But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he traveled, he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him. He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
He said, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
But rise up and enter into the city, then you will be told what you must do.”
The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the sound, but seeing no one. Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. They led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. He was without sight for three days, and neither ate nor drank.
Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias!” He said, “Behold, it’s me, Lord.”
The Lord said to him, “Arise, and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judah for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying, and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and laying his hands on him, that he might receive his sight.”
But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he did to your saints at Jerusalem. Here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.”
But the Lord said to him, “Go your way, for he is my chosen vessel to bear my name before the nations and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
Ananias departed and entered into the house. Laying his hands on him, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he received his sight. He arose and was baptized. He took food and was strengthened. Saul stayed several days with the disciples who were at Damascus. Immediately in the synagogues he proclaimed the Christ, that he is the Son of God. All who heard him were amazed, and said, “Isn’t this he who in Jerusalem made havoc of those who called on this name? And he had come here intending to bring them bound before the chief priests!”
But Saul increased more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived at Damascus, proving that this is the Christ. When many days were fulfilled, the Jews conspired together to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They watched the gates both day and night that they might kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket. When Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. He was with them entering into Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus. He spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. When the brothers knew it, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off to Tarsus. So the assemblies throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace, and were built up. They were multiplied, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
As Peter went throughout all those parts, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. There he found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years, because he was paralyzed. Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!” Immediately he arose. All who lived at Lydda and in Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.
Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which when translated, means Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and acts of mercy which she did. In those days, she became sick, and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. As Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him not to delay in coming to them. Peter got up and went with them. When he had come, they brought him into the upper room. All the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter sent them all out, and knelt down and prayed. Turning to the body, he said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand, and raised her up. Calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. This became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. He stayed many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 1. And Saul. Luke setteth down in this place…
1. And Saul. Luke setteth down in this place a noble history, and a history full well worthy to be remembered, concerning the conversion of Paul; after what sort the Lord did not only bring him under, and make him subject to his commandment, when he raged like an untamed beast but also how he made him another and a new man. But because Luke setteth down all things in order as in a famous work of God, it shall be more convenient to follow his text, [context,] that all may come in order whatsoever is worth the noting. When as he saith, that he breathed out threatenings and slaughter as yet, his meaning is, that after that his hands were once imbued with innocent blood, he proceeded in like cruelty, and was always a furious and bloody enemy to the Church, after that he had once made that entrance whereof mention is made in the death of Stephen. For which cause it was the more incredible that he could be so suddenly tamed. And whereas such a cruel wolf was not only turned into a sheep, but did also put on the nature of a shepherd, the wonderful hand of God did show itself therein manifestly.
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 vv1, 2, 5, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36 Saul (who is also Paul) persecuting Christ most cruelly,…
Saul (who is also Paul) persecuting Christ most cruelly, who did as it were flee before him, falleth into his hands, and is overcome: and with a singular example of the goodness of God, instead of punishment which he justly deserved for his cruelty, is not only received to favor, but is also even by the mouth of God appointed an Apostle, and is confirmed by the ministry and witness of Ananias.
This is a token that Saul’s stomach boiled and cast out great threatenings to murder the disciples.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–43 1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter…
1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
Ver. 1. And Saul yet breathing] As a tired wolf, that wearied with worrying the flock, lies panting for breath. {See Trapp on "Act 8:3"}
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 vv1–43 St. Luke intending a narrative of the wonderful conversion…
St. Luke intending a narrative of the wonderful conversion of St. Paul, lets us know what manner of person he was before his conversion, that none might despond of the grace of God, who earnestly and heartily seek it.
Breathing out threatenings and slaughter; so full of rage within, that the stream was outwardly apparent, which that inward fire had sent forth: nothing less than destruction of the church is aimed at by its enemies; whilst Saul was one of them he hunted after their precious life too.
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The high priest; who did usually preside in their great council, in which they took cognizance of such matters; The blood of Stephen did not quench their thirst, but increased it; they would spill more still.
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 vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 17, 20, 26, 31, 32, 36 Observe here, 1. The lively character of a bloody…
Observe here, 1. The lively character of a bloody persecutor: He breathes threatenings and slaughter against the members of Christ. His very breath smells of fire; threatenings and slaughter, like lightnings and thunder, proceed out of his mouth. Whilst a persecutor hath in him the breath of his own life, he breathes nothing but death against others: Nothing will satisfy him but the death and destruction of the members of Christ. An indiscreet and ungovernable zeal soon egenerates into fury and madness.
Observe, 2. How restless and unwearied persecutors are in the prosecution of their bloody designs and purposes. Saul was now inquisitor haretica pravitatis: away he trots to the high priest for commission to bind heretics, who believed on Jesus, and opposed the traditions of the fathers; and having, as he thought, swept Jerusalem of saints, he resolved next to ransack Damascus, though it was five or six days journey from Jerusalem: However he spurs on, away he goes through fire and water to revenge his malice on the poor members of Jesus Christ. The high priest needed not to hire Saul to do his black work, he both offers himself, and sues for the office: No doubt the high priest and council highly applauded his zeal and towardness for extirpating heretics, commending the gallantry of his resolution, and the bravery of his mind; and having scaled his commission, sent him away with wishes of success.
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 vv1, 10, 23, 32, 36 We found mention made of Saul twice or thrice…
We found mention made of Saul twice or thrice in the story of Stephen, for the sacred penman longed to come to his story; and now we are come to it, not quite taking leave of Peter but from henceforward being mostly taken up with Paul the apostle of the Gentiles, as Peter was of the circumcision. His name in Hebrew was Saul - desired, though as remarkably little in stature as his namesake king Saul was tall and stately; one of the ancients calls him, Homo tricubitalis - but four feet and a half in height; his Roman name which he went by among the citizens of Rome was Paul - little. He was born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, a free city of the Romans, and himself a freeman of that city. His father and mother were both native Jews; therefore he calls himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews; he was of the tribe of Benjamin, which adhered to Judah. His education was in the schools of Tarsus first, which was a little Athens for learning; there he acquainted himself with the philosophy and poetry of the Greeks. Thence he was sent to the university at Jerusalem, to study divinity and the Jewish law. His tutor was Gamaliel, an eminent Pharisee. He had extraordinary natural parts, and improved mightily in learning. He had likewise a handicraft trade (being bred to tent-making), which was common with those among the Jews who were bred scholars (as Dr. Lightfoot saith), for the earning of their maintenance, and the avoiding of idleness. This is the young man on whom the grace of God wrought this mighty change here recorded, about a year after the ascension of Christ, or little more. We are here told,
I. How bad he was, how very bad, before his conversion; just before he was an inveterate enemy to Christianity, did his utmost to root it out, by persecuting all that embraced it. In other respects he was well enough, as touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless, a man of no ill morals, but a blasphemer of Christ, a persecutor of Christians, and injurious to both, Ti1 1:13. And so ill informed was his conscience that he thought he ought to do what he did against the name of Christ (Act 26:9) and that he did God service in it, as was foretold, Joh 16:2. Here we have,
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1. His general enmity and rage against the Christian religion (Act 9:1): He yet breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. The persons persecuted were the disciples of the Lord; because they were so, under that character he hated and persecuted them. The matter of the persecution was threatenings and slaughter. There is persecution in threatenings (Act 4:17, Act 4:21); they terrify and break the spirit: and though we say, Threatened folks live long, yet those whom Saul threatened, if he prevailed not thereby to frighten them from Christ, he slew them, he persecuted them to death, Act 22:4. His breathing out threatenings and slaughter intimates that it was natural to him, and his constant business. He even breathed in this as in his element. He breathed it out with heat and vehemence; his very breath, like that of some venomous creatures, was pestilential. He breathed death to the Christians, wherever he came; he puffed at them in his pride (Psa 12:4, Psa 12:5), spit his venom at them in his rage. Saul yet breathing thus intimates, (1.) That he still persisted in it; not satisfied with the blood of those he had slain, he still cries, Give, give. (2.) That he should shortly be of another mine; as yet he breathes out threatenings and slaughter, but he has not long to live such a life as this, that breath will be stopped shortly.
2. His particular design upon the Christians at Damascus; thither was the gospel now lately carried by those that fled from the persecution at Stephen's death, and thought to be safe and quiet there, and were connived at by those in power there: but Saul cannot be easy if he knows a Christian is quiet; and therefore, hearing that the Christians in Damascus were so, he resolves to give them disturbance. In order to this, he applies to the high priest for a commission (Act 9:1) to go to Damascus, Act 9:2. The high priest needed not to be stirred up to persecute the Christians, he was forward enough to do it; but it seems the young persecutor drove more furiously than the old one. Leaders in sin are the worst of sinners; and the proselytes which the scribes and Pharisees make often prove seven times more the children of hell than themselves. He saith (Act 22:5) that this commission was had from the whole estate of the elders: and proud enough this furious bigot was to have a commission directed to him, with the seal of the great sanhedrim affixed to it. Now the commission was to empower him to enquire among the synagogues, or congregations, of the Jews that were at Damascus, whether there were any that belonged to them that inclined to favour this new sect or heresy, that believed in Christ; and if he found any such, whether men or women, to bring them up prisoners to Jerusalem, to be proceeded against according to law by the great council there. Observe, (1.) The Christians are here said to be those of this way; those of the way, so it is in the original. Perhaps the Christians sometimes called themselves so, from Christ the Way; or, because they looked on themselves as but in the way, and not yet at home; or, the enemies thus represented it as a way by itself, a by-way, a party, a faction. (2.) The high priest and sanhedrim claimed a power over the Jews in all countries, and had a deference paid to their authority in matters of religion, by all their synagogues, even those that were not of the jurisdiction of the civil government of the Jewish nation. And such a sovereignty the Roman pontiff now claims as the Jewish pontiff then did, though he has not so much to show for it. (3.) By this commission, all that worshipped God in the way that they called heresy, though agreeing exactly with the original institutes even of the Jewish church, whether they were men or women, were to be prosecuted. Even the weaker sex, who in a case of this nature might deserve excuse, or at least compassion, shall find neither with Saul any more than they do with the popish persecutors. (4.) He was ordered to bring them all bound to Jerusalem as criminals of the first magnitude, which, as it would be the more likely to terrify them, so it would be to magnify Saul, as having the command of the forces that were to carry them up, and opportunity of breathing out threatenings and slaughter. Thus was Saul employed when the grace of God wrought that great change in him. Let not us then despair of renewing grace for the conversion of the greatest sinners, nor let such despair of the pardoning mercy of God for the greatest sin; for Paul himself obtained mercy, that he might be a monument, Ti1 1:13.
II. How suddenly and strangely a blessed change was wrought in him, not in the use of any ordinary means, but by miracles. The conversion of Paul is one of the wonders of the church. Here is,
1. The place and time of it: As he journeyed, he came near to Damascus; and there, Christ met with him.
(1.) He was in the way, travelling upon his journey; not in the temple, nor in the synagogue, nor in the meeting of the Christians, but by the way. The work of conversion is not tied to the church, though ordinarily public administrations are made use of. Some are reclaimed in slumberings on the bed (Job 33:15-17), and some in travelling upon the road alone: Thoughts are as free, and there is as good an opportunity of communing with our own hearts there, as upon the bed; and there the Spirit may set in with us, for that wind blows where it listeth. Some observe that Saul was spoken to abroad in the open air that there might be no suspicion of imposture, nor of a trick put upon him in it.
(2.) He was near Damascus, almost at his journey's end, ready to enter the city, the chief city of Syria. Some observe that he who was to be the apostle of the Gentiles was converted to the faith of Christ in a Gentile country. Damascus had been infamous for persecuting God's people formerly - they threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron (Amo 1:3), and now it was likely to be so again.
(3.) He was in a wicked way, pursuing his design against the Christians at Damascus, and pleasing himself with the thought that he should devour this new-born child of Christianity there. Note, Sometimes the grace of God works upon sinners when they are at the worst, and hotly engaged in the most desperate sinful pursuits, which is much for the glory both of God's pity and of his power.
(4.) The cruel edict and decree he had with him drew near to be put in execution; and now it was happily prevented, which may be considered, [1.] As a great kindness to the poor saints at Damascus, who had notice of his coming, as appears by what Ananias said (Act 9:13, Act 9:14), and were apprehensive of their danger from him, and trembled as poor lambs at the approach of a ravening wolf; Saul's conversion was their security for the present. Christ has many ways of delivering the godly out of temptation, and sometimes does it by a change wrought in their persecutors, either restraining their wrathful spirits (Psa 76:10) and mollifying them for a time, as the Old Testament Saul, who relented towards David more than once (Sa1 24:16; Sa1 26:21), or renewing their spirits, and fixing upon them durable impressions, as upon the New Testament Saul here. [2.] It was also a very great mercy to Saul himself to be hindered from executing his wicked design, in which if he had now proceeded, perhaps it had been the filling up of the measure of his iniquity. Note, It is to be valued as a signal token of the divine favour if God, either by the inward operations of his grace or the outward occurrences of his providence, prevent us from prosecuting and executing a sinful purpose, Sa1 25:32.
2. The appearance of Christ to him in his glory. Here it is only said that there shone round about him a light from heaven; but it appears from what follows (Act 9:17) that the Lord Jesus was in this light, and appeared to him by the way. He saw that just One (Act 22:14), and see Act 26:13. Whether he saw him at a distance, as Stephen saw him, in the heavens, or nearer in the air, is not certain. It is not inconsistent with what is said of the heavens receiving Christ till the end of time (Act 3:21) to suppose that he did, upon such an extraordinary occasion as this, make a personal visit, but a very short one, to this lower world; it was necessary to Paul's being an apostle that he should see the Lord, and so he did, Co1 9:1; Co1 15:8. (1.) This light shone upon him suddenly - exaiphnēs, when Paul never thought of any such thing, and without any previous warning. Christ's manifestations of himself to poor souls are many times sudden and very surprising, and he anticipates them with the blessings of his goodness. This the disciples that Christ called to himself found. Or ever I was aware, Sol 6:12. (2.) It was a light from Heaven, the fountain of light, from the God of heaven, the Father of lights. It was a light above the brightness of the sun (Act 26:13), for it was visible at mid-day, and outshone the sun in his meridian strength and lustre, Isa 24:23. (3.) It shone round about him, not in his face only, but on every side of him; let him turn which way he will, he finds himself surrounded with the discoveries of it. And this was designed not only to startle him, and awaken his attention (for well may he expect to hear when he is thus made to see something very extraordinary), but to signify the enlightening of his understanding with the knowledge of Christ. The devil comes to the soul in darkness; by this he gets and keeps possession of it. But Christ comes to the soul in light, for he is himself the light of the world, bright and glorious to us, as light. The first thing in this new creation, as in that of the world, is light, Co2 4:6. Hence all Christians are said to be children of the light and of the day, Eph 5:8.
3. The arresting of Saul, and his detachment: He fell to the earth, Act 9:4. Some think that he was on foot, and that this light, which perhaps was accompanied with a thunderclap, so terrified him that he could not keep his feet, but fell upon his face, usually a posture of adoration, but here of astonishment. It is probable that he was mounted, as Balaam, when he went to curse Israel, and perhaps better mounted than he; for Saul was now in a public post, was in haste, and the journey was long, so that it is not likely he should travel on foot. The sudden light would frighten the beast he rode on, and make it throw him; and it was God's good providence that his body got no hurt by the fall: but angels had a particular charge concerning him, to keep all his bones, so that not one of them was broken. It appears (Act 26:14) that all that were with him fell to the earth as well as he, but the design was upon him. This may be considered, (1.) As the effect of Christ's appearing to him, and of the light which shone round about him. Note, Christ's manifestations of himself to poor souls are humbling; they lay them very low, in mean thoughts of themselves, and a humble submission to the will of God. Now mine eyes see thee, saith Job, I abhor myself. I saw the Lord, saith Isaiah, sitting upon a throne, and I said, Woe is me, for I am undone. (2.) As a step towards this intended advancement. He is designed not only to be a Christian, but to be a minister, an apostle, a great apostle, and therefore he must thus be cast down. Note, Those whom Christ designs for the greatest honours are commonly first laid low. Those who are designed to excel in knowledge and grace are commonly laid low first, in a sense of their own ignorance and sinfulness. Those whom God will employ are first struck with a sense of their unworthiness to be employed.
4. The arraigning of Saul. Being by the fall taken into custody, and as it were set to the bar, he heard a voice saying to him (and it was distinguishing, to him only, for though those that were with him heard a sound, Act 9:7, yet they knew not the words, Act 22:9), Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Observe here,
(1.) Saul not only saw a light from heaven, but heard a voice from heaven; wherever the glory of God was seen, the word of God was heard (Exo 20:18); and to Moses (Num 7:89); and to the prophets. God's manifestations of himself were never dumb shows, for he magnifies his word above all his name, and what was seen was alway designed to make way for what was said. Saul heard a voice. Note, Faith comes by hearing; hence the Spirit is said to be received by the hearing of faith, Gal 3:2. The voice he heard was the voice of Christ. When he saw that just One, he heard the voice of his mouth, Act 22:14. Note, The word we hear is likely to profit us when we hear it as the voice of Christ, Th1 2:13. It is the voice of my beloved; no voice but his can reach the heart. Seeing and hearing are the two learning senses; Christ here, by both these doors, entered into Saul's heart.
