally inferred from 1Co_7:8 : “But I say to the unmarried and to widows, It is good for them, if they abide even as I.” “That the unmarried are widowers is clear from this, that Paul has already spoken to the unmarried (Act_26:1), and married (Act_26:7), and now comes to the widowed (Act_26:8). Accordingly, the apostle appears to reckon himself in the category of widowers, and already Luther’s sound judgment has discerned that directions concerning the married life, such as are given immediately before Act_26:8, are suitable only in the mouth of a man who is, or was, married, and who knows from his own experience that of which he speaks. An impartial reading of 1Co_6:12; 1Co_7:10, cannot but confirm this judgment of Luther’s; and many other passages in the Pauline letters, as, e.g., 1Th_2:7; 1Th_5:4; 1Co_3:2; 1Co_4:15; 1Co_7:14, manifest so deep a feeling for the family life, and so rich experiences out of the same, that this impression is only confirmed” (Hausrath, Der Apostel Paulus, p. 47).
Act_26:13. Memorable Moments.—Paul never forgot the hour when the glorified Redeemer first appeared to him, shattered with a glance and a word the entire superstructure of his past life, and transformed him into a new man.
I. Such moments occur in the lives of men.—Such are those, e.g., in which Christ, through His word and by His Spirit, for the first time looks in upon a soul, awakening within it a sense of sin, shining into it with His gracious countenance, translating it out of darkness into light, and turning it from Satan to serve the living and true God.
II. Such moments should not be forgotten.—Should be remembered by men rather—
1. For the eternal praise of the Lord whose grace has been so signally displayed in them.
2. For the continual instruction of themselves, reminding them of the grace they have received and the gratitude they should feel.
3. For a permanent memorial to the world, to rebuke them in their sins and call them to the way of salvation.
Act_26:14-15. Did Christ speak Hebrew?—Compare Christ’s words to Paul in Act_9:4-5. That on this occasion He did, Paul distinctly states. Whether this was Christ’s language on earth is debated. The probability is that He could use both Greek and Hebrew. Brought up, as He had been, in a Jewish household, it is hardly supposable that He could not think, read, write, and speak, in Hebrew. It is even likely that when He taught in the synagogues, the language used by Him was Hebrew. Occasionally when working miracles, as the Gospel records show, He used Aramaic terms, such as “Talitha cumi,” “Ephatha”; while on the cross He cried: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani.” At the same time, as Greek was at this period commonly spoken in all those countries which were washed by the Mediterranean waters, it is just as reasonable to conjecture that Christ could speak Greek. Whether He employed this tongue in ordinary intercourse with His countrymen will most likely never be determined. Nor is it of much consequence. The instance here given of Christ speaking from heaven to a mortal is a solitary one, and not much can be founded on it in the way of argument for one conclusion or another. Some think that John’s revelations were given to him in Hebrew. But this is, of course, conjectural.
Act_26:16-18. True Ministerial Ordination.—Illustrated in the case of Paul.
I. Proceeds from Christ.—Prayer and the imposition of hands, whether by bishop or presbytery, does not make an unconverted man a minister of Jesus Christ.
II. Appoints to personal service.—Not to temporal or ecclesiastical dignities, or even to wealth and comfort, but to lowly labour in witness-bearing for Jesus Christ.
III. Guarantees spiritual illumination.—When Christ ordains a man to be His witness He reveals Himself to that man’s soul, not only at the beginning, and as a necessary condition of being ordained as a minister, but from time to time, as his work of witness-bearing requires.
IV. Promises adequate protection.—As Christ shielded Paul from his adversaries, so can and will He guard His faithful minister and witness so long as his service is required.
V. Contemplates lofty aims.—
1. The enlightenment of souls—“to open their eyes.”
2. The conversion of sinners—“that they may turn from darkness to light.”
3. The bestowment of pardon—“that they may receive remission of sins.”
4. The preparation of those who are enlightened, converted, pardoned for glory—“that they may receive an inheritance among them that are sanctified.”
5. The implantation of faith—“through faith that is in Me.”
Act_26:18. The Way to The Inheritance.