(2.) What he heard was very awakening.
[1.] He was called by his name, and that doubled: Saul, Saul. Some think, in calling him Saul, he hints at that great persecutor of David whose name he bore. He was indeed a second Saul, and such an enemy to the Son of David as the other was to David. Calling him by his name intimates the particular regard that Christ had to him: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me, Isa 45:4 See Exo 33:12. His calling him by name brought the conviction home to his conscience, and put it past dispute to whom the voice spoke this. Note, What God speaks in general is then likely to do us good when we apply it to ourselves, and insert our own names into the precepts and promises which are expressed generally, as if God spoke to us by name, and when he saith, Ho, every one, he had said, Ho, such a one: Samuel, Samuel; Saul, Saul. The doubling of it, Saul, Saul, intimates, First, The deep sleep that Saul was in; he needed to be called again and again, as Jer 22:29, O earth, earth, earth. Secondly, The tender concern that the blessed Jesus had for him, and for his recovery. He speaks as one in earnest; it is like Martha, Martha (Luk 10:41), or Simon, Simon (Luk 22:31), or O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Mat 23:37. He speaks to him as to one in imminent danger, at the pit's brink, and just ready to drop in: "Saul, Saul, dost thou know whither thou art going, or what thou art doing?"
[2.] The charge exhibited against him is, Why persecutest thou me? Observe here, First, Before Saul was made a saint, he was made to see himself a sinner, a great sinner, a sinner against Christ. Now he was made to see that evil in himself which he never saw before; sin revived and he died. Note, A humbling conviction of sin is the first step towards a saving conversion from sin. Secondly, He is convinced of one particular sin, which he was most notoriously guilty of, and had justified himself in, and thereby way is made for his conviction of all the rest. Thirdly, The sin he is convinced of is persecution: Why persecutest thou me? It is a very affectionate expostulation, enough to melt a heart of stone. Observe, 1. The person sinning: "It is thou; thou, that art not one of the ignorant, rude, unthinking crowd, that will run down any thing they hear put into an ill name, but thou that hast had a liberal learned education, has good parts and accomplishments, hast the knowledge of the scriptures, which, if duly considered, would show thee the folly of it. It is worse in thee than in another." 2. The person sinned against: "It is I, who never did thee any harm, who came from heaven to earth to do thee good, who was not long since crucified for thee; and was not that enough, but must I afresh be crucified by thee?" 3. The kind and continuance of the sin. It was persecution, and he was at this time engaged in it: "Not only thou hast persecuted, but thou persecutest, thou persistest in it." He was not at this time hauling any to prison, nor killing them; but this was the errand he came upon to Damascus; he was now projecting it, and pleasing himself with the thought of it. Note, Those that are designing mischief are, in God's account, doing mischief. 4. The question put to him upon it: "Why dost thou do it?" (1.) It is complaining language. "Why dealest thou thus unjustly, thus unkindly, with my disciples?" Christ never complained so much of those who persecuted him in his own person as he did here of those who persecuted him in his followers. He complains of it as it was Saul's sin: "Why art thou such an enemy to thyself, to thy God?" Note, The sins of sinners are a very grievous burden to the Lord Jesus. He is grieved for them (Mar 3:5), he is pressed under them, Amo 2:13. (2.) It is convincing language: "Why dost thou thus: Canst thou give any good reason for it?" Note, It is good for us often to ask ourselves why we do so and so, that we may discern what an unreasonable thing sin is: and of all sins none so unreasonable, so unaccountable, as the sin of persecuting the disciples of Christ, especially when it is discovered to be, as certainly it is, persecuting Christ. Those have no knowledge who eat up God's people, Psa 14:4. Why persecutest thou me? He thought he was persecuting only a company of poor, weak, silly people, that were an offence and eye-sore to the Pharisees, little imagining that is was one in heaven that he was all this while insulting; for surely, if he had known, he would not have persecuted the Lord of glory. Note, Those who persecute the saints persecute Christ himself, and he takes what is done against them as done against himself, and accordingly will be the judgment in the great day, Mat 25:45.
5. Saul's question upon his indictment, and the reply to it, Act 9:5.
(1.) He makes enquiry concerning Christ: Who art thou, Lord? He gives no direct answer to the charge preferred against him, being convicted by his own conscience, and self-condemned. If God contend with us for our sins, we are not able to answer for one of a thousand, especially such a one as the sin of persecution. Convictions of sin, when they are set home with power upon the conscience, will silence all excuses and self-justifications. Though I were righteous, yet would I not answer. But he desires to know who is his judge; the compellation is respectful: Lord. He who had been a blasphemer of Christ's name now speaks to him as his Lord. The question is proper: Who art thou? This implies his present unacquaintedness with Christ; he knew not his voice as his own sheep do, but he desired to be acquainted with him; he is convinced by this light which encloses him that it is one from heaven that speaks to him, and he has a veneration for every thing that appears to him to come from heaven; and therefore, Lord, who art thou? What is thy name? Jdg 13:17; Gen 32:29. Note, there is some hope of people when they begin to enquire after Jesus Christ.
(2.) He has an answer immediately, in which we have,
[1.] Christ's gracious revelation of himself to him. He is always ready to answer the serious enquiries of those who covet an acquaintance with him: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. The name of Jesus was not unknown to him; his heart had risen against it many a time, and gladly would he bury it in oblivion. He knew it was the name that he persecuted, but little did he think to hear it from heaven, or from the midst of such a glory as now shone round about him. Note, Christ brings souls into fellowship with himself by manifesting himself to them. He said, First, I am Jesus, a Saviour; I am Jesus of Nazareth, so it is, Act 22:8. Saul used to call him so when he blasphemed him: "I am that very Jesus whom thou usedst to call in scorn Jesus of Nazareth." And he would show that now that he is in his glory he is not ashamed of his humiliation. Secondly, "I am that Jesus whom thou persecutest, and therefore it will be at thy peril if thou persist in this wicked course." There is nothing more effectual to awaken and humble the soul than to see sin to be against Christ, an affront to him, and a contradiction to his designs.
[2.] His gentle reproof of him: It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks, or goads - to spurn at the spur. It is hard, it is in itself an absurd and evil thing, and will be of fatal consequence to him that does it. Those kick at the goad that stifle and smother the convictions of conscience, that rebel against God's truths and laws, that quarrel with his providences, and that persecute and oppose his ministers, because they reprove them, and their words are as goads and as nails. Those that revolt more and more when they are stricken by the word or rod of God, that are enraged at reproofs and fly in the face of their reprovers, kick against the pricks and will have a great deal to answer for.
6. His surrender of himself to the Lord Jesus at length, Act 9:6. See here,
(1.) The frame and temper he was in, when Christ had been dealing with him. [1.] He trembled, as one in a great fright. Note, Strong convictions, set home by the blessed Spirit, will make an awakened soul to tremble. How can those choose but tremble that are made to see the eternal God provoked against them, the whole creation at war with them, and their own souls upon the brink of ruin! [2.] He was astonished, was filled with amazement, as one brought into a new world, that knew not where he was. Note, The convincing, converting, work of Christ is astonishing to the awakened soul, and fills it with admiration. "What is this that God has done with me, and what will he do?"
(2.) His address to Jesus Christ, when he was in this frame: Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? This may be taken, [1.] As a serious request for Christ's teachings: "Lord, I see I have hitherto been out of the way; thou hast shown me my error, set me to rights; thou hast discovered sin to me, discover to me the way to pardon and peace." It is like that, Men and brethren, what must we do? Note, A serious desire to be instructed by Christ in the way of salvation is an evidence of a good work begun in the soul. Or, [2.] As a sincere resignation of himself to the direction and government of the Lord Jesus. This was the first word that grace spoke in Paul, and with this began a spiritual life: Lord Jesus, What wilt thou have me to do? Did not he know what he had to do? Had he not his commission in his pocket? And what had he to do but to execute it? No, he had done enough of this work already, and resolves now to change his master, and employ himself better. Now it is not, What will the high priest and the elders have me to do? What will my own wicked appetites and passions have me to do? But, What wilt thou have me to do? The great change in conversion is wrought upon the will, and consists in the resignation of that to the will of Christ.
(3.) The general direction Christ gave him, in answer to this: Arise, go into the city of Damascus, which thou art now near to, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. It is encouragement enough to have further instruction promised him, but, [1.] He must not have it yet; it shall be told him shortly what he must do, but, for the present, he must pause upon what has been said to him, and improve that. Let him consider awhile what he has done in persecuting Christ, and be deeply humbled for that, and then he shall be told what he has further to do. [2.] He must not have it in this way, by a voice from heaven, for it is plain that he cannot bear it; he trembles, and is astonished. He shall be told therefore what he must do by a man like himself, whose terror shall not make him afraid, nor his hand be heavy upon him, which Israel desired at mount Sinai. Or, it is an intimation that Christ would take some other time to manifest himself further to him, when he was more composed, and this fright pretty well over. Christ manifests himself to his people by degrees; and both what he does and would he have them to do, though they know not now, they shall know hereafter.
7. How far his fellow travellers were affected with this, and what impression it made upon them. They fell to the earth, as he did, but rose without being bidden, which he did not, but lay still till it was said to him, Arise; for he lay under a heavier load than any of them did; but when they were up, (1.) They stood speechless, as men in confusion, and that was all, Act 9:7. They were going on the same wicked errand that Paul was, and perhaps, to the best of their power, were as spiteful as he; yet we do not find that any of them were converted, though they saw the light, and were struck down and struck dumb by it. No external means will of themselves work a change in the soul, without the Spirit and grace of God, which distinguish between some and others; among these that journeyed together, one is taken, and the others left. They stood speechless; none of them said, Who art thou, Lord? or, What wilt thou have me to do? as Paul did, but none of God's children are born dumb. (2.) They heard a voice, but saw no man; they heard Paul speak, but saw not him to whom he spoke, nor heard distinctly what was said to him: which reconciles it with what is said of this matter, Act 22:9, where it is said, They saw the light and were afraid (which they might do and yet see no man in the light, as Paul did), and that they heard not the voice of him that spoke to Paul, so as to understand what he said, though they did hear a confused noise. Thus those who came hither to be the instruments of Paul's rage against the church serve for witnesses of the power of God over him.
8. What condition Saul was in after this, Act 9:8, Act 9:9. (1.) He arose from the earth, when Christ commanded him, but probably not without help, the vision had made him so faint and weak, I will not say like Belshazzar, when the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against another, but like Daniel, when upon the sight of a vision no strength remained in him, Dan 10:16-17. (2.) When his eyes were opened, he found that his sight was gone, and he saw no man, none of the men that were with him, and began now to be busy about him. It was not so much this glaring light that, by dazzling his eyes, had dimmed them - Nimium sensibile laedit sensum; for then those with him would have lost their sight too; but it was a sight of Christ, whom the rest saw not, that had this effect upon him. Thus a believing sight of the glory of God in the face of Christ dazzles the eyes to all things here below. Christ, in order to the further discovery of himself and his gospel to Paul, took him off from the sight of other things, which he must look off, that he may look unto Jesus, and to him only. (3.) They led him by the hand into Damascus; whether to a public house, or to some friend's house, is not certain; but thus he who thought to have led the disciples of Christ prisoners and captives to Jerusalem was himself led a prisoner and a captive to Christ into Damascus. He was thus taught what need he had of the grace of Christ to lead his soul (being naturally blind and apt to mistake) into all truth. (4.) He lay without sight, and without food, neither did eat nor drink for three days, Act 9:9. I do not think, as some do, that now he had his rapture into the third heavens, which he speaks of, 2 Cor. 12. So far from this that we have reason to think he was all this time rather in the belly of hell, suffering God's terrors for his sins, which were now set in order before him: he was in the dark concerning his own spiritual state, and was so wounded in spirit for sin that he could relish neither meat nor drink.
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 vv2–42 And desired of him letters to Damascus,.... Damascus was…
And desired of him letters to Damascus,.... Damascus was the head or metropolis of Syria, Isa 7:8 And so Pliny (z) calls it Damascus of Syria: it was a very ancient city; it was in the times of Abraham; his servant Eliezer is said to be of it, Gen 15:2 and some say it was built by him the said Eliezer; though Josephus (a) makes Uz, a grandson of Shem, to be the founder of it; whose surname is conjectured, by some, to be Dimshak, seeing that and Uz differ not in sense: and Justin says (b), it had its name from Damascus, the king of it, in honour of whom the Syrians made a temple of the sepulchre of his wife Arathis, and her a goddess; after Damascus, he says, Azelus, then Azores, Abraham, and Israel were kings of it. Some think it has its name from blood, and that it signifies a "sack" or bag, or, as Jerom explains, a cup of blood (c), or one that drinks blood; who says, it is a true tradition, that the field in which Abel was killed by Cain, was in Damascus (d): but it seems rather to be so called from the redness of the earth about it; for some very good writers affirm, that the earth in the fields of Damascus is like wax tinged with red lead; so if it be read Dammesek, as it commonly is, in the Arabic language, "Damma" signifies to tinge, and "Meshko" is used for "red earth"; or if "Dummesek", as it is in Kg2 16:10, "Daumo", in the same language, is "permanent", what always abides, and "Meshko", as before, "red earth", and so "Dummesek" is never failing red earth; or if it be Darmesek", as in Ch1 18:5 the same with Darmsuk", it may be observed, that the Syrians call red earth "Doro sumoko": so that, upon the whole, this seems to be the best etymology of the word (e), and the rise of the name of this famous city, which Justin calls the most noble city of Syria. It is said (f) to be an hundred and sixty miles from Jerusalem. Here might be many Christians before, and others might flee hither upon this persecution; and Saul, not content with driving them from their native place, persecuted them, as he himself says, to strange cities: and that he might do this with safety to himself, and with the greater force and cruelty to them, he got letters from the high priest, and sanhedrim, at Jerusalem; either recommending him to the Jews at Damascus, and exhorting them to assist him in what he came about; or empowering him to act under his authority, or both: and these were directed to be delivered
to the synagogues; to the rulers of them; for the Jews being numerous in this place, they had more synagogues than one. Josephus says (g), that under Nero the inhabitants of Damascus killed ten thousand Jews in their own city: and Benjamin Tudelensis (h) in his time says, there were about three thousand Jews (Pharisees), besides two hundred Karaites (or Scripturarians), and four hundred Samaritans, who lived in peace together. Now to these synagogues, and the chief men of them, was Saul recommended for assistance and direction,
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that if he found any of this way; of thinking; that were of this sect of religion, and either professed to believe, or preach, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah:
whether they were men or women; without any fear of one, or mercy to the other:
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem; to be examined and punished by the sanhedrim there, as they should think fit; and for this purpose he must take with him a considerable number of men; and that he had men with him is certain from Act 9:7.
(z) L. 36. c. 8. (a) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 5. (b) Ex Trogo, l. 36. c. 2. (c) De Nominibus Hebraicis, fol. 97. F. & 101. K. (d) Comment. in Ezek. xxvii. 18. (e) Vid. Hiller. Onomasticum, p. 114, 115, 419, 793. (f) Bunting's Itinerar. p. 394. (g) De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 20. sect. 2. (h) ltinerar. p. 56, 57.
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 vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 24, 26, 27, 31, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40 Acts xxii, 3, &c.; Acts xxvi, 9, &c.
Acts xxii, 3, &c.; Acts xxvi, 9, &c.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–43 Saul, bent on the destruction of the Christians, obtains…
CHAPTER IX.
Saul, bent on the destruction of the Christians, obtains letters
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from the high priest, authorizing him to seize those whom he
should find at Damascus, and bring them bound to Jerusalem,
1, 2.
On his way to Damascus, he has a Divine vision, is convinced of
his sin and folly, is struck blind, and remains three days
without sight, and neither eats nor drinks, 3-9.
Ananias, a disciple, is commanded in a vision to go and speak to
Saul, and restore his sight, 10-16.
Ananias goes and lays his hands on him, and he receives his
sight, and is baptized, 17-19.
Saul, having spent a few days with the Christians at Damascus,
goes to the synagogues, proclaims Christ, and confounds the
Jews, 20-22.
The Jews lay wait to kill him, but the disciples let him down
over the walls of the city in a basket, by night, and he
escapes to Jerusalem, 23-25.
Having wished to associate with the disciples there, they avoid
him; but Barnabas takes and brings him to the apostles, and
declares his conversion, 26, 27.
He continues in Jerusalem preaching Christ, and arguing with the
Hellenistic Jews, who endeavour to slay him; but the disciples
take him to Caesarea, and send him thence to his own city
Tarsus, 28-30.
About this time, the Churches, being freed from persecution, are
edified and multiplied, 31.
Peter heals Eneas at Lydda, who had been afflicted with the
palsy eight years: in consequence of which miracle, all the
people of Lydda and Saron are converted, 32-35.
Account of the sickness and death of a Christian woman named
Tabitha, who dwelt at Joppa; and her miraculous restoration to
life by the ministry of Peter, 36-41.
Gracious effects produced among the inhabitants of Lydda by this
miracle, 42, 43.
NOTES ON CHAP. IX.
Verse 1. Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter] The original text is very emphatic, ετι εμπνεων απειλης και φονου, and points out how determinate Saul was to pursue and accomplish his fell purpose of totally destroying the infant Church of Christ. The mode of speech introduced above is very frequent in the Greek writers, who often express any vehement and hostile affection of the mind by the verb πνεειν, to breathe, to pant; so Theocritus, Idyll. xxii. ver. 82:
Ες μεσσον συναγον, φονον αλλαλοισι πνεοντες.
They came into the assembly, breathing mutual slaughter. Euripides has the same form, πυρ πνεουσα και φονον, breathing out fire, and slaughter, Iphig. in Taur.
And Aristophanes more fully, referring to all the preparations for war:-
Αλλα πνεοντας δορυ και λογχας και λευκολοφους τρυφαλειας,
Και πηληκας, και κνημιδας, και θυμους ἑπταβοειους.
They breathed spears, and pikes, and helmets, and
crests, and greaves, and the fury of redoubted heroes.
The figure is a favourite one with Homer: hence μενεα πνειοντες αβαντες, the Abantes breathing strength.-Il. ii. 536. And how frequently he speaks of his fierce countrymen as, μενεα πνειοντες αχαιοι, the Greeks breathing strength, see Il. iii. 8; xi. 508; xxiv. 364, which phrase an old Scholiast interprets, being filled with strength and fury. St. Luke, who was master of the Greek tongue, chose such terms as best expressed a heart desperately and incessantly bent on accomplishing the destruction of the objects of its resentment. Such at this time was the heart of Saul of Tarsus; and it had already given full proof of its malignity, not only in the martyrdom of Stephen, but also in making havoc of the Church, and in forcibly entering every house, and dragging men and women, whom he suspected of Christianity, and committing them to prison. See Ac 8:3.
Went unto the high priest] As the high priest was chief in all matters of an ecclesiastical nature, and the present business was pretendedly religious, he was the proper person to apply to for letters by which this virulent persecutor might be accredited. The letters must necessarily be granted in the name of the whole Sanhedrin, of which Gamaliel, Saul's master, was at that time the head; but the high priest was the proper organ through whom this business might be negotiated.
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Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 26, 31, 32, 36, 39, 42 Act 9:1-2. And Saul, yet (ετι, adhuc, hitherto, or…
Act 9:1-2. And Saul, yet (ετι, adhuc, hitherto, or still) breathing out threatenings and slaughter — This very emphatical expression refers to what is related of Saul, Act 8:3; (where see the note;) and it shows that his zeal against the followers of Christ was so outrageous that he could be satisfied with nothing less than their utter destruction. It shows too, that the Jews were now at liberty to put them to death; probably, as Macknight observes, “because between the removal of Pontius Pilate, and the accession of Herod Agrippa, in the second year of the Emperor Claudius, who gave him all the dominions of his grandfather, Herod the Great, there was no procurator in Judea to restrain their intemperate zeal.” Saul, therefore, being thus freed from restraint, and at liberty to pursue his malicious design of endeavouring to effect their extirpation; went to the high-priest — Whom he knew to be much exasperated against them; and desired of him letters to Damascus — It is generally supposed that Caiaphas now filled the office of high-priest; and if so, as he was an inveterate enemy of Christ, and had a principal hand in his crucifixion, he would doubtless be glad to employ so active and bigoted a zealot as Saul in carrying on the persecution against them, which at this time was very violent and severe. To the synagogues — From this, and from Act 9:20 th, where Paul is said to preach Christ at Damascus in the synagogues of the Jews, it appears there were more than one in that city, as there were also in divers other cities of the Gentiles. These synagogues, it seems, had a jurisdiction over their own members, in the exercise of which, however, they were sometimes directed, as on this occasion, by the high-priest and council at Jerusalem. At this time Damascus was full of Jews. Indeed, being the capital city of Syria, it generally abounded with them; so much so, that Josephus assures us ten thousand of them were once massacred there in one hour; and at another time, eighteen thousand with their wives and children. (Joseph. Bell., lib. 2. cap. 20; and lib. 7. cap. 8.) Now in a place which so much abounded with Jews, it is very likely there would be some Christians. Probably, indeed, some of those whom persecution had driven from Jerusalem had taken refuge there, and by their zeal and diligence had been instrumental in making converts to the faith of Christ. If so, it must have exceedingly vexed Saul to find that his endeavours to extirpate Christianity only tended to spread it the more, and to increase the number of those who embraced it. This, of course, would the more inflame his rage against Christ’s disciples, and excite him to make still greater efforts to destroy them, and exterminate their religion. Be this as it may, understanding that there were Christians at Damascus, although it was at a great distance from Jerusalem, he resolved to go thither, with his new commission from the high-priest; that if he found any there of this way — Any of the Christian community; whether they were men or women — For he and his employers spared no age or sex; he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem — To be proceeded against in the severest manner by the sanhedrim. He was not content with having driven many of them into exile, and with having imprisoned others, (Act 8:3,) but he thirsted for their blood. And, as he was joined by assistants equally bigoted and furious with himself, the news of their coming reached Damascus before they arrived, and greatly terrified the saints, Act 9:14; Act 9:21. The Lord, however, marvellously interposed for their deliverance, and probably in answer to their united and fervent prayers; but in a way which, it is likely, none of them had thought of.
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 vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 And Saul - See the notes on Act 7:58;…
And Saul - See the notes on Act 7:58; Act 8:3. He had been engaged be fore in persecuting the Christians, but he now sought opportunity to gratify his insatiable desire on a larger scale.
Yet breathing out - Not satisfied with what he had done, Act 8:3. The word breathing out is expressive often of any deep, agitating emotion, as we then breathe rapidly and violently. It is thus expressive of violent anger. The emotion is absorbing, agitating, exhausting, and demands a more rapid circulation of blood to supply the exhausted vitality; and this demands an increased supply of oxygen, or vital air, which leads to the increased action of the lungs. The word is often used in this sense in the Classics (Schleusner). It is a favorite expression with Homer. Euripides has the same expression: “Breathing out fire and slaughter.” So Theocritus: “They came unto the assembly breathing mutual slaughter” (Idyll. 22:82).
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Threatening - Denunciation; threatening them with every breath the action of a man violently enraged, and who was bent on vengeance. It denotes also “intense activity and energy in persecution.”
Slaughter - Murder. Intensely desiring to put to death as many Christians as possible. He rejoiced in their death, and joined in condemning them, Act 26:10-11. From this latter place it seems that he had been concerned in putting many of them to death.
The disciples of the Lord - Against Christians.
Went unto the high priest - See the notes on Mat 2:4. The letters were written and signed in the name and by the authority of the Sanhedrin, or written and signed in the name and by the authority of the Sanhedrin, or Great Council of the nation. The high priest did it as president of that council. See Act 9:14, and Act 22:5. The high priest at that time was Theophilus, son of Ananus, who had been appointed at the feast of Pentecost, 37 a.d., by Vitellius, the Roman governor. His brother Jonathan had been removed from that office the same year (Kuinoel).
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Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 17, 23, 27, 29, 31, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43 Why dost thou persecute me? My disciples, my brothers,…
Why dost thou persecute me? My disciples, my brothers, and my friends. The head speaks for the members, and by a figure of speech, calls them itself. (St. Augustine, in Ps. xxx.) --- Here Jesus Christ identifies himself with his Church, as on a former occasion, when he said: he that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me. (Luke x. 16.)
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John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Acts Chapter 9
Acts Chapter 9
A work and a workman of another character begin now to dawn upon the scene.
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We have seen the inveterate opposition of the heads of Israel to the testimony of the Holy Ghost, their obstinacy in repelling the patient grace of God. Israel rejected all the work of the God of grace in their behalf. Saul makes himself the apostle of their hatred to the disciples of Jesus, to the servants of God. Not content with searching them out at Jerusalem, he asks for letters from the high priest, that he may go and lay hands on them in foreign cities. When Israel is in full opposition to God, he is the ardent missionary of their malice-in ignorance, no doubt, but the willing slave of his Jewish prejudices.
Thus occupied, he approaches Damascus. There, in the full career of an unbroken will, the Lord Jesus stops him. A light from heaven shines round about him, and envelopes him in its dazzling brightness. He falls to the earth, and hears a voice saying unto him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” The glory which had thrown him to the ground left no doubt-accompanied as it was by that voice-that the authority of God was revealed in it. His will broken, his pride overthrown, his mind subdued, he asks, “Who art thou, Lord?” The authority of the One who spoke was unquestionable; Saul’s heart was subject to that authority: and it was Jesus. The career of his self-will was ended for ever. But moreover the Lord of glory was not only Jesus; He also acknowledged the poor disciples, whom Saul desired to carry prisoners to Jerusalem, as being Himself.
How many things were revealed in those few words! The Lord of glory declared Himself to be Jesus, whom Saul persecuted. The disciples were one with Himself. The Jews were at open war with the Lord Himself. The whole system which they maintained, all their law, all their official authority, all the ordinances of God, had not prevented their being at open war with the Lord. Saul himself, armed with their authority, found himself occupied in destroying the name of the Lord and His people from off the earth: a terrible discovery, completely overwhelming his soul, all-powerful in its effects, not leaving one moral element of his soul standing before its strength. Extenuation of the evil was fruitless; zeal for Judaism was zeal against the Lord. His own conscience had only animated that zeal. The authorities constituted of God, surrounded with the halo of centuries of honour, enhanced by the present calamities of Israel which had now nothing but her religion-these authorities had but sanctioned and favoured his efforts against the Lord. The Jesus whom they rejected was the Lord. The testimony which they endeavoured to suppress was His testimony. What a change for Saul! What a new position, even for the minds of the apostles themselves who remained at Jerusalem, when all were dispersed-faithful indeed in spite of the opposition of the rulers of Israel, but themselves in connection with the nation.
But the work went deeper yet. Misguided no doubt, but his conscience in itself-for he thought he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth-left him the enemy of the Lord. Blameless righteousness according to law, as man could measure it, more than left him hardened in open opposition to the Lord. His superiors, and the authorities of the ancient religion-all his soul was based on morally as well as religiously-all was smashed within him for ever. He was broken up in the whole man before God. Nothing remained in him but discovered enmity against God, save as his own will was also broken in the process, he who an hour before was the conscientious, blameless, religious man! Compare, though the revelation of Christ carried him much farther, Gal 2:20; Php 3:1-21;2Co 1:9; Php 4:10; and a multitude of passages.
Other important points are brought out here. Saul had not known Jesus on earth. He had not a testimony because he had known Him from the beginning, declaring that He was made Lord and Christ. It is not a Jesus who goes up into heaven where He is out of sight; but the Lord who appears to him for the first time in heaven, and who announces to him that He is Jesus. A glorious Lord is the only one whom he knows. His gospel (as he expresses it himself) is the gospel of the glory. If he had known Christ after the flesh, he knows Him thus no more. But there is yet another important principle found here. The Lord of glory has His members on earth. “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.” It was Himself: those poor disciples were bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. He looked upon them and cherished them as His own flesh. The glory and the oneness of the saints with Jesus, their Head in heaven, are the truths connected with the conversion of Saul, with the revelation of Jesus to him, with the creation of faith in his heart, and that in a way which overthrew Judaism in all its bearings in his soul; and that in a soul in which this Judaism formed an integral part of its existence, and gave it its whole character.
Another point, borrowed from his account of the vision later in the book, which is remarkable in connection with his career: “Separating thee,” says the Lord, “from the people and from the Gentiles, to whom I now send thee.” This moral end of Saul separated him from both-of course from the Jews, but did not make a Gentile of him either-and united him with a glorified Christ. He was neither a Jew nor a Gentile in his spiritual standing. All his life and ministry flowed from his association with a heavenly glorified Christ.
Nevertheless he comes into the assembly by the usual means-like Jesus in Israel-humbly taking his place there where the truth of God was established by His power. Blind for three days and fully engrossed-as was natural-with such a discovery, he neither eats nor drinks; and afterwards, besides the fact of his blindness, which was a quiet, continual, and unequivocal proof of the truth of that which had happened to him, his faith must have been confirmed by the arrival of Ananias, who can declare to him from the Lord that which had happened to him, although he had not been out of the city-a circumstance so much the more striking because, in a vision, Saul had seen him come and restore his sight. And this Ananias does: Saul receives sight, and is baptised. He takes food and is strengthened. The conversation of Jesus with Ananias is remarkable, as shewing with what distinct evidence the Lord revealed Himself in those days, and the holy liberty and confidence with which the true and faithful disciple conversed with Him. The Lord speaks as a man to his friend in details of place and circumstances, and Ananias reasons in all confiding openness with the Lord in regard to Saul; and Jesus answers him, not in harsh authority, though of course Ananias had to obey, but with gracious explanation, as with one admitted to His confidence, by declaring that Saul is a chosen vessel to bear His name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel; and that He will shew him how great things he must suffer for His sake.
Saul makes no delay in confessing and declaring his faith; and that which he says is eminently worthy of notice. He preaches in the synagogue that Jesus is the Son of God. It is the first time that this is done. That He was exalted to the right hand of God-that He was Lord and Christ-had been already preached; the rejected Messiah was exalted on high. But here it is the simple doctrine as to His personal glory; Jesus is the Son of God.
In the words of Jesus to Ananias, the children of Israel come last.
Saul does not yet begin his public ministry. It is, so to speak, only the expression of his personal faithfulness, his zeal, his faith, among those that surrounded him, with whom he was naturally connected. It was not long before opposition manifested itself, in the nation that would have no Christ, at least according to God, and the disciples sent him away, letting him down by the wall in a basket; and through the agency of Barnabas (a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, whom grace had taught to value the truth with regard to the new disciple) the dreaded Saul found his place among the disciples even at Jerusalem. [16] Wonderful triumph of the Lord! Singular position for himself there, had he not been absorbed by the thought of Jesus. At Jerusalem he reasons with the Hellenists. He was one of them. The Hebrews were not his natural sphere. They seek to put him to death; the disciples bring him down to the sea, and send him to Tarsus, the place of his birth. The triumph of grace has, under God’s hand, silenced the adversary. The assemblies are left in peace, and edify themselves-walking in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, the two great elements of blessing; and their numbers increase. Persecution accomplishes the designs of God. The peace which He grants gives opportunity for ripening in grace and in the knowledge of Himself. We learn the ways and government of God in the midst of the imperfection of man.
Peace being established through the goodness of God-sole resource of those who truly wait upon Him in submission to His will-Peter passes throughout all parts of Israel. The Spirit of God relates this circumstance here, between the conversion of Saul and his apostolic work, to shew us, I doubt not, the apostolic energy in Peter existing at the very time when the call of the new apostle was to bring in new light, and a work that was new in many important respects (thus sanctioning as His own work, and in its place, that which had been done before, whatever progress in accomplishment His counsels might make); and in order to shew us the introduction of the Gentiles into the assembly as it was at first founded by His grace in the beginning, preserving thus its unity, and putting His seal upon this work of heavenly grace.
The assembly existed. The doctrine of her oneness, as the body of Christ, outside the world, was not yet made known.The reception of Cornelius did not announce it, although paving its way.
Footnotes for Acts Chapter 9
16: This was, it would appear, later, but is noticed here to put him, so to speak, in his place among Christians.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 10, 19, 26, 31
SECTION II
THE CONVERSION OF SAUL; HIS LABORS AND EXPERIENCE IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS.
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Act_9:1-30.
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A.—THE ZEAL OF SAUL IN PERSECUTING THE CHRISTIANS, CONDUCTS HIM TO DAMASCUS
Act_9:1-2.
1And [But] Saul, yet breathing out threatenings [breathing menace] and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, 2And desired [asked] of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found [should find] any [who were, ὄντας] of this way1, whether they were men or women, he might bring [conduct] them bound unto Jerusalem.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act_9:1. And [But] Saul.—The following narrative is connected with the general course of this historical work by means of the particles δέ and ἔτι. The former particle [But, not And] exhibits the contrast between the hostile and destructive procedure of Saul, and the labors of Philip, which built up and extended the church, and which had just been described. The particle ἔτι, on the other hand, connects the course of Saul, as here set forth, with his earlier acts, Act_8:3, and exhibits them as a continuation of the persecution of the Christians which he commenced at the time when Stephen was slain. The interval between the commencement and the present continuation of Saul’s hostile course, does not appear to have been very brief, for Luke must have designedly inserted the two narratives contained in Act_8:5-40, between Act_7:58 (combined with Act_8:1; Act_8:3,) and Act_9:1. Hence, the present narrative is not introduced abruptly, or without regard to the connection. It is, moreover, evident, that the sentiments and feelings of Saul did not continue to be uniformly the same, but rather increased in intensity as time advanced. This fact is indicated by the terms: ἐμπνέων ἀπειλῆς καὶ φόνου [for which genitives see Winer: Gram. N. T. § 30. 9. c. and comp. Jos_10:40. LXX.—Tr.]. They imply that menace and slaughter constituted the vital air which he inhaled (and exhaled); that is, the hostile sentiments with which Saul regarded the Christians, had acquired an intensely fanatical, destructive and sanguinary character, which does not yet appear to have been the case at the period to which Act_8:3 refers. It is, indeed, quite consistent with human nature, that when any passion has exercised an influence over an individual during a certain period, and been indulged to a certain extent, it should increase in violence and fury, identify itself, as it were, with his character, and constitute the principle of life for him; this observation specially applies to religious fanaticism. The course which Saul now intends to pursue, demonstrates that his fanaticism had acquired additional virulence.