I. No inheritance without sanctification.—(See Act_20:32, and compare Heb_12:14). “Follow holiness,” or, the sanctification without which “no man shall see the Lord.”
II. No sanctification without faith.—Since justification must precede, and justification is impossible without faith (Gal_2:16), while Christ can be made of God sanctification only to them who believe (1Co_1:30).
III. No faith without Christ.—I.e., without the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ, who alone is the proper, personal object of faith (Act_20:21; Col_2:7; 1Jn_3:23).
Faith in Christ.
I. The object of faith.—Christ: Christianity not merely a system of truths about God, nor a code of morality deducible from these, but the affiance of the whole spirit fixed upon the redeeming, revealing Christ.
II. The nature and the essence of the act of faith.—Faith is not merely the assent of the understanding to certain truths, or the persuasion of the reality of unseen things; it is not even merely the confident expectation of future good; it is the personal relation of him that believes to the living person its object; in other words, faith is trust.
III. The power of faith.—
1. We are saved—i.e., justified and sanctified—by faith. But
2. The power that saves comes, not from the faith, but from the Christ in whom faith trusts. It is Christ’s blood, Christ’s sacrifice, Christ’s life, Christ’s intercession, that saves. Faith is the channel through which the Divine fulness flows over into the soul’s emptiness.
IV. The guilt and criminality of unbelief.—
1. Because, assuming that God is to be the author of salvation, no other way can be conceived in which the Divine fulness should pass over into the soul than that of receiving what God has provided.
2. Because the difficulties in the way of exercising faith are not intellectual, but moral, and lie, not in the region of the understanding, but in that of the heart.
3. Because the fact that a man will not believe proves his nature to be turned or turning away from, and setting itself in rebellion against, God’s love.—Alexander Maclaren, D.D.
A Sermon on Conversion.
I. How it is effected.—
1. By the grace of God.
2. Through the instrumentality of the Word.
3. With the active concurrence of the human will.
II. What it implies.—A turning.
1. From darkness to light.
2. From the power of Satan unto God.
III. What it secures.—
1. Remission of sins.
2. Inheritance among the sanctified.
“Faith that is in Me.” Saving Faith is Faith in Christ.—
1. It is faith in Christ as a Person. There is assent to a proposition, an acknowledgment of its truth. There is reliance on a Person as able and willing to do what He has undertaken. Saving faith is such a belief of the inspired testimony concerning the Person as leads to sincere trust in Him for salvation.
2. It is faith in Christ as a Person who has accomplished a work. Christ has not only delivered a system of theological and ethical doctrines. He has done something. It is what He has done—His sufferings and death—that constitutes Him the proper object of saving faith. It contemplates Him, not as a Teacher, but as a Saviour.
3. It is faith in Christ as a Person who has accomplished a work which has a Godward aspect. True it is that His work has a manward aspect—exercises a moral influence on men, as drawing them to God. But it has also a Godward aspect—has a legal value, as satisfying the claims of the Divine government. Take away the latter, and you remove the basis of the former.
4. It is faith in Christ as a Person who, after having accomplished by His death a work which has a Godward aspect, is now alive. There may be a dead faith in a dead Saviour. There may be a dead faith in a living Saviour. There ought to be a living faith in a living Saviour.—G. Brooks.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v14
Acts
CHRIST’S REMONSTRANCES
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Act 26:14.
‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’ No. But God can change the skin, because He can change the nature. In this story of the conversion of the Apostle Paul-the most important thing that happened that day-we have an instance how brambles may become vines; tares may become wheat; and a hater of Jesus Christ may be changed in a moment into His lover and servant, and, if need be, His martyr.
Now the very same motives and powers which were brought to bear upon the Apostle Paul by miracle are being brought to bear upon every one of us; and my object now is just to trace the stages of the process set forth here, and to ask some of you, if you, like Paul, have been ‘obedient to the heavenly vision.’ Stages, I call them, though they were all crowded into a moment, for even the lightning has to pass through the intervening space when it flashes from one side of the heavens to another, and we may divide its path into periods. Time is very elastic, as any of us whose lives have held great sorrows or great joys or great resolutions well know.