Act_9:2. Desired of him letters to Damascus, etc.—Hitherto Saul had contented himself with persecuting the Christians in Jerusalem; he now feels impelled to persecute the disciples of Jesus in other regions, even beyond the boundaries of the Holy Land. He determines to proceed to Damascus. This ancient capital of Syria, lying northeast of Jerusalem, and about 140 miles distant from it, was distinguished alike by its uncommonly beautiful situation, and by being the centre of a vast trade, and of important religious influences. It had passed, since the time of Pompey (B. C. 64), under the dominion of the Romans, and had been attached to the province of Syria. Many Jews had selected this city as their residence after the age of the Seleucidæ (Jos. War, ii. 20, 2), and this fact precisely agrees with the passage before us, which represents Damascus as having contained more than one synagogue (τὰς συναγωγάς, and comp. Act_9:20). But the tidings appear to have reached Jerusalem that there were also Christians in Damascus; these were converted Jews, since Saul views them as persons who were connected with the synagogues. The form of the conditional clause, ἐάν τινας εὕρῃ, distinctly implies that he confidently expected to find such persons there. They are termed τινες τῆς ὁδοῦ ὅντες, that is, people who walk in the way, or, belong to that way [ὁδοῦ depending on ὅντας; for the Gen. with εἶναι see Winer, § 30, 5]. The word ὁδός does not of itself signify a sect, as some writers have erroneously inferred from Act_19:9; Act_19:23; Act_22:4, but designates in general a particular mode of life and conduct; in its special application here, it denotes that way or manner of life which receives its peculiar character from faith in Christ as the Messiah.—Luke has not informed us of the means by which the Gospel reached Damascus. The most probable supposition is, that individual Christians belonging to Jerusalem, who were driven away at the time of the persecution, had withdrawn to that large city (Act_8:4 διῆλθον; comp. Act_11:19); if some of the fugitives proceeded as far as Cyprus and Antioch, others may have, still more probably, retired to Damascus, which was a nearer point. It is quite conceivable that these also proclaimed the Gospel when they reached the city, and thus became the means by which other Israelites who dwelt there, were converted (Act_8:4, εὐαγγελιζόμενοι τὸν λόγον). Saul selected Damascus as the field of his intended operations, as he had perhaps understood that a larger number of Christians would be found there than elsewhere, or, possibly, because he was personally connected with certain inhabitants of the place. In order to accomplish his design and be enabled to seize any disciples of Jesus whom he might find in Damascus, and conduct them as prisoners to Jerusalem, where they would be subjected to a trial, he requests the high priest to furnish him with letters of recommendation and authorization. (The plural ἐπιστολάς corresponds to the plural συναγωγάς; it would hence seem that he asked for several documents, intending to present one to each of the synagogues). The name of the high priest cannot be stated with entire confidence, as the year in which the conversion of Paul occurred is not known with, entire chronological precision. [Bengel assigns it to A. D. 31; Jerome, Petavius, 33; Baronius, 34; Meyer, Usher, Pearson, Hug, Olshausen, 35; Basnage, Alford, 37; de Wette, 37 or 38; Ewald, 38; L. Capellus, 39; Wieseler, 40.—Tr.]. If that event did not occur later than the year 36, Caiaphas, who was displaced by Vitellius in that year, still acted as high priest. [See below, note on Act_23:4-5.]. He was succeeded by Jonathan, a son of Ananus [Annas]; in the next year, 37, the latter was, in his turn, displaced, and his brother Theophilus received the office (Jos. Ant. xviii. 4, 3, and xviii. 5, 3). The last named was, probably, the high priest to whom Saul applied. Luke does not expressly state, but obviously implies that the high priest of course furnished the desired documents; he could, indeed, have personally had no motive for refusing to gratify the zealot who applied for means to sustain the ancient Judaism. Foreign Jews voluntarily recognized the authority of the high priest in Jerusalem, and, specially, that of the Sanhedrin, of which he was [usually, but at a later period, not regularly, Herzog, Real-Encyk. XV. 516.—Tr.] the presiding officer, and which they regarded as the highest tribunal, in matters of religion. [“In Act_26:10 (comp. Act_9:14 below) Paul says that he received his authority from the ἀρχιερεῖς, and in Act_22:5, from the πρεσβυτέριον, which are merely different modes of designating the Sanhedrim.” Hackett ad loc., and see below, Act_9:13-14, Exeg. note.—Tr.]. And the experience of the Jews had taught them that, in a case like the present, the civil authorities [Roman] would offer no opposition to a measure represented to them as being directly connected with the internal religious affairs of the Israelites.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
Christ rules in the midst of his enemies. This truth derives a striking illustration from the fact that Saul’s enmity and murderous purposes, which glowed with hellish fire, were so long permitted to harass, scatter and ravage the church. The historian does not relate that he reviled and blasphemed the Redeemer himself; but at a later period Paul confesses that he had been guilty in this respect, 1Ti_1:13. In the present narrative he appears only as a persecutor of the Lord’s disciples, or of his church. But his spiritual state becomes the more alarming in proportion as a carnal zeal, passion, and even a Satanic thirst for blood (ἀνθρωποκτόνος, Joh_8:44), became mingled with his ignorant zeal of God [Rom_10:2], The flesh acquires increased influence whenever fanaticism ascends to a higher grade, and man, in his blind fury, becomes a ravening and bloodthirsty beast. To such a depth the Lord permits man to descend, in order to rescue him from the abyss and change his nature. The long-suffering of God waits unto the end, but divine grace never loses sight of the sinner, even when he rushes madly onward in his career. Saul’s history furnishes a brilliant illustration of God’s love in Christ, to sinful man—a love which seeks and saves even the most abandoned sinner. [1Ti_1:16.]
Footnotes:
[1] Act_9:2. [The margin of the English Bible (which in the text follows Tynd., Cranm., Geneva, and Rheims) offers the words of the way, as the literal translation of the phrase rendered in the text of this way; Gr. τῆς ὁδοῦ.—Tr.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See below, Act_9:10—19 a.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43 desired . . . letters--of authorization.
desired . . . letters--of authorization.
to Damascus--the capital of Syria and the great highway between eastern and western Asia, about one hundred thirty miles northeast of Jerusalem; the most ancient city perhaps in the world, and lying in the center of a verdant and inexhaustible paradise. It abounded (as appears from JOSEPHUS, Wars of the Jews, 2.20,2) with Jews, and with Gentile proselytes to the Jewish faith. Thither the Gospel had penetrated; and Saul, flushed with past successes, undertakes to crush it out.
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that if he found any of this way, whether men or women--Thrice are women specified as objects of his cruelty, as an aggravated feature of it (Act 8:3; Act 22:4; and here).
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 vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43 II. THE NEW APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES CALLED, Act_9:1-30.
II. THE NEW APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES CALLED, Act_9:1-30.
1. Saul’s Journey to Damascus—Conversion, Act_9:1-9.
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1. And—Our historian, having closed the section narrating the spread of the Church, consequent upon the persecution, (Act_8:5-40,) now takes up the historic thread of the persecution itself from Act_8:4, the principal figure, of course, being SAUL. At this point it becomes us to trace Saul’s previous life-story.
He was born at the wealthy and learned city of Tarsus. He was, like King Saul of old, of the tribe of Benjamin; born some six years after our Saviour, of parents strictly Pharisaic in sect, who taught him the doctrines and history of the Old Testament from his childhood. Like other Jewish youth, doubtless, he commenced his Scripture studies at five years of age; the traditional law at ten; and graduated to the maturity of a responsible Jew at thirteen. His parents seem to have had wealth and rank sufficient to send him to the capital, Jerusalem, to complete his education under the tuition of the greatest doctor of the day, Rabban Gamaliel. He took the degree of Rab, probably that of Rabbi, and displayed that ambition and superiority of acquirement that justified the ambitious hope that he would one day attain the high rank of Rabban. Yet, as the Jewish maxim was that “He who teaches his son no trade teaches him to be a thief,” young Saul, though destined to a profession, learned the art of a tent-maker. He may have been at Jerusalem some part of the time when Jesus was there; but it is clear that he never was familiarly acquainted with our Lord’s person. He first emerges to view at the martyrdom of Stephen, in which he not only heartily concurred, but forthwith took the leadership in the persecution by which the Church was scattered and Christianity spread abroad. We are now to see in our following history the culmination and close of that leadership. He is just now becoming a fallen star of Judaism, but the rising star of Christianity.
And—Rather, but. The persecutions of the Gospel by Saul are contrasted with the spread of the Gospel by Philip.
Yet—In continuation from Act_8:3.
Breathing out—Not breathing out, nor exhaling, nor inhaling; but inwardly breathing, referring rather to his temper—his inner atmosphere of soul—than to his external manifestations.
Threatenings and slaughter— ”Menace and murder” it is expressively rendered by Dr. Hackett, but with an alliterative point not contained in the original.
The high priest— Probably Theophilus, the son of Annas. At the Passover of the year 37 Caiaphas was deposed from the highpriesthood by the Roman prefect, and Jonathan, son of Annas and brother in law of Caiaphas, was put in his place. But at the next Pentecost, by the same arbitrary authority, Jonathan was removed, and his brother, this Theophilus, appointed to the office. He held the place about five years, and was removed by Herod Agrippa I. in A.D. 41.
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The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–43 Act_9:1-9. Saul’s mission to Damascus and his Conversion
Act_9:1-9. Saul’s mission to Damascus and his Conversion
1. And [But] Saul, yet breathing out threatenings [threatening] It is better to translate the conjunction adversatively here, as the new subject is not connected except with the first sentence of chap. 8. The verb in this clause should be rendered “breathing,” not “breathing out.” Threatening and slaughter was, as it were, the atmosphere in which Saul was living.
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and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord] We are not told of any other death, but Stephen’s, in which Saul was a participator, but we can gather from his own words (Act_26:10) “when they were put to death, I gave my voice [vote] against them,” that the protomartyr was not the only one who was killed in the time of this persecution. It has been suggested that the zeal which Saul shewed at the time of Stephen’s death led to his election into the Sanhedrin, and so he took a judicial part in the later stages of the persecution, and, it may be, from a desire to justify the choice of those who had placed him in authority, he sought to be appointed over the enquiry after the Christians in Damascus. We gather from Act_26:10 that before this inquisitorial journey he had been armed with the authority of the chief priests in his search after the Christians in Jerusalem.
went unto the high priest] who would most likely be the authority through whom the power, which the Great Sanhedrin claimed to exercise, in religious matters, over Jews in foreign cities, would be put in motion.
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 (1) Yet breathing out threatenings.—The “yet” implies a considerable…
IX.
(1) Yet breathing out threatenings.—The “yet” implies a considerable interval since the death of Stephen, probably coinciding with the time occupied by the mission-work of Philip in the previous chapter. During this interval the persecution had probably been continuing. The Greek participle, literally, breathing-in, is somewhat more emphatic than the English. He lived, as it were, in an atmosphere of threats and slaughter. It was the very air he breathed. Patristic writers and their followers have not unnaturally seen a half-prophetic parallelism between the language of Jacob, “Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil” (Gen_49:27), and this description of one who gloried in being of that tribe (Php_3:5), and bore the name of its great hero-king.
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Went unto the high priest.—It will be remembered that the high priest (whether we suppose Annas or Caiaphas to be meant) was a Sadducee, and that Saul gloried in being a Pharisee of the straitest sect (Act_26:5). The temper of the persecutor, however, does not shrink from strange companionship, and the coalition which had been formed against our Lord (Mat_26:3) was renewed against His followers. If, as is probable, the admission of the Samaritans to the new community had become known at Jerusalem, it would naturally tend to intensify their hatred. It would seem to them as if the accursed people were now allied with the Galileans against the Holy Place, and those who were zealous for its honour.
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The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 But for and, A.V.; breathing for breathing out, A.V.;…
But for and, A.V.; breathing for breathing out, A.V.; threatening for threatenings, A.V. Threatening and slaughter. The phrase ejmpnewn ajpeilhv k.t.l., is rather a difficult one, and is variously explained. Schleusner takes the genitives in "threatening and slaughter" as genitives of the thing desired, "punting after threatening and slaughter". (Amo_2:7) Meyer explains it "out of the threatenings and murder in his heart breathing hard at the disciples an expression indicating passion. Alford, taking nearly the sense of the A.V., makes "threatenings and slaughter" to be as it were the very material of his breath, whether breathed out or breathed in. Considering that ejmpnew means "to breathe in," as distinguished from ejkpnew, "to breathe out," and that these two are opposed to each other in Hippocrates (see Schleusner), the A.V breathing out cannot be justified; nor is it likely that "Luke the physician" would forget the distinction. The difficulty is to explain the genitive case of "threatenings" and "slaughter." The high priest; probably the same person who is so described in Act_7:1. (where see note) If the year with which we are now dealing was the year A.D. 35, Caiaphas was high priest. But Alford, Lewin, Farrar, and others place Saul"s conversion in A.D. 37, when Theophilus, son of Annas or Ananus, was high priest (Chronicles Table in Alford"s "Proleg. to Acts").
Vers. 1-31. The Ethiopian changes his skin.
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Of all the remarkable events in the history of human psychology, probably the most remarkable is the conversion of St. Paul, the memory of which is continually celebrated in the Church on the 25th of January. It may be viewed
I AS AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. St. Paul lived. He preached the gospel with astonishing vigor and success. Numerous Churches were founded by him in Asia and Europe. These are facts as certain as facts can be. He wrote Epistles also to different communities of Christians, and these writings are extant at the present day. By these writings we can form an accurate judgment of St. Paul"s intellectual faculties, of the force of his character, of the extent of his knowledge. By these writings we can form an estimate of his moral qualities. We can judge for ourselves whether, on the one hand, he was a fanatic, an impostor, or a knave; and, on the other, whether he was one of the noblest, sincerest, and most high-minded men with whom we have ever come in contact. These writings, besides exhibiting an unquenchable zeal for the Christian faith, lasting through years of toil and suffering, tell us also distinctly, though incidentally, of a time when the writer was as vehemently opposed to the Christian faith as he afterwards became attached to it. They contain, too, clear evidences of that education in the Jews" religion, and that impregnation with Jewish doctrine and tradition, which were likely to have had the same influence upon his mind which the same causes had upon the minds of so many of his ablest and most learned fellow-countrymen. They also display those qualities of disinterestedness, courage, and decision, which make it to the highest degree improbable that he should have changed his mind lightly or without conviction or due cause for doing so. But he did change from a vehement and fierce persecutor to a preacher of unrivalled zeal and power, and a daily martyr of unsurpassed patience and constancy. But these same Epistles also tell us, still incidentally but also still distinctly, the cause of this change. It was nothing less than the visible appearing and the audible voice of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, of him whom he knew to have been crucified, but whom he now saw and heard in his effulgent glory, living and potent in ineffable majesty. It was that sight, too bright for mortal eyes, and that voice of exquisite tenderness in its complaint, which had in an instant overborne his unbelief and melted his obdurate heart, even as his body was swayed in terror to the ground. Did St. Paul know, or did he not know, the cause of his conversion? Did he invent a lie, or did he speak the truth, when he wove this history, or allusions to it, into his Epistles to the Galatians, the Corinthians, the Philippians, and Timothy? But even if it were possible to doubt the man whom we know as we know St. Paul, we have his account corroborated and developed by a contemporary writer of unimpeached and unimpeachable accuracy and truth. He gives us in this chapter his own account of this wonderful conversion, and he reports to us two several accounts of it given by St. Paul himself when on his defense before the people at Jerusalem, and again when on his trial before King Agrippa at Caesarea. Did St. Luke write a lie when he reported these utterances of his noble and saintly friend? or did he speak the truth which he had such abundant opportunities of accurately knowing? There is no fact in history more certain than St. Paul"s conversion, and there is no more unanswerable evidence of the truth of Christ"s gospel than this same conversion grounded upon the revelation in the way to Damascus.
II WE MAY SEE IN ST. PAUL"S CONVERSION VIVIDLY PORTRAYED THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. What was it which arrested the persecutor in his furious course, which turned back the whole current of his thoughts, which wrought in him that noble inconsistency, that holy apostasy from his previous convictions, which have placed him at the head of Christian teachers and confessors? It was the clear knowledge conveyed to him by his own senses of sight and hearing that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was risen, was alive, was glorified. He knew that he had been tried at the bar of Pilate, condemned, crucified, buried. He had thought that sentence a just one. He had thought that that life, closed in ignominy and shame, was closed for ever, and that his own Jews" religion had thereby triumphed and been confirmed. Now he knew that God had reversed that sentence, and had raised Jesus from the dead, and declared him in so doing to be his own eternal Son, both Lord and Christ. His previous convictions were thus refuted by the fact of the life and glory and Godhead of the Lord Jesus. The truth of the mission of Jesus Christ was thus in an instant established by irrefragable proof. Henceforth Jesus Christ was his Lord, his Guide, his Teacher, his Master, his almighty Savior. Henceforth his own body and soul, his life, and all his powers, his whole capacity of doing and suffering, were Christ"s, wholly and only Christ"s. Here then we see, as in a glass, what our own religion must be. It must consist in a full assurance of faith that Jesus Christ is risen and lives for ever in the power of his Godhead, and in the consecration of ourselves to his service in the power of a personal love, devotion, and attachment those of a person to a Person to last while life lasts, and to be perfected in the life
III CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL GIVES US ALSO A VIVID PORTRAITURE OF THE MIND AND CHARACTER OF GOD, AS THEY SHINE IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. This is St. Paul"s own view of it: "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting". 1Ti_1:16) We have here a pattern of the infinite, eternal mercy of God. The threatening and slaughter of the persecutor are met and overcome by love. The ignorance and unbelief which caused the blasphemies and injuries are taken note of, and these are weighed in the scales of mercy and are forgiven. The electing grace, the predestinating love, brushes aside these obstacles, and the blaspheming tongue is made eloquent with adoration and praise, and the breath which was once all threatening and slaughter now breathes nothing but the word of peace and salvation. Such is the mercy and wondrous grace of God our Savior.
IV WE HAVE HERE A STUDY IN PSYCHOLOGY. Ignorance may be real. Prejudices, blinding prejudices, may be real, and unbelief may have some excuse, or at least some palliation. It is not, indeed, blameless it never can be, because the single eye of a pure heart ought always to discern the true light from Heaven wheresoever it shines. Still, it may be that, with real conscientiousness, and under a mistaken view of duty, and with a blinding devotion to certain tenets of philosophy or religion which have been received without due care, and concurrently with a zeal for God and for supposed truth, a man may reject and even hate the truth. He may mistake his own opinions for Divine truth, and so be bitterly opposed to whatever opposes them. And he may misconceive of the truth and ignorantly believe that it sanctions this or that error inconsistent with the fundamental principles of righteousness and godliness. Had St. Paul from the first really known Jesus Christ, and had he known the worthlessness of Levitical or Pharisaic righteousness, he would never have been found in the ranks of the enemies of Christ. But he acted in ignorance and in unbelief. When the scales fell off the eyes of his understanding, the rebound of his spirit toward his Lord was instantaneous. From this we learn a lesson of caution in judging even the unbeliever. There may be some cause of his unbelief which we know not of, but which God knows, and will perhaps some day remove. Then the skeptic will come with a bruised and humble spirit to Christ, and the Ethiopian will change his skin.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON. Vers. 1-9. Conversion.
We have here an instance and a picture of conversion of a human soul pursuing the wrong course, being arrested by the Divine hand, and submitting itself willingly to the rule of Christ.
I A HUMAN SOUL PURSUING ITS OWN WRONG COURSE. Paul was moving with the whole force of his strong and ardent nature in the direction of active persecution of the friends of Christ (vers. 1, 2, 5). Sin sometimes takes this special form now. More often it takes the shape of
(1) guilty indulgence, or
(2) utter worldliness, or
(3) confirmed unbelief and rejection of the truth, or
(4) indecision and procrastination.
But whatever particular form it takes, its essential nature is this that the soul which was created to love, honor, and please God is pursuing another and an opposite path; it is found in highways or byways of evil. It is not with God, with Christ, but against him. (Mat_12:30) It itself is not in active sympathy with him, rejoicing in him, delighting in his truth and happy in his service; and all the influences, both those which (as in the case of Saul at this time) are the direct result of conscious effort, and those which flow spontaneously and unconsciously from the life, are hostile to his truth and to his kingdom.
II THE DIVINE ARREST. (Vers. 3-5.) Paul tells us (Php_3:12) that he was "apprehended of Christ Jesus." Christ laid hold upon him as he was going on his guilty way, arrested him in his own name, and charged him to turn round and pursue another and a better course. The Savior"s interposition in his case was unusually sudden, and it was exceedingly striking in its form (see vers. 3-5). It is seldom that the hand of the heavenly Lord is laid so manifestly, so powerfully, on the human heart. Yet it is being continually laid upon us, and we now are being arrested by him, with effectual power in redeeming love.
1. Christ"s arrest of us is sometimes sudden, but more often gradual. Sometimes a man who has been proceeding far in some way of folly and of sin is instantly convinced that he is guilty and foolish; in an hour, in a moment, the truth of God flashes into his soul and lights up the dark depths within, and it shines upon and illumines the dreary and fatal path before him, and he stops and turns. More frequently the Lord of love and power works gradually in the heart; by degrees he insinuates his heavenly truth, and gradually makes the soul to see and to feel that the way of selfishness and of sin is a path which must no longer be pursued, from which it must escape for its life.
2. The Divine arrest is sometimes by extraordinary but usually by ordinary means. Occasionally God comes in power to the human soul, by some vision of the night or of the day, or by some very remarkable ordering of his providence, by some experience which is shared by no other or by a very few; but commonly the hand of his renewing power is laid upon us by ordinary means, by the gracious influences of a Christian home, by the appeals of the Christian minister or teacher, by the sickness which brings death and judgment into full view, or by the loss which compels us to feel that we do need and must secure a Divine Friend who can succor and console in the drear and lonely hour of life.
III THE SOUL"S SUBMISSION TO THE DIVINE WILL. The first result of feeling the pressure of the Divine hand may be, perhaps generally is, spiritual agitations. We may be "trembling and astonished" (ver. 6), or, if not moved so powerfully, we shall be agitated, earnestly concerned, exceedingly solicitous; we shall be as those thoroughly awakened who have been partially asleep, our spiritual faculty of inquiry will be called into fullest exercise. But the main and all-important result is spiritual submission readiness and eagerness to accept the rule of Christ. The question of Saul will be the question of our heart, now reduced to loyalty and self-surrender, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Christ will tell us that he wants us to trust him, to follow him, to work for him. And these three things we shall gladly do. But the victory is gained, the one supreme step is taken, death is left behind, and the gates of life are before us, when, responding to his merciful and mighty touch, we submit ourselves to his sovereign will, when we turn round in spirit and say, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? C.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-8. Saul on his way to Damascus.
I THE PICTURE OF THE PERSECUTOR. It is almost the picture of a monster. It resembles the idea of the fearful dragon-monster, which breathes forth smoke and flame, and threatens to devour the sun and moon and stars. Saul is inspired by a murderous feeling against the disciples of Christ. H e himself afterwards recognized that to persecute them was to persecute him. (1Ti_1:13) Zeal for God without knowledge is another of his own descriptions of his state of mind. (Rom_10:2) It leads directly to the devilish love of destruction. (Joh_8:44) We can distinguish pure from carnal zeal only by the effects: the one impels us to build up, the other to destroy; the one to save men"s lives, the other to slay, and making a solitude to call it peace. But there are deep problems in the life of mind. Never is a man madly irritated against an opinion, violent against a cause or a person, but it is a symptom of a struggle within. The man is really at war with himself. A conviction is reluctantly forcing its way upon him; he feels the goads of conscience, and vents his resentment upon objects outside of himself.
II THE PERSECUTOR CHECKED IN HIS CAREER. Notice the accompaniments of the revelation. They are:
1. Outward. A light out of heaven like lightning plays around the persecutor. He falls to the earth like a thunder-struck man. In this position the impressions of the ear come in to enhance those of the eye. A voice is heard calling him by name: "Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?
2. Inward. Saul has no difficulty in putting these things together and drawing the true inference from them. "Who art thou, Lord?" betrays his suspicion, perhaps his certainty, that the voice is that of the crucified One, against whose might he has been striving. And the voice returns, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." Then follows the direction to go into Damascus and to await further orders. When the outward phenomena and the inward revelation are so closely interwoven, it is difficult to separate the one from the other, and unnecessary to do so. But the point to fix attention upon is this that revelation is always in the soul. How the new truth comes to us is not of so much importance as what permanent deposit it leaves behind it. "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me," said the quondam persecutor. The true mystery and wonder lie in the soul; all else is superficial and subsidiary compared with that. By what passes within we may interpret what passes without, but not vice versa. This scene is far more impressive and sheds a clear light on the conflicts of our own being, if we see in it a man cast down by the sudden splendor and terror of a conviction against which he had long been struggling. It is said that we never understand a truth until we have striven against it. He whom we have battled against as a deadly foe becomes our lifelong master when we are once fairly defeated at his hands.
III OTHER MEANINGS IN THE EVENT.
1. Here was a personal appearance of Jesus. Jesus lives! This is the thought which comforts his friends, and strikes terror into his foes. "I am he that is, and was, and is to come." "I am the living one!". (Rev_1:4, Rev_1:18) Never was this revelation of the living Christ forgotten by Saul. It afterwards became a main subject of his preaching, as it was the core of his creed. The living Christ is, indeed, the expression to us of the living and loving personality of God, of the will to save and to redeem evermore.
2. It was an appearance of Jesus in glory. The splendor and terror which surround him bespeak his sovereign might. "Why dost thou persecute me?" It is vain as well as wrong to contend against One to whose holiness and majesty the conscience bears its unerring witness. Saul seemed to think that he was wrestling against flesh and blood when he hurried those defenseless Christians; and that by weapons of flesh and blood Christianity might be overcome. But behold the majestic figure of One who comes with clouds. To offer him the show of violence is the extreme of irreverence and of folly. Never was this lesson forgotten. Our sins against our fellow-Christians are sins against Christ. We insult the love that suffered for us, and the majesty that rules and judges us.
3. Yet it was a revelation of the glorified humanity of Jesus. Saul saw him and heard him speak (ver. 17; 27:15). The Redeemer glorifies the human form and nature which he wore on earth. Here lay a seed of St. Paul"s teaching on the spiritual body which glorified saints are to wear. Earth and heaven, the seen and the unseen world, are for ever joined and reconciled in the body in which he lived, suffered, rose, and reigns.
4. It was a revelation of exquisite Divine love and grace.
(1) Towards the persecuted. Their sorrows are the sorrows of Jesus. He makes their sufferings his own. (Mat_25:45) His exaltation and glory do not lift him out of their reach. He reigns to throw the aegis of his providence and protection over the defenseless flock of his little ones. He is the Head, and all the members are in vital union with him, and receive from the fullness of his life.
(2) Towards the persecutor. Sin in its extreme of violence and rebellion is here overthrown, and the weapons struck from the hands of the rebel not by the tyrant"s force, but by the gentleness of Divine love. "Where sin had abounded, grace did much more abound". (Rom_5:20) "Tis hard to kick against such goads. Condemnation hardens the rebel in his opposition; gentleness melts his heart and converts him into an ally and a friend. "O Galilean, thou hast conquered!" The conversion of Saul is a type of the whole spirit and method of the gospel. Unlike the kingdoms of this world, which rest on force and must repel violence by violence, it rests on the negation of force, the eternal affirmation of love. It is strong in its weakness, and converts foes into friends by gaining the victory over the intelligence and the conscience. J.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD Vers. 1-9. The sign from heaven.
The state of the Church and the world calling for such a sign. The want of a greater spirit among the apostles, to undertake the new leadership as the gospel went forth to challenge the whole world. The awakening mind of the disciples Samaria, Philip and the eunuch, Caesarea, (Act_8:40) all pointed to a new epoch. The hour was there; but where was the man? Peculiar qualifications necessary intellect; culture; burning zeal; personal experience of the power of Christ. Notice
I THE CHALLENGE MET.
1. Saul represented persecution. A successful raid at Damascus would be a decisive blow at the new sect. Preparation made. If prisoners could be brought bound to Jerusalem, an appeal could be made to crush the heresy.
2. The challenge was made to the utmost. He was suffered to draw nigh to Damascus, and was surrounded by his fellow-persecutors.
3. The blow which struck him down was distinctly supernatural, a sign from heaven. Jesus did not fight with carnal weapons. He smote with "light out of heaven," and a voice addressing the heart and conscience.
II THE MAN CHOSEN AND CALLED.
1. His previous history showed the work of God"s Spirit. His question, "Who art thou, Lord?" His remembrance of Stephen and his words. His immediate submission.
2. The manner of Saul"s conversion a preparation of his soul for the part he was to take in the Church"s work. It was greatly independent of human agency (cf. Augustine; Luther). It was a miracle which to him became the moral basis of all other miracles. It enabled him to say, I have seen the Lord Christ;" and gave him at once an apostolic position.
3. The overwhelming nature of the evidence and the deep spiritual work of those few days prepared such a mind as Paul"s for grappling with the mysteries of faith. The eyes were shut that they might be opened the more clearly to spiritual realities. It was especially necessary that Saul should beau his new life feeling that Jesus was able to do all things, that he was revealing his Divine kingdom in the earth.
III THE GRACE MANIFESTED.
1. The gentleness and compassion. The same stroke might have slain. The enemy was loved, not hated; the shame of his defeat partly hidden from onlookers.
2. The wonderful change wrought by the Spirit: the persecutor turned into the foremost apostle.
3. The gift of such a man to the Church and to the world. Think of what Paul has been to those who came after him. The treasures of knowledge, the marvels of personal history. Especially the fact of his conversion itself as an evidence of the truth of Christianity. Lord Lyttelton and many others convinced by it. Standing miracle which no one can resist except by subterfuge. The effect on the Church at the time and on the Jewish world. A great conversion is always a great converting power.
APPLICATION.
1. There is a gate of grace close by the gate of sin. Paul was going to Damascus to do evil. Jesus met him to turn him on the path of life.
2. The new world may be entered blindfold, yet if we do what the Lord tells us to do our eyes will be opened at last. R.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER
Vers. 1-5. The one question of conversion.
With this paragraph the landmark of the history changes. The conspicuous figure of Paul is seen, and is not again lost to sight till a certain Lord"s day morning dawns on the Isle Patmos. The differences that exist in the life and lot of various men often awaken thought in those who think enough, oftener envy or murmur in those who fail to think enough. It is a "notable token of the character of such envy that, when excited, it is almost invariably in those instances which show differences of worldly lot or providential circumstance. But amid all the differences that might legitimately surprise, none can for a moment compare in intrinsic significance with that which gave, still gives, ever will give, undying renown to Saul that he is, and is set forth as the type of conversion. He stands before us as remarkable in many ways as an apostle; as a writer of many Epistles, ever studied, never wearied of; as a first missionary to the Gentiles, and most bold preacher of the gospel; as the planter and settler of so many primitive Churches far and wide; and as a man of such endurance and of so many hairbreadth escapes, that men would say for the one he had an iron constitution, for the other he wore a charmed life. But he is most known, he is apparently most intended to be known, by just what belongs to his conversion. The tale of Saul without his conversion (which he repeats within our knowledge twice for himself, how many times more we cannot say) would be an instance, and in the intensest form too, of the play of "Hamlet" without Hamlet. Would that there were those, and many of them, who, coveting "the best gifts," coveted this unworldly distinction the thoroughness, the conspicuousness, the ever-enduring practical results of such a conversion! But how unusual is this ambition! The prominence given to the conversion of Saul cannot mean less than this, that it is a sample. Yet is it not put where it is to stand there in solitary unique grandeur, inapproachable, but that it may be approached, studied, reproduced. Let us look into it at the moment of its crisis, the moment when such unwonted words started to the lips of Saul, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
I IN THIS QUESTION IS FOUND THE OUTSPOKEN CONFESSION OF PAST DARKNESS, IGNORANCE, MISTAKE. Conversion reveals to a man, not only many other very important things, as time goes on, of which he had never dreamt, but it surprisingly persuades him of this to begin with that he does not know something which he thought he did know perhaps thought he knew particularly well. What an astonishing thing to hear Saul asking, of all other questions, such a one as this, "Who art thou, Lord? "This is a great point to gain. Saul had thought he did know this, and knew that Jesus was not one to be called his "Lord" or "Lord" at all.
1. He had put his own idea and his own impression on Christ; but not the right ones, and of the right he was ignorant and destitute. How many do this! No name, perhaps, better known to them than the Name of Jesus, no nature less known or more mistaken. It is the darkness which belongs to nature; to willful neglect and habit.
2. The very wrongness of those ideas and impressions were the measure of the persistency with which they were held and the intemperateness with which they were expressed. Paul afterwards tells us this "I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth," and he developed his "thought" into the acts of violent persecution. But when Saul utters the cry of the text it is because he is just beginning the escape the escape of his life, the escape for his life from that long dark mistake, that native delusion and ignorance. And afterwards he does not excuse his wrong "thought," but condemns himself with deepest contrition as "the chief of sinners." Saul was utterly in the wrong before his conversion; and is not every one else utterly in the wrong until his conversion? What a solemn responsibility this one thing is in life, to make up the mind how to think, to speak, to act towards Christ!
II IN THIS QUESTION IS FOUND THE EVIDENCE OF THE AWAKENING OF A NEW AND KEEN DESIRE.