I. The first of these all but simultaneous and yet separable stages was the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Of course to the Apostle it was mediated by miracle; but real as he believed that appearance of the risen Lord in the heavens to be, and valid as he maintained that it was as the ground of his Apostleship, he himself, in one of his letters, speaks of the whole incident as being the revelation of God’s Son in him. The revelation in heart and mind was the main thing, of which the revelation to eye and ear were but means. The means, in his case, are different from those in ours; the end is the same. To Paul it came like the rush of a cataract that the Christ whom he had thought of as lying in an unknown grave was living in the heavens and ruling there. You and I, I suppose, do not need to be convinced by miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; but the bare fact that Jesus was living in the heavens would have had little effect upon Saul, unless it had been accompanied with the revelation of the startling fact that between him and Jesus Christ there were close personal relations, so that he had to do with Jesus, and Jesus with him.
‘Saul, Saul! why persecutest thou Me?’ They used to think that they could wake sleep-walkers by addressing them by name. Jesus Christ, by speaking His name to the Apostle, wakes him out of his diseased slumber, and brings him to wholesome consciousness. There are stringency and solemnity of address in that double use of the name ‘Saul, Saul!’
What does such an address teach you and me? That Jesus Christ, the living, reigning Lord of the universe, has perfect knowledge of each of us, and that we each stand isolated before Him, as if all the light of omniscience were focussed upon us. He knows our characters; He knows all about us, and more than that, He directly addresses Himself to each man and woman among us.
We are far too apt to hide ourselves in the crowd, and let all the messages of God’s love, the warnings of His providences, as well as the teachings and invitations and pleadings of His gospel, fly over our heads as if they were meant vaguely for anybody. But they are all intended for thee, as directly as if thou, and thou only, wert in the world. I beseech you, lay this to heart, that although no audible sounds may rend the silent heavens, nor any blaze may blind thine eye, yet that as really, though not in the same outward fashion as Saul, when they were all fallen to the earth, felt himself to be singled out, and heard a voice ‘speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, saying, Saul, Saul!’ thou mayest hear a voice speaking to thee in the English tongue, by thy name, and directly addressing its gracious remonstrances and its loving offers to thy listening ear. I want to sharpen the blunt ‘whosoever’ into the pointed ‘thou.’ And I would fain plead with each of my friends hearing me now to believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant for thee, and that Christ speaks to thee. ‘I have a message from God unto thee,’ just as Nathan said unto David. ‘Thou art the man!’
Do not lose yourselves in the crowd or hide yourselves from the personal incidence of Christ’s offer, but feel that you stand, as you do indeed, alone the hearer of His voice, the possible recipient of His saving mercy.
II. Secondly, notice, as another stage in this process the discovery of the true character of the past.
‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ Now I am not going to be tempted from my more direct purpose in this sermon to dwell even for a moment on the beautiful, affecting, strengthening thought here, of the unity of Jesus Christ with all the humble souls that love Him, so as that, whatsoever any member suffers, the Head suffers with it. I must leave that truth untouched.
Saul was brought to look at all his past life as standing in immediate connection with Jesus Christ. Of course he knew before the vision that he had no love to Him whom he thought to be a Galilean impostor, and that the madness with which he hated the servants was only the glancing off of the arrow that he would fain have aimed at the Master. But he did not know that Jesus Christ counted every blow struck at one of His servants as being struck at Him. Above all he did not know that the Christ whom he was persecuting was reigning in the heavens. And so his whole past life stood before him in a new aspect when it was brought into close connection with Christ, and looked at as in relation to Him.