1. Past darkness and mistake (specially in proportion to its moral blamableness), not only may incur the deep-settled habit, but they generally do so. They strangle, till they kill, anything like a natural healthy desire for real light, real knowledge. They seem to be able to go to the length of destroying the power for its further use on earth. Then what a power it must be that is needed to speak life, strength, use again into that palsy!
2. The one unvarying testimony of Scripture witnesses to one great silent Power, alone able "to create a clean heart, and to renew a right spirit" within man. It is that great Power which wakens again in the deep disused of human nature the keen desire to know, the relish of true knowledge, the thirst for light and love and the liberty of Christ. As on that day so eventful Saul journeyed in hot haste over the hot sands to Damascus, but with raging heart hottest of all, a new future is opening for him, for a new future is opening in him, ere yet the echoes of his brief question die on the air. When in the intolerable blaze of that bright light that passed the brilliance of the noonday sun he fell to the earth, and when the heavenly voice of the risen One twice summoned him, "calling him by his name," it may well be that, if there were anything to waken after too long sleep confessed, it now should "hear and live." And it was so. Some power has reached and touched the vital germ within, yet unextinct, and it owns to the sudden impulse. There is no more genuine evidence of God"s mighty Spirit being savingly at work than when every hindrance, every excuse, every delay, falls back, and you press on simply to ask for Christ. Then human nature"s want, sin, misery, are arrived at the door of Heaven"s infinite wealth, happiness, willingness. Keen is the force of human appetite and keener the edge of passion; keen are our worldly desires and keener our mad wrath; but keenest of all and ever conquering is the force of the desire to know Christ, when it is the Spirit of God who puts it into the heart and kindles its flame. And does not this sample-conversion history guide us most closely to see what are the Spirit"s real ways with our natures, which need first obstructions removed, and thereupon force and life restored? The treatment shall be such as reveals to him who experiences it at one glance the world of darkness and error and sin that has been so long within, but close upon that tells him of new, strange, and blessed life astir within also.
III IN THIS QUESTION IS DISCERNIBLE THE HUMBLED AND ALARMED SELF TURNING ROUND AND BECOMING REALLY READY TO EXERCISE A SIMPLE, DEEP TRUST. HOW many "hope" they are ready "think" they are ready, have some sort and some amount of "wish" to be ready, but of whom all the truth is, they are not really ready to trust Christ! They are not really ready to cast themselves on mercy, nor to acknowledge that "this is the work they have to do," namely, "to believe on him whom God hath sent." They are not yet really ready to believe that salvation is to be had by trust and not by any other way; by trust in Christ, and trust illimitable. Yet is there no surer, no safer article of all our faith. And healthy life and fruit are only where faith is rooted in Christ, and root to finest tendril and branch to finest twig do all derive their nourishment and their sap from him. So Saul"s question and the sharp, direct method of it signify then, evidently enough, both the hopeful and the trustful state into which he had come, or was ready immediately "by the grace of God" to come. Men sometimes ask a question indifferent to its answer; they sometimes ask a question for the sake of the merest information; they sometimes ask a question for some critical purpose or to block a question waiting on themselves; but this question was none of these. This is like a question indeed. Angels listen to it, and listen to its answer too, to ring out Heaven"s wild Amen. " Jesus listened, and a soul was saved. Travel, then, the circle of "the earth and the world" and "the heavens," and there is not a question we could address to any or all of them which could equal the momentousness of thin, when, at last turning to Christ, a man asks, "Who art thou, Lord?" To Jesus Saul had borne himself ever so proudly, as many, many do now their will ungiven to him, their trust flitting everywhere else but not settled on him, their love and allegiance unyielded to him; and when he, even he, asked, "Who art thou, Lord?" it meant the coming down for ever of pride. So the confession which we have seen to hide here, and the keen desire we have seen to bud forth here, led to the utter renunciation of self-trust, and to the simplest and most entire trust in Christ. None can ask this question for you; you must ask it yourself. None can answer it but Jesus, and he will answer it. B.
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 vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 26, 31, 32, 36 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against…
Act_9:1-3
And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples.
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Saul, a persecutor
Saul was an educated young man, and that he should engage in the work of persecution strikes us as anomalous and unnatural. In young men we naturally expect a frank concession of freedom to think and generous and chivalrous impulses. We are not much surprised when we find intolerance as men advance in life, for age is conservative, and may be narrow and bigoted. Young men are often sceptical and unsettled in their notions; they question the correctness of opinions long held to be true, and employ themselves in adjusting new discoveries to received truths. But the very nature of this process tends to make them liberal, for they cannot deny to others the liberty they claim for themselves. Old men, however, are confirmed believers or unbelievers; and hate to be opposed or unsettled. Hence we are not surprised that the Sanhedrin should be composed in a great part of elders, nor that the principal functionaries of the holy office, should be men of advanced years. Yet few men, young or old, have been so furious in persecution as was Saul (Act_8:3; Act_22:4; Act_26:9-11; Gal_1:13; 1Ti_1:13; 1Co_15:9).
I. The prevalence of persecution. The manner in which new views have been received is one of the most remarkable things in history. The public tears of Pericles were necessary to save Aspasia, suspected of philosophy; but all his eloquence could not save Anaxagoras for having taught that there was an intelligent cause of all things. Socrates was put to death for teaching the same thing. Aristotle only saved his life by flight in order, as he said, to save the Athenians a new crime against philosophy. Plato was twice thrown into prison, and once sold as a slave. Galileo was imprisoned for maintaining that the sun is the centre of the universe. The Saviour was crucified, and in almost every country His religion has encountered opposition and secured a triumph only as the result of a baptism of blood and fire.
II. Its causes.
1. The war of opinion. A mans opinions are a part of himself, and become as dear as life or liberty. They are the measure of his reputation and influence, and are the result of all his experience and studies. To attack them is, therefore, to attack him; to overthrow them is to take away all that constitutes his claim to notice while living, or to remembrance when dead. This remark has additional force, if the matter is connected with religion. To attack this is to assail that which must be dearest of all to the heart of man, inasmuch as it may leave man in a world indisputably wretched with no hope of a better. Religious opinions, therefore, have been among the slowest to make progress; the strife in regard to them has been the most bitter; and freedom of religious speech has been among the last of the victories secured by the conflicts of past ages.
2. Vested interests. There are institutions, endowments, orders of men, customs and usages, that grow out of forms of doctrine. All the religions of ancient and most of modern times were sustained by law. Rome indeed recognised those of other nations, but then it was a principle that while each country recognised the rest, it allowed no attack on its own. When, therefore, Christianity attacked all forms of idolatry, it arrayed against itself all the malice of a mighty priesthood, and all the power of the State; and the result is well known.
3. The sanction given by religion to the corruptions of the human heart. The plan of the Prince of darkness has been to secure this for the indulgence of passion. Hence to attack vice, as true Christianity always does, and to carry a pure morality over the world, was to array against itself the power of all the religions of the earth.
4. The fixed aversion of the heart by nature to the holiness which God requires of man; to the scheme of salvation by the Cross, which is an offence to one class, and a stumbling block to another; to the doctrines of human depravity and of a just and changeless retribution, which grate hard on the natural feelings and are repulsive to human pride.
III. Its effects.
1. It has become, as the result of these trials, a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but is established more firmly and spread more widely. It has led men to look with favour on what is persecuted; created a conviction that a right has been violated; awakened sympathy, stimulated inquiry in regard to the persecuted sentiments; and made the persecuted more firmly attached to their principles, and more eloquent in their defence. It has long since passed into a proverb that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Imperial power and every device of human ingenuity has been resorted to in order to extinguish it; and it may be assumed now that if Christianity is to become extinct in the world, it must be by some other means than by persecution.
2. In like manner, persecution becomes a test of the reality of religion. It is not, indeed, a direct demonstration of its truth. The advocates of other systems have borne persecution patiently, but although this does not prove that they were suffering for the truth, yet it may be still true that the mass of men will somehow see in the endurance of Christian martyrs an argument for the Divine origin of their religion. The number has been so great--they have borne their sufferings so patiently--they have met death so calmly--so many of them have been distinguished for intelligence--and so many of them were witnesses of what they affirmed to be true, that the general impression on mankind is that sufferings so varied, so protracted, so meekly borne, could be only in the cause of truth.
3. The results of persecution are worth all which they cost. The results of the imprisonment of Galileo, of the sufferings of Columbus, etc., are more than compensated for. And the happiness which has been conferred on the world by Christianity since the fires of persecution were first kindled, and that which the world will yet enjoy when it shall be diffused over all the earth have been and will be more than a compensation for all the sufferings of all the martyrs. (A. Barnes, D. D.)
The conversion of great men
As it is in the exquisite mystery of printing, the great difficulty lies in the composing and working of the first sheet, for by that one many thousands are easily printed; so the work of the ministry is to convert great men.
In uno Caesare multi insunt Marii
In one great man are many inferiors contained. When the great wheel of the clock is set a-moving, all the inferior wheels will move of their own accord. How zealous was St. Paul about the conversion of Sergius Paulus, the deputy of the country! He knew well enough that to take such a great fish was more than to catch many little ones, though the least is not to be despised. (Calamy.)
A remarkable conversion
This incident occurred many years ago in the heart of the Black Forest in Germany. It was at the dead of night. The place was lighted by torches, which cast a ghastly glare through the surrounding gloom. Savage looking men, fully armed, were sitting round in a circle. One of their number was holding up something in his hand. These men were robbers. That evening they had robbed a stagecoach. According to their custom, they were now engaged in selling by auction among themselves the articles that had been stolen. Travelling bags, different articles of clothing, and various other things had been disposed of in this way. Last of all a New Testament was held up. The man who acted as auctioneer introduced this article with some wicked remark, which threw the company into a roar of laughter. One of the company suggested, as a joke, that the auctioneer should open the book and read a chapter, as he said, for their edification. This motion was seconded, and carried unanimously. Opening the book at random, he began to read with an air of mock solemnity. As he went on reading, laughs and jokes were heard all round. While this was going on one man in the company, the oldest member of the gang, and who had been their ringleader in all that was evil, became silent. He sat with his hands clasped on his knees, lost in deep thought. It happened that the passage the auctioneer had just read was the very one he had heard read thirty years before, at family prayer in his fathers house, on the morning of the day when he left that home for the last time. In a moment all that scene came back to his memory. He thought of his father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and all that had made that home so sweet and happy to him then. Since leaving home he had never opened a Bibles never offered a prayer, and never had a thought of God or of eternity. But now, in a moment, his soul seemed to wake from that long sleep of thirty years. He thought of God; he thought of his wicked life, and was filled with sorrow and shame and fear. He was so occupied with these thoughts and feelings, that he took no notice of what was going on around him, till one of his comrades clapped him rudely on the shoulder, and said, Now, old dreamer, what will you give for that book? you need it most of all, for you have been the biggest sinner among us. Thats true, said the startled robber. Give me that book, Ill pay you the full price for it. The next day the robbers scattered, and went into the neighbouring towns and villages to sell what they had got by robbing. The man with the Testament also went away. But he did not wish to sell anything. He sought a quiet, lonely place. There he remained for several days, reading that wonderful Book of God, shedding bitter tears over his sins, and earnestly praying for Gods pardoning grace. God heard his prayer. He found pardon and peace in believing, and became a new man. After awhile he went into one of the nearest towns to see a minister of the gospel. There he heard that the gang of robbers to which he had belonged had all been taken prisoners. He told the minister, whom he went to see, all about his previous life, and the change he had experienced. Then he gave himself up to the officers of justice. The rest of the gang were all put to death. But his free confession and evident repentance saved his life. He was put in prison, indeed; but, as he continued to behave like a truly penitent man, he was soon pardoned and released, and taken into the employment of one of the princes of that neighbourhood, and he proved a blessing to those about him all his days. (Christian Age.)
Murder will out
In one sense, if not in the common understanding of that phrase. If hatred is in a mans heart, hatred will show itself in a mans words and acts; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. And if hatred does show itself in a mans words and acts, it is because hatred is in his heart. It is of no use for a man to say that his harsh and bitter words dont mean anything; that they are only on the surface. They do mean a great deal; they mean that under the surface he is fully as bad as he shows himself above the surface. And as it is with men so it is with children. When a child stamps and screams with anger, and just wishes nurse or teacher was dead, that little one is breathing out the threatenings and slaughter which are in that little ones heart. Parents and guardians ought to have this truth in mind in dealing with the children of their charge. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)
Went unto the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus.--
Souls commission
We learn from 2Co_11:32-33, that Damascus was at this time under the government of Aretas, the king of Arabia Petraea. How it came to be so, having been previously under Vitellius, the Roman president of Syria (Jos. Ant. 14:4, § 5), is not clear. It is probable, however, that in the war which Aretas had declared against Herod Antipas, in consequence of the Tetrarchs divorcing his daughter in order that he might marry Herodias (see Mat_14:3; Luk_3:14), he had been led, after defeating the Tetrarch (Jos. Ant. 17:6, § 1), to push his victories further; and, taking advantage of the absence of Vitellius, who hastened to Rome on hearing of the death of Tiberius (A.D. 37), had seized on Damascus. In this abeyance of the control of the Roman power, Aretas may have desired to conciliate the priestly party at Jerusalem by giving facilities to their action against the sect which they would naturally represent as identified with the Galileans against whom he had been waging war. The Jewish population at Damascus was, at this time, very numerous. Josephus relates that not less than ten thousand were slain in a tumult under Nero (Wars, 2:25), and the narrative of the Acts (verse 14) implies that there were many disciples of the Lord among them. Many of these were probably refugees from Jerusalem, and the local synagogues were called upon to enforce the decrees of the Sanhedrin of the Holy City against them. (Dean Plumptre.)
If he found any of this way.--
The way
We have here the first occurrence of a term which seems to have been used familiarly as a synonym for the disciples of Christ (Act_19:9; Act_19:23; Act_22:4; Act_24:14; Act_24:22). It may have originated in the words in which Christ had claimed to be Himself the Way, as well as the Truth and the Life (Joh_14:6); or in His language as to the strait way that led to eternal life (Mat_7:13); or, perhaps, again, in the prophecy of Isaiah (Isa_40:3) cited by the Baptist (Mat_3:3; Mar_1:3) as to preparing the way of the Lord. Prior to the general acceptance of the term Christian (Act_11:26) it served as a convenient, neutral designation by which might be used by others wished to speak respectfully, or, at least, neutrally, instead of the opprobrious epithet of the Nazarenes (Act_24:5). The history of the term Methodists, those that follow a distinct method or way of life, offers a partial but interesting analogue. (Dean Plumptre.)
The way
I. The way is for lost wanderers. The very expression suggests mans need of a way, i.e., of salvation. This need arises out of--
1. Mens ignorance, errors, sin, danger. Men are lost, and no created power or wisdom can recover them and make them safe.
2. Mens practical progressive nature put them in the right way, and then they need leading and keeping in it. A religion adapted to mankind must not only restore the wanderers, but further them on the right road.
II. This Way is Christ. I am the Way, the new and living Way.
1. Every way leads from some place. Christ leads from the land of bondage darkness, death. He both makes and shows a way out of a state of sin and condemnation.
2. What is the Way? The Lord, who delivers and conducts His emancipated ones in the way of obedience and righteousness by His Spirit. The new way of life adopted by the first Christians impressed beholders, who hence gave them the title of the people of the Way.
3. To what end?
(1) To God.
(2) To heaven. There is fulness of satisfaction in this provision and prospect.
III. The way is wisely planned and made. It is--
1. Clear and plain, not to be mistaken by those who are resolved to find it.
2. Straight and narrow. It is the one only way from which the traveller must not deviate.
3. Safe. Narrow, but not too narrow for him who will keep it.
IV. The way is for all men. Then--
1. Discover it. It is not hard to find it: Be not misled. Take no other.
2. Walk in it. It is one of two. It leads to life, the other to destruction. It is in vain to praise it unless you make it yours.
3. Perseverance in it. Only such as continue in it can reach the goal.
4. Point it out to others. All true Christians live for this. (J. R. Thompson, M. A.)
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus.--
Damascus
The city has the interest of being one of the oldest in the world. It appears in the history of Abraham (Gen_14:15; Gen_15:2), and was, traditionally, the scene of the murder of Abel. David placed his garrisons there (2Sa_8:6; 1Ch_18:6), and, under Rezon, it resisted the power of Solomon (1Ki_11:24). Its fair streams, Abana and Pharpar, were, in the eyes of the Syrian leper, better than all the waters of Israel (2Ki_5:12). It was the centre of the Syrian kingdom in its alliances and wars with those of Israel and Judah (2Ki_14:28; 2Ki_16:9-10; Amo_1:3; Amo_1:5). Its trade with Tyre in wares, and wine of Helbon, and white wool is noted by Ezekiel (chap 27:16, 18). It had been taken by Parmenion for Alexander the Great, and again by Pompeius. It was the birth place of Nicolaos of Damascus, the historian and rhetorician who is conspicuous as the counsellor of Herod the Great (Jos. Ant. 12:3, § 2; 16:2, § 2). At a later period it was the residence of the Ommiyad caliphs, and the centre of the world of Islam. The beauty of its site, the river which the Greeks knew as Chrysorrhoas, the Golden Stream, its abounding fertility, the gardens of roses, made it, as Lamartine has said, a predestined capital. Such was the scene which met the bodily eye of the fanatic persecutor. The historian does not care to dwell on its description, and hastens to that which met his inward gaze. Assuming the journey to have been continuous, the approach to Damascus would come on the seventh or eighth day after leaving Jerusalem. (Dean Plumptre.)