The same process would yield very remarkable results if applied to our lives. If I could only get you for one quiet ten minutes, to lay all your past, as far as memory brought it to your minds, right before that pure and loving Face, I should have done much. One infallible way of judging of the rottenness or goodness of our actions is that we should bring them where they will all be brought one day, into the brightness of Christ’s countenance. If you want to find out the flaws in some thin, badly-woven piece of cloth, you hold it up against the light, do you not? and then you see all the specks and holes, and the irregular threads. Hold up your lives in like fashion against the light, and I shall be surprised if you do not find enough there to make you very much ashamed of yourselves. Were you ever on the stage of a theatre in the daytime? Did you ever see what miserable daubs the scenes look, and how seamy it all is when the pitiless sunshine comes in? Let that great light pour on your life, and be thankful if you find out what a daub it has been, whilst yet colours and brushes and time are at your disposal, and you may paint the future fairer than the past.
Again, this revelation of Saul’s past life disclosed its utter unreasonableness. That one question, ‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ pulverised the whole thing. It was like the wondering question so unanswerable in the Psalm, ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ If you take into account what you are, and where you stand, you can find no reason, except utterly unreasonable ones, for the lives that I fear some of us are living-lives of godlessness and Christlessness. There is nothing in all the world a tithe so stupid as sin. There is nothing so unreasonable, if there be a God at all, and if we depend upon Him, and have duties to Him, as the lives that some of you are living. You admit, most of you, that there is such a God; you admit, most of you, that you do hang upon Him; you admit, in theory, that you ought to love and serve Him. The bulk of you call yourselves Christians. That is to say, you believe, as a piece of historical fact, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world and died for men. And, believing that, you turn your back on Him, and neither love nor serve nor trust Him nor turn away from your iniquity. Is there anything outside a lunatic asylum more madlike than that? ‘Why persecutest thou?’ ‘And he was speechless,’ for no answer was possible. Why neglectest thou? Why forgettest thou? Why, admitting what thou dost, art thou not an out-and-out Christian? If we think of all our obligations and relations, and the facts of the universe, we come back to the old saying, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,’ and any man who, like many of my hearers, fails to give his heart and life to Jesus Christ will one day have to say, ‘Behold, I have played the fool, and erred exceedingly.’ Wake up, my brother, to apply calm reason to your lives while yet there is time, and face the question, Why dost thou stand as thou dost to Jesus Christ? There is nothing sadder than the small share that deliberate reason and intelligent choice have in the ordering of most men’s lives. You live by impulse, by habit, by example, by constraint of the outward necessities of your position. But I am sure that there are many amongst us now who have very seldom, if ever, sat down and said, ‘Now let me think, until I get to the ultimate grounds of the course of life that I am pursuing.’ You can carry on the questions very gaily for a step or two, but then you come to a dead pause. ‘What do I do so-and-so for?’ ‘Because I like it.’ ‘Why do I like it?’ ‘Because it meets my needs, or my desires, or my tastes, or my intellect.’ Why do you make the meeting of your needs, or your desires, or your tastes, or your intellect your sole object? Is there any answer to that? The Hindoos say that the world rests upon an elephant, and the elephant rests upon a tortoise. What does the tortoise rest on? Nothing! Then that is what the world and the elephant rest on. And so, though you may go bravely through the first stages of the examination, when you come to the last question of all, you will find out that your whole scheme of life is built upon a blunder; and the blunder is this, that anybody can be blessed without God.
Further, this disclosure of the true character of his life revealed to Saul, as in a lightning flash, the ingratitude of it.
‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ That was as much as to say, ‘What have I done to merit thy hate? What have I not done to merit rather thy love?’ Paul did not know all that Jesus Christ had done for him. It took him a lifetime to learn a little of it, and to tell his brethren something of what he had learned. And he has been learning it ever since that day when, outside the walls of Rome, they hacked off his head. He has been learning more and more of what Jesus Christ has done for him, and why he should not persecute Him but love Him.
But the same appeal comes to each of us. What has Jesus Christ done for thee, my friend, for me, for every soul of man? He has loved me better than His own life. He has given Himself for me. He has lingered beside me, seeking to draw me to Himself, and He still lingers. And this, at the best, tremulous faith, this, at the warmest, tepid love, this, at the completest, imperfect devotion and service, are all that we bring to Him; and some of us do not bring even these. Some of us have never known what it was to sacrifice one inclination for the sake of Christ, nor to do one act for His dear love’s sake, nor to lean our weakness upon Him, nor to turn to Him and say, ‘I give Thee myself, that I may possess Thee.’ ‘Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?’ I have heard of wounded soldiers striking with their bayonets at the ambulance men who came to help them. That is like what some of you do to the Lord who died for your healing, and comes as the Physician, with bandages and with balm, to bind up the brokenhearted. ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?’
III. Lastly, we have here a warning against self-inflicted wounds.
That second clause of the remonstrance on the lips of Christ in my text is, according to the true reading, not found in the account of Paul’s conversion in the ninth chapter of this book. My text is from Paul’s own story; and it is interesting to notice that he adds this eminently pathetic and forcible appeal to the shorter account given by the writer of the book. It had gone deep into his heart, and he could not forget.
The metaphor is a very plain one. The ox-goad was a formidable weapon, some seven or eight feet in length, shod with an iron point, and capable of being used as a spear, and of inflicting deadly wounds at a pinch. Held in the firm hand of the ploughman, it presented a sharp point to the rebellious animal under the yoke. If the ox had readily yielded to the gentle prick, given, not in anger, but for guidance, it had been well. But if it lashes out with its hoofs against the point, what does it get but bleeding flanks? Paul had been striking out instead of obeying, and he had won by it only bloody hocks.
There are two truths deducible from this saying, which may have been a proverb in common use. One is the utter futility of lives that are spent in opposing the divine will. There is a strong current running, and if you try to go against it you will only be swept away by it. Think of some little fishing coble coming across the bow of a great ocean-going steamer. What will be the end of that? Think of a pony-chaise jogging up the line, and an express train thundering down it. What will be the end of that? Think of a man lifting himself up and saying to God, ‘I will not!’ when God says, ‘Do thou this!’ or ‘Be thou this!’ What will be the end of that? ‘The world passeth away, and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks’-hard in regard to breaches of common morality, as some of my friends sitting quietly in these pews very well know. It is hard to indulge in sensual sin. You cannot altogether dodge what people call the ‘natural consequences’; but it was God who made Nature; and so I call them God-inflicted penalties. It is hard to set yourselves against Christianity. I am not going to speak of that at all now, only when we think of the expectations of victory with which so many antagonists of the Cross have gaily leaped into the arena, and of how the foes have been forgotten and there stands the Cross still, we may say of the whole crowd, beginning with the earliest, and coming down to the latest brand-new theory that is going to explode Christianity -’it is hard to kick against the pricks.’ Your own limbs you may wound; you will not do the goad much harm.
But there is another side to the proverb of my text, and that is the self-inflicted harm that comes from resisting the pricks of God’s rebukes and remonstrances, whether inflicted by conscience or by any other means; including, I make bold to say, even such poor words as these of mine. For if the first little prick of conscience, a warning and a guide, be neglected, the next will go a great deal deeper. The voice which, before you do the wrong thing, says to you, ‘Do not do it,’ in tones of entreaty and remonstrance, speaks, after you have done it, more severely and more bitterly. The Latin word remorse, and the old English name for conscience, ‘again-bite’-which latter is a translation of the other-teach us the same lesson, that the gnawing which comes after wrong done is far harder to bear than the touch that should have kept us from the evil. The stings of marine jelly-fish will burn for days after, if you wet them. And so all wrong-doing, and all neglect of right-doing of every sort, carries with it a subsequent pain, or else the wounded limb mortifies, and that is worse. There is no pain then; it would be better if there were. There is such a possibility as to have gone on so obstinately kicking against the pricks and leaving the wounds so unheeded, as that they mortify and feeling goes. A conscience ‘seared with a hot iron’ is ten times more dreadful than a conscience that pains and stings.
So, dear brethren, let me beseech you to listen to the pitying Christ, who says to us each, more in sorrow than in anger, ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’ It is no pleasure to Him to hold the goad, nor that we should wound ourselves upon it. He has another question to put to us, with another ‘why,’ ‘Why should ye be stricken any more? Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel?’