St. Paul on the way to Damascus
How many thoughts have been awakened by the approach to the most ancient of existing cities! Abraham, as he journeyed from the far East, drew near to Damascus, and Elisha, as he journeyed from Samaria (2Ki_8:7), and Ahaz when he went to meet the king of Assyria (2Ki_16:9), and Mahomet who, as he approached it, exclaimed, Man can have but one Paradise in life--my Paradise is fixed above; and turned away lest that glorious city should tempt him from his mission. But of all the travellers who, as they journeyed came near to Damascus, there is none who has such an interest for us as the great apostle. Let us consider--
I. Pauls conversion. Conversion--i.e., a turning round from bad to good, from good to better, is necessary for us all. We are sometimes inclined to think that bur characters, once formed, can never be changed. This is not true. Our natural dispositions and faculties rarely change; but their direction can be changed; and the difference between their upward and their downward direction deserves the name of conversion. Paul, in great measure, remained the same as before--he retained his zeal, his power, his energy; but the turn which was given to these qualities gave a turn to his whole life, and, through him, a turn to the life of the whole world. He approached Damascus a furious persecutor; he entered it a humble penitent; he left it a great apostle. So is it with us. Much about us never can be changed; but much about us can and ought and, with Gods help, will be changed. We are all on the road, not to Damascus, but to some end or object. To every one of us, as to St. Paul, that end or object will at last appear in a light totally different from what we now expect; and on that changed light may depend our happiness or misery, our usefulness or uselessness.
II. How it was brought about.
1. By the vision of Christ. How this entered into his soul we know not; but that it did enter there is sure from all that he afterwards did and said. And it is this same communion with Christ which still is the most powerful instrument of making every human soul better, and wiser, and nobler than it was before.
2. By calling to his mind the true knowledge of what he was doing. He thought that he was doing God service by trampling down an heretical sect. That voice from heaven told him that in those poor Christians he was persecuting the Great Friend and Deliverer of the world. So it is still; often we think that we are all right; that no one can find fault with us. And yet all the while, as God sees us, we are injuring the very cause we wish to promote; those of whom we think so little may be the very likenesses and representatives to us of Christ. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.
3. By the appeal to the best part of his own heart. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks--against the goad, against the stings, of conscience. He had doubtless already had better feelings stirring within him from what he had seen of the death of Stephen and of the good deeds of the early Christians. In this way his conversion, sudden as it seemed at last, had been long prepared. His conscience had been ill at case; and in this perplexity it needed only that one blessed interposition of his merciful Lord to recall him to a sense of his better self. And each of us has a barrier against sin set up within him against which we may kick, but which will, thanks to the mercy of God, long resist our efforts.
III. What resulted from it. This is too great a subject to be spoken of here in all its parts. But one single point is put before us by this mornings lesson (Act_24:25). If we wish to make St. Pauls conversion and doctrine anything more than a mere name, we shall try to bear away from the road on which it took place the thought of at least these three things--the duty of justice, and self-restraint, and the certainty of a judgment to come. (Dean Stanley.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv10, 29 Chapter 3
Chapter 3
THE NEW CONVERT AND HIS HUMAN TEACHER.
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Act_9:10-11
SAUL of Tarsus was converted outside the city, but the work was only begun there. Christ would put honour upon the work of human ministry, and therefore He directs the stricken sinner to continue his journey and enter into Damascus, where he should be instructed in his future course of action, though Christ Himself might have told him all that was needful. It was much the same on the occasion of the so-called conversion of Cornelius, the pious centurion. The Lord made a revelation to the centurion, but it was only a revelation directing him to send for Peter, who should instruct him in the way of salvation. God instituted a human ministry that man might gain light and knowledge by the means and assistance of his brother-man, and therefore in both cases the Lord points the anxious inquirer to men like themselves, who could speak to them in Christs stead and guide them into fuller knowledge. Why could not Christ have revealed the whole story of His life, the full meaning of His doctrine, without human aid or intervention, save that He wished, even in the very case of the messenger whose call and apostleship were neither by man nor through man, to honour the human agency which He had ordained for the dissemination and establishment of the gospel? If immediate revelation and the conscious presence of God and the direct work of the Spirit could ever have absolved penitent sinners from using a human ministry and seeking direction and help from mortals like themselves, surely it was in the cases of Saul of Tarsus and Cornelius of Caesarea; and yet in both cases a very important portion of the revelation made consisted in a simple intimation where human assistance could be found.
Saul after the vision rose up from the earth and was led by the hand into Damascus. He was there three days without sight, wherein he neither did eat nor drink. This period of his life and this terrible experience is regarded by many as the time to which may be traced the weakness of eyesight and the delicate vision under which he ever afterwards suffered. The question has often been raised, What was St. Pauls thorn, or rather stake, in the flesh? Various opinions have been hazarded, but that which seems to me most likely to be true identifies the thorn or stake with severe ophthalmia.
Six substantial reasons are brought forward by Archdeacon Farrar in defence of this view.
(1) When writing to the Galatians St. Paul implies that his infirmity might well have made him an object of loathing to them; and this is specially the case with ophthalmia in the East. {see Gal_4:14}
(2) This supposition again gives a deeper meaning to the Apostles words to these same Galatians that they would at the beginning of their Christian career have plucked out their eyes to place them at his service. {Gal_4:15}
(3) The term "a stake in the flesh" is quite appropriate to the disease, which imparts to the eyes the appearance of having been wounded by a sharp splinter.
(4) Ophthalmia of that kind might have caused epilepsy.
(5) It would explain the words "See with how large letters I have written unto you with mine own hand," as a natural reference to the difficulties the Apostle experienced in writing, and would account for his constant use of amanuenses or secretaries in writing his Epistles, as noted, for instance, in Rom_16:22 and implied in 1Co_16:21.
(6) Ophthalmia would account for St. Pauls ignorance of the person of the high priest. {Act_23:5} This question has, however, been a moot point since the days of the second century, when Irenaeus of Lyons discussed it in his great work against Heresies, book 5. chap. 3., and Tertullian suggested that St. Pauls stake in the flesh was simply an exaggerated head-ache or ear-ache.
Let us now, however, turn to the more certain facts brought before us in the words of the sacred narrative. St. Paul was led by the hand into Damascus just as afterwards, on account, doubtless, of the same bodily infirmity dating from this crisis, he "was sent forth to go as far as to the sea," and then "was conducted as far as Athens." {cf. Act_17:10; Act_17:14-15} From this time forth the kindly assistance of friends and companions became absolutely necessary to the Apostle if his footsteps were to be guided aright, and hence it is that he felt solitude such as he endured at Athens a very trying time because he had no sense of security whenever he ventured to walk abroad. He became, in fact, a blind man striving to thread his way through the crowded footpaths of life. The high priests commissary must then have drawn near to Damascus under very different circumstances from those which fancy pictured for him a few days before. We know not by what gate he entered the city. We only know that he made his way to the house of Judas, where he remained for three days and three nights, with his whole soul so wrapped up in the wonders revealed to him that he had no thoughts for bodily wants and no sense of their demands.
The sacred narrative has been amply vindicated so far as its topographical accuracy is concerned. Saul, as he was led by the hand, instructed his escort to go to the house of Judas, a leading man we may be sure among the Jews of Damascus. He dwelt in Straight Street, and that street remains to-day, as in St. Pauls time, a thoroughfare running in a direct line from the eastern to the western gate of the city. Like all Oriental cities which have fallen under Turkish dominion, Damascus no longer presents the stately, well-preserved, and flourishing aspect which it had in Roman times; and, in keeping with the rest of the city, Straight Street has lost a great deal of the magnificent proportions which it once possessed. Straight Street in St. Pauls day extended from the eastern to the western gate, completely intersecting the city. It then was a noble thoroughfare one hundred feet broad, divided by Corinthian colonnades into three avenues, the central one for foot passengers, the side passages for chariots and horses going in opposite directions. It was to a house in this principal street in the city, the habitation of an opulent and distinguished Jew, that the escort brought the blind emissary of the Sanhedrin, and here they left him to await the development of Gods purposes.
I. Let us now consider the persons who cluster round the new convert, and specially the agent whom Christ used in the reception of Saul into the Church, and see what Scripture or tradition tells about them. One man stands prominent; his name was Ananias, a common one enough among the Jews, as the Acts of the Apostles has already shown us, for when we have surveyed the first beginnings of sin and moral failure in the Jerusalem Church we have found that an Ananias with Sapphira his wife was connected therewith. This Ananias of Damascus deserves special attention, for his case reveals to us a good deal of primitive Church history and is connected with many ancient traditions, Let us first strive to gain all the information we can about him from the direct statements of Scripture and the necessary or legitimate deductions from the same. Ananias was a Christian Jew of Damascus. He must have held a leading position in the local Christian Assembly in that city, within five years of the Ascension, for not only did our Lord select him as His agent or medium of communication when dealing with the new convert, but Ananias was well acquainted, by information derived from many persons, with the course of conduct pursued at Jerusalem by Saul, and knew of the commission lately intrusted to him by the high priest. Ananias was probably the head or chief teacher of the local Christian or Nazarene synagogue. At the same time he was also in all probability one of the original company of Jerusalem Christians who had been scattered abroad by the first great persecution. We are told in Act_11:19 that "they that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to none save only to Jews." Ananias was probably one of these fugitives from Jerusalem who came to Damascus, and there sought refuge from the rage of the destroyer. St. Paul himself tells us of the character which Ananias sustained at Damascus: "He was a devout man according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews that dwell there." {Act_22:12} It is the character given of Zacharias, and Elisabeth, and of Simeon. Ananias was, like all the earliest disciples, a rigid observer of the minutest particulars of Jewish ordinances, though he and they alike rested upon Christ alone as their hope of salvation. Further than this, the Scriptures tell us nothing save that we can easily see from the words of the various narratives of the conversion that Ananias was a man of that clear faith, that deep spiritual life which enjoyed perpetual converse with the Unseen. He was not perturbed nor dismayed when Christ revealed Himself. He conversed calmly with the heavenly Visitor, raised his objections, received their solution, and then departed in humble obedience to fulfil the mission committed to him. There is a marvellous strength and power for the man of any age who lives, as Ananias did, with a clear vision of the eternal world constantly visible to the spiritual eye. Life or death, things present or things to come, the world temporal or the world spiritual, all are one to him who lives in the light of Gods countenance and walks beneath the shadow of His wing; for he feels and knows that underneath are the everlasting Arms, and he therefore discharges his tasks with an assured calmness, a quiet dignity, a heavenly strength of which the tempest-tossed and feverish children of time know nothing. Beyond these facts and these traits of character, which we can read between the lines of Holy Scripture, we are told nothing of Ananias. But tradition has not been so reticent. The ancient Church delighted to gather up every notice and every story concerning the early soldiers of the Cross, and Ananias of Damascus was not forgotten. The Martyrologies both of the Greek and Latin Churches give us long accounts of him. They tell that he was born in Damascus, and make him one of the seventy disciples, which is not at all improbable. Then they describe him at one time as bishop, at another time as a simple presbyter, of the Church at Damascus. They relate his abundant labours at Damascus and in the neighbouring cities, terminating with his martyrdom under a Roman prefect called Lucian. But these details, though they may lend colour to the picture, add nothing of spiritual significance to the information vouchsafed in Scripture.
Judas, into whose house Saul was received, is another person brought before us, upon whom a certain eternity of fame has been bestowed by his temporary connection with the Apostle. He must have been a man of position and wealth among the Jews of Damascus to receive the official representative and deputy of the high priest. It is possible that he may have been numbered among those early trophies of St. Pauls zeal which he won in the earliest days of his first love, when he "confounded the Jews, proving that Jesus is Christ." Judas has been by some identified with that Judas who was sent with St. Paul, Silas, and Barnabas as deputies to console the Church at Antioch and restore it to peace when distracted with debates about circumcision. {Act_15:22}
And now, to conclude this portion of our subject, we may add that the traditional houses, or at least the sites of the houses, of Ananias and Judas, together with the fountain where St. Paul was baptised, were shown in Damascus till the seventeenth century, as Quaresmius, a traveller of that time, tells us that he visited the Straight Street, which is the bazaar, and saw the house of Judas, a large and commodious building, with traces of having been once a church and then a mosque; that he visited the place of baptism, which is not far off, adding withal a ground plan of the house of Ananias. Dean Stanley, however, declares that the traditional house of Judas is not in the street called Straight at all. Let us turn aside from these details, the mere fringes of the story, to the spiritual heart and core thereof.
II. The conversation between Christ and Ananias next claims our attention. Here we may note that it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who appeared to Ananias, and when appearing makes the most tremendous claims for Himself and allows them when made by Ananias. We are so accustomed to the words of the narrative that we do not recognise their bold assumptions and what they imply. The Lord calls Ananias, as He called Samuel of old, and then receives the same answer as Samuel gave, "Behold I am here, Lord." Ananias speaks to Jesus Christ of the disciples, and describes them as "Thy saints, who call upon Thy name." He knew that prayer to Jesus Christ was practised by them and constituted their special note or mark. Our Lord describes St. Paul "as a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel, for I will show him how many things he must suffer for My names sake." While again, when Ananias came into the house of Judas, he is so completely dominated by the idea of Jesus Christ, His presence, His power, His mission, that his words are, "The Lord Jesus hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." In these passages we have a view of primitive Christianity and its doctrine as taught by Christ Himself, by His earliest disciples, and as viewed and recorded by the second generation of Christians, and it is all the same from whatever point it is looked at. The earliest form of Christianity was Christ and nothing else. The personality of Christ dominated every other idea. There was no explaining away the historical facts of His life, there was no watering down His supernatural actions and claims; the Lord Jesus-and His ordinary human name was used-the Lord Jesus, whom the Jews had known as the carpenters son, and had rejected as the prophet of Nazareth, and had crucified as the pretended king of Israel, He was for Ananias of Damascus the supernatural Being who now ruled the universe, and struck down the persecutor of His people, and sent His messengers and apostles that they might with Divine power heal the wounded and comfort the broken-hearted. Ananias felt no difficulty in identifying Jesus the despised, the crucified, with the Lord of glory who had appeared to him, upon whose name he called and with whom he communed. Jesus Christ was not for him a dream or a ghost, or a passing appearance, or a distinguished teacher, or a mighty prophet, whose spirit lived with the souls of the good and blessed of every age at rest in paradise. The Jesus of Ananias was no inhabitant or child of earth, no matter how pure and exalted. The Jesus of Nazareth was the Being of beings, who had a just right to call Gods people "His saints," and to describe the great work of His messengers and ministers to be that of "bearing His name before the Gentiles," because the Christianity of Ananias and of the earliest Church was no poor, weak, diluted system of mere natural religion regarding Jesus Christ as a Divine prophet, but as nothing more. It theorised not, indeed, about the Incarnation and the modes of the Divine existence. It was too much wrapped up in adoring the Divine manifestations to trouble itself about such questions, which came to the front when love waxed cold and men had time to analyse and debate. For Ananias and for men like him it was sufficient to know that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh. For them and for the earliest Church that one fact embodied the whole of Christianity. Jesus Christ, the same when living in Galilee, suffering in Jerusalem, ascending from Olivet, reigning on the right hand of the Majesty on high, or manifesting Himself to His people, was the beginning and end of all religion.
This is a very important point to insist upon in the present age, when men have endeavoured to represent the religion of the primitive Church in quite a different light, and to teach that St. Paul was the inventor of that dogmatic system which insists upon the supreme importance and the essential deity of the Person of Jesus Christ. St. Lukes narrative in this passage seems to me quite decisive against such a theory, and shows us how Christianity struck an independent mind like that of Ananias, and how it was taught at a distant Christian Church like Damascus within five or at most seven years after the Ascension of Jesus Christ.
Then, again, we have in the vision granted to Ananias and the revelation made to him a description of Christs disciples. The description is a twofold one, coming on the one hand from Christ, and on the other from Ananias, and yet they both agree. Ananias describes the religion of Christ when he says, "Lord, I have heard from many of this man, how much evil he did to Thy saints at Jerusalem"; and then he proceeds to identify His "saints" with those that called on Christs name at Damascus. We have already noted prayer to Christ as a distinguishing feature of His people; but here we find, for the first time in the New Testament, the term "saints" applied to the ordinary followers of Christ, though in a short time it seems to have become the usual designation for the adherents of the crucified Redeemer, as we shall see by a reference to Rom_1:7, 1Co_1:2, Eph_1:1, and to numerous other passages scattered throughout the Epistles. Our Lord Himself sanctions the use of this title, and applies it Himself in a different shape in the fuller account of the divine words given us by St. Paul in his speech before King Agrippa. {Act_26:18} Christ tells St. Paul of his destined work "to turn the Gentiles from darkness to light, that they may receive an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me." The followers of Christ were recognised as saints in the true. sense of the word saint-that is, as separated, dedicated, consecrated persons, who had been made to drink into one Divine Spirit, had been made partakers of a new life, had been admitted to a kingdom of light and a fellowship of love, and who, by virtue of these blessings, had been cut off from the power of Satan and the kingdom of darkness. And all this had been and ever is to be effected "by faith that is in Christ." Christs saints or separated people are sanctified by faith in Christ. Not that the bare exercise of a faculty or feeling called faith will exercise a sanctifying influence upon human nature, -this would be simply to make man his own sanctifier, and to usurp for his own poor weak wretched self the Work and power which belong to the Holy Ghost alone, -but when Christ is realised as including all the parts of Gods final revelation, when no partial or limited view is taken of Christs work as if it were limited to the Incarnation alone, or the Atonement alone, or the Resurrection alone, but when the diverse and various parts and laws of His revelation are recognised as divinely taught, and therefore as tremendously important for the souls health. When the Holy Ghost and His mission, and good works and their absolute necessity, and Christs sacraments and His other appointed means of grace are duly honoured and reverently received, then indeed, and then alone, faith is truly exercised in Christ, and men are not merely separated by an external consecration, such as the Jews received at circumcision, and which qualified even that hard-hearted and stubborn people to be called a nation of saints; but when Christ is thus truly and fully received by faith into the hearts and affections of His people, they walk worthy of the high vocation called upon them. Many a mistaken exposition has been offered of St. Pauls Epistles, and many an effort has been made to explain away the plainest statements, because men will apply a false meaning to the word saints which Ananias here uses. If we first determine that the word saint could only have been applied to a truly converted man, clothed in the robe of Christs imputed righteousness, elected from eternity to everlasting salvation, and who could never finally fall away, and then find the term so defined applied, for instance, to the Corinthian Church as a whole, we shall come to some strange results. If truly converted men, true saints of Christ, could be guilty of sins such as were not named amongst the heathen, or could be drunk at the Lords Table, or could cherish all that long and dreary catalogue of spiritual! crimes enumerated in the Corinthian Epistles, then indeed the words true conversion have completely changed their meaning, and Christianity, instead of being the principle and fountain of a regenerate life, becomes a cloak under which all kinds of maliciousness and evil-doing may have free course and be glorified.
Our Lord protests beforehand unto St. Paul against such a perversion of the gospel of free grace with which His great Apostle had all his life to struggle. Antinomianism is as old as St. Pauls doctrine-so very much misunderstand-of justification. Our Lord raises His voice against it in His earliest commission to St. Paul when He sends him to the Gentiles "to turn them from darkness to moral and spiritual light," and "from the power of Satan unto God." And the New Testament often enough tells us what is meant by "the power of Satan." It was not any mere system of false beliefs alone, but it was a wicked and impure practice; and St. Pauls work was to turn the Gentiles from a wicked faith, combined with a still more wicked practice, to a life sanctified and purified and renewed after the image of a living Christ.
III. Finally, we notice in this conversation, and that only very briefly, the title given by our Lord to St. Paul, which became the favourite designation of the Apostle of the Gentiles, especially among the Western doctors of the ancient Church. "Go thy way," says Christ to Ananias, "for he is a chosen vessel unto Me," or, as the Revisers put it in the margin, translating still more literally from the original. "for he is a vessel of election." "Vas Electionis" is the usual title for St. Paul in St. Jeromes letters, as also in St. Chrysostoms homilies, and it expresses a side of his character which is prominent throughout his writings. Sauls early life was so alienated from Christ, his career had been so completely hostile to the gospel, his conversion had been so entirely Gods work and Gods work alone, that he ever felt and ever insisted more than the other New Testament writers on Gods electing love. If we compare the writings of St. John with those of St. Paul, we shall see how naturally and completely they reflect in their tone the history of their lives. St. Johns life was one long continuous steady growth in Divine knowledge. There were no great gaps or breaks in that life, and so we find that his writings do not ignore Gods electing love and preventing grace as the source of everything good in man. "We love Him because He first loved us" are words which show that St. Johns gospel was at bottom the same as St. Pauls. But St. Johns favourite topic is the Incarnation and its importance, and its results in purity of heart and in a sweet consciousness of the Divine Spirit. St. Pauls life, on the other hand, was no continuous upgrowth from youths earliest day to lifes latest eventide. There was a great gap, a tremendous yawning chasm separating the one portion from the other, and Paul never could forget that it was Gods choice alone which turned the persecuting Rabbi into the Christian Apostle. His Epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, and Galatians amply testify to the effects of this doctrine upon his whole soul, and show that the expositors of the early Church displayed a true instinct and gauged his character aright when they designated him by this title, "Vas Electionis." And yet the Apostle proved his Divine inspiration, for he held and taught this truth in no one-sided manner. He combined the doctrine of electing love with that of intense human free will and awful personal responsibility. He made no effort intellectually to reconcile the two opposite sides of truth, but, wiser than many who followed him, he accepted both, and found in them both matter for practical guidance. Gods eternal and electing love made him humble; mans free will and responsibility made him awfully in earnest. Two passages, drawn from different Epistles, sufficiently explain St. Pauls view. Gal_1:15-16 -"When it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mothers womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me"-are words which show how entirely St. Paul viewed himself as a "Vas Electionis." 1Co_9:27 -"I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage, lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected"-are words showing how real and profound was his fear of final defeat and ruin, how convinced he was that no display of Divine grace or love assured him of his own final perseverance. It is well that people should notice this difference between the tone and spiritual experience of a Paul and of a John. At times sincere Christians have been troubled because their spiritual experience and feelings have been very different from St. Pauls. They have limited to a large extent their own reading of Scripture to his writings, and have not noticed the clear distinction which Scripture makes between the tone and ideas of St. Paul and St. Peter, St. James and St. John; and why? Just to meet this very tendency, and to show us that spiritual experiences, feelings, temptations, must vary with the varying circumstances of each individual. No saintly life can be taken as a universal model or standard; and, above all, the conversion of a persecutor and blasphemer like St. Paul is not to be taken as the normal type of Gods dealings with men, who grow up, like St. John or like Timothy, in the paths of Divine love from their earliest childhood.
There is one common feature, however, which can be traced in all religious lives, where sternly and even violently ordered like Sauls, or gently guided like St. Johns. They all agree in presenting one feature when the fresh breath of the Spirit blows upon them and the deeper sense of lifes importance first dawns upon the vision, and that is, they are all marked by prayer. Of every sincere seeker the Divine watcher, ever on the outlook for the signs of spiritual life, repeats "Behold, he prayeth." Saul, we may be sure, had never forgotten his duty in the matter of the prescribed round of Jewish devotions; but now for the first time he rose above the level of mere mechanical saying of prayer to spiritual communion with God in Christ; now for the first time he prayed a Christian prayer, through Christ and to Christ; now for the first time perhaps he learned one secret of the spiritual life, which is this, that prayer, is something, wider and nobler than mere asking. Prayer Is communion of the spirit with God reconciled in Christ Jesus. That communion is often deepest and most comforting when enjoyed in simple silence. Saul, the converted persecutor, could know but little yet of what to ask from Christ. But in the revelations made in those hours of darkness and penitence and silence, there were vouchsafed to him renewed proofs of the truths already gained, and of the awful trials which those truths, realised and acted out, would demand from him. "I will show him what things he must suffer for My sake."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43 1. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter.…
1. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter. See Acts 8:3, from which the narrative is now resumed. As the great change in the life of Saul is now recorded, it is proper to state what can be known of him before his conversion. Probably about a year before he appears in the history at the death of Stephen. He was of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil. 3:5); his father, though a Jew, had been admitted to Roman citizenship, and Paul was therefore a “Roman” (Acts 22:28); he was born at Tarsus, a Grecian city, the capital of Cilicia; there he had become familiar with Grecian literature, as well as educated in the law; at what time we know not, but while still young he went to Jerusalem to study in the great Rabbinical schools, and had the celebrated Gamaliel for his teacher (Acts 22:3); he had, according to Jewish custom, learned a trade, being a tent-maker (Acts 18:3); he was a Pharisee after the strictest manner of the sect (Acts 23:6). How long he had been in Jerusalem when he appears in this history, whether he was there for the second time, or had not returned after his attendance at the school of Gamaliel, is uncertain, but when we first behold him he is a “young man,” prominent and influential, active in his opposition to the church, and a trusted leader of its enemies. Went unto the high priest. Probably Theophilus, the son of Annas, who was made high priest by the Romans in a.d. 37. He was a Sadducee.
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 vv1, 10, 19, 26, 31, 36 Act_9:1. And should be but directing attention once more…
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_9:1. And should be but directing attention once more to Saul. Breathing out.—Breathing in better renders the verb ἐμπνέων, threatening and slaughter describing the atmosphere inhaled. That Saul, a Pharisee of the straitest sect (Act_26:5), went unto the high-priest, a Sadducee, revealed the intensity of his rage. Whether the high-priest in question was Annas or Caiaphas, deposed in A.D. 35 (Meyer) or 36 (Olshausen), Jonathan A.D. 36–37, Ananus’s son, his successor, or Theophilus, who followed his brother in A.D. 37–38, depends on the year of Saul’s conversion, which is uncertain.
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Act_9:2. The letters asked were not commendatory epistles merely, but legal warrants for search and apprehension. Damascus.—In Hebrew, Dammesek; in Assyrian, Dimaski and Dimaska; in Arabic, Dimeschk-esch-Schâm, or shortly, esch-Schâm. The oldest existing city in the world, the ancient capital of Syria, 145 miles north-east of Jerusalem, then contained a large number of Jews, many of whom were fugitives from persecution (Act_8:1-4). Paul’s route uncertain (see “Homiletical Analysis”). To or unto the synagogues meant, of course, their presiding officers (Luk_8:49), and perhaps the elders or presbyters associated with them (Luk_7:3). Of this, rather the way.—I.e., of the Christian profession, faith, manner of life, etc. Compare Act_16:17, Act_18:25, Act_19:9-23, Act_22:4, Act_24:14-22. This name given by the early Christians to themselves, in remembrance, doubtless, of Christ’s words, “I am the Way.”
Act_9:3. He came near should be it came to pass, about noon (Act_22:6), that he drew nigh, a Hebraistic form of expression. A light from (ἀπό) should be a light out of (ἐκ) heaven.—This was the “glory” of Jesus (Act_22:6).
Act_9:4. He fell.—Probably from the animal on which he rode. Compare Act_22:7; Act_26:14 represents his companions as having all fallen at the same time.
Act_9:5. Lord.—Could not as yet have had in Paul’s lips its full significance. Some MSS. write, “of Nazareth,” or “the Nazarene,” after Jesus. The clause, it is hard for thee, etc., has been inserted here from Act_26:14.
Act_9:6. All codices begin this verse with But rise, as in Act_26:16. The preceding words, “and he trembling and astonished,” etc., have also found their way into the text from the later accounts.
Act_9:7. Stood speechless, dumb through terror, contradicts not the statement (Act_26:14) that Saul’s companions all fell to the ground, nor is the phrase hearing a, or the voice or sound, inconsistent with the declaration (Act_22:9) that they heard (in the sense of understood) not the voice of Him that spake unto him.
Act_9:8. And when his eyes were opened, by the lifting up of his eyelids which had shut themselves before the dazzling light, he saw no man, not “from whom the voice came” (Bengel), but none of his companions, or nothing (R.V.), he was blind. This blindness, while not like that of Elymas (24:31), a punishment, and not intended to symbolise his antecedent spiritual blindness (Calvin, Grotius, Bengel), nevertheless reminds one of the dumbness inflicted on Zacharias (Luk_1:20; Luk_1:22).
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_9:1-9
The Miracle near Damascus; or, the Conversion of Saul
I. Saul’s journey to Damascus.—
1. The object of it. To persecute the followers of Christ, to harry the disciples of the Crucified not out of Palestine merely, but out of the world as well, and with this end in view to bring any of “the way,” i.e., of the New Religion (see “Critical Remarks”), he might find, whether men or women, bound to Jerusalem.
2. The spirit of it. More than breathing out, Saul was breathing in threatenings and slaughter, inhaling persecution and murder as his soul’s and body’s atmosphere, feeding upon blood and carnage, stuffing himself full of rage and violence, which might be ready for disgorging upon the unhappy victims of his diabolical crusade, which was meant to be thoroughgoing, sparing neither sex nor age, and sticking at nothing short of imprisonment and death.
3. The authorisation of it. Saul carried with him letters from the Jewish high-priest (Annas, or Caiaphas, Jonathan, or Theophilus; see “Critical Remarks”), commending him to the rulers of the various synagogues in Damascus, and empowering him (with their help) to search out and seize any Nazarenes who might have attached themselves to these places of worship, and to fetch them bound to Jerusalem. The historic credibility of this statement has been vindicated by recalling the circumstance that on the death of Tiberius, in A.D. 37, Damascus passed from the hands of the Romans into those of Hareth, of Petra, who, in order to keep the Jews quiet, made concessions to their autonomy, and every concession was simply a permission to commit further religious violences (Renan, The Apostles, p. 155).
4. The prospect of it. No emissary of the Inquisition—no Thomas de Torquemada of Spain—ever had a better chance of success. If brilliant reputation, ardent zeal, absolute power, best wishes of friends and contemporaries who were all seized with a passion of hatred against the Christians, could have furthered Saul’s expedition, these without exception stood upon his side.
5. The prosecution of it. Imagination can easily picture the setting forth from Jerusalem of the Hebrew Claverhouse and his companions, all of them mounted, as the old masters have represented, upon high-mettled and richly caparisoned steeds. The route pursued may have led either by Bethel to Neapolis, then across the Jordan near Scythopolis, thence to Gadara, and on through the Hauran to Damascus; or along the base of Tabor, through the Jordan a few miles above Tiberias, then up by Cæsarea Philippi, and on to Damascus (Conybeare and Howson, vol. i., 81).
II. Saul’s experience near Damascus.—
1. His inward cogitations. Though not recorded by Luke, nor afterwards mentioned by Saul himself, these, it has been supposed, were of such sort as unconsciously to prepare for the sudden and unexpected transformation that took place within the persecutor’s soul. Stephen’s earnest discourse, to which he most likely listened, setting forth the transitory character of the temple workship and its true fulfilment in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, must, it is said, have secretly poured a flood of light upon his understanding, from which he could never again escape, and upon which he probably often, and almost unconsciously to himself, pondered; while Stephen’s death which he witnessed, and Stephen’s prayers which he heard, more than probably helped to drive his half-formed intellectual convictions inward upon his heart and conscience. Indeed, proceed those who hold this view, it is hardly too much to say, that already in the interior of Saul’s soul the spiritual revolution had begun, in the shape of acute intellectual and heart impulses which almost unconsciously urged him to recognise that truth and right were on the side of the followers of Jesus, and which he could not resist without a painful sense of doing violence to conscience. A certain countenance is given to this representation by the words addressed to Saul by Christ: “It is hard for thee to kick against the goads”; and there seems no good reason for refusing to recognise in it a measure of truth, provided it is not pressed so far as to deny the objective reality of Christ’s appearance to the persecutor; but after all it is doubtful if this was the view taken by Saul himself of the mode of his conversion (compare Weizsäcker, i. 90).
2. His outward arrestment.
(1) The locality where this occurred was the vicinity of the city. The view of Damascus as seen by one approaching it from the south is described by travellers as of surpassing beauty. “It is true that in the apostle’s day there were no cupolas and no minarets. Justinian had not built St. Sophia, and the caliphs had erected no mosques; but the white buildings of the city gleamed then, as they do now, in the centre of a verdant inexhaustible paradise. The Syrian gardens, with their low walls and waterwheels, and careless mixture of fruits and flowers, were the same then as they are now. The same figures would be seen in the green approaches to the town, camels and mules, horses and asses, with Syrian peasants, and Arabs from beyond Palmyra” (The Life and Epistles of Paul, by Conybeare and Howson, i., 85, 86).
(2) The time of this arrestment was midday (Act_22:6, Act_24:13). “The birds were silent in the trees, the hush of noon was in the city, the sun was burning fiercely in the sky, the persecutor’s companions were enjoying the cool refreshment of the shade after their journey; and his eyes rested with satisfaction on those walls which were the end of his mission, and contained the victims of his righteous zeal” (Conybeare and Howson, i., 86).
(3) The manner of his arrestment was sudden as a flash of lightning. So shall the coming of the Son of man be (Luk_17:24).
(4) The instrument was “a light out of heaven” (Act_9:3), “from heaven a great light” (Act_22:6), “a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun” (Act_26:13)—no mere flash of lightning, but a shining forth of the Divine glory which encompassed the exalted Saviour (Act_9:17).
(5) The agent was Christ. Saul himself believed this.
3. His interview with Christ.
(1) That Saul actually beheld the glorified Redeemer may be inferred from Luke’s statement that Saul’s companions saw no man (Act_9:7