There is another metaphor drawn from the employment of oxen which we may set side by side with this of my text: ‘Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ The yoke accepted, the goad is laid aside; and repose and healing from its wounds are granted to us. Dear brethren, if you will listen to the Christ revealed in the heavens, as knowing all about you, and remonstrating with you for your unreasonableness and ingratitude, and setting before you the miseries of rebellion and the suicide of sin, then you will have healing for all your wounds, and your lives will neither be self-tormenting, futile, nor unreasonable. The mercy of Jesus Christ lavished upon you makes your yielding yourselves to Him your only rational course. Anything else is folly beyond comparison and harm and loss beyond count.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv9–15 9-11. To still further illustrate his former standing among…
9-11. To still further illustrate his former standing among the Pharisees, he describes his original relation toward the cause of Christ. (9) " I thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus, the Nazarene, (10) which I also did in Jerusalem. Many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the high priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. (11) And in all the synagogues I punished them often, compelling them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. " With such a record as this, there was no room to suspect him of any such bias as would render him an easy or a willing convert to Christ. On the contrary, it must have appeared to Agrippa, and the whole audience, most astonishing that such a change could take place. Their curiosity to know what produced the change must have been intense, and he proceeds to gratify it.
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v14 Cf. (See Scofield "Act 9:7").
heard
Cf. (See Scofield "Act 9:7").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv9, 12 Paul’s earlier position toward Jesus:
Paul’s earlier position toward Jesus:
v. 9. I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
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v. 10. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem; and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.
v. 11. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.
Paul here makes a frank confession of his enmity toward Christ and his believers, in order to bring out all the more strikingly the grace he had received in his conversion. He himself in those days had been of the opinion, he had held firmly to the conviction: it was an obligation which was the result of his willful self-delusion that he must do much against, in opposition to, the name of Jesus of Nazareth. The name of Jesus was so hateful to him that he gave himself wholly to the persecution of those that professed belief in Christianity. In those days his zeal against Christ and the Church had not been one whit behind that of the entire family of Herod: he considered it his most important duty in life to prevent the confession of the name of Jesus, and to enforce this idea with persecution and slaughter. This he did in Jerusalem, being instrumental in shutting up many of the saints in prison, holding authority to that effect from the high priests. Note that Paul here deliberately calls those people saints whom he formerly had persecuted with such unquenchable hatred. And when the believers were put to death, he cast his vote in favor of the execution, either as a member of the Sanhedrin. as some think, or he spoke in favor of the measure, throwing all his persuasive abilities into the balance against the hated name. Neither was his bloodthirstiness satisfied with the executions which he succeeded in bringing about, but in all the synagogues he punished them often, being careful not to overlook a single one, and he forced them to blaspheme. not only to deny and renounce, but even to execrate Christ, in order to save their lives; he made the attempt again and again: and it is only too probable that he had success at least in some cases. His hatred finally drove him to extreme madness, to insanity, so far as the Christians were concerned, the very thought of the extension of the faith drove him wild with fury, and he continued his persecutions of them also into other cities outside of Jerusalem. He had good reasons, therefore, to describe himself as a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious. 1Ti 1:13. His example is that of a man whom the enmity toward Christ will give no rest, neither by day nor by night, who feels compelled to hurt the course of the Gospel by every means at his disposal. Such people Christians must expect to meet in the performance of their duty, and the fact dare not cause them too much anxiety.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9, 12, 15 Now indeed
Now indeed
Paul uses this phrase to mark another shift in his defense. He is now beginning to describe how he formerly persecuted Jesus' people.
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against the name of Jesus
The word "name" here stands for the teaching about the person. AT: "to stop people from teaching about Jesus" (See: Metonymy)
when they were killed, I cast my vote against them
The phrase "were killed" can be stated in active form. AT: "I voted in agreement with the other Jewish leaders to condemn believers to die" (See: Active or Passive)
I punished them many times
Possible meanings are 1) Paul punished some believers many times or 2) Paul punished many different believers.
translationWords
name
Jesus
Nazareth
Jerusalem
believe
prison
authority
chief priests
punish
synagogue
blasphemy
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v12 26:12-18 See 9:1-18.
26:12-18 See 9:1-18.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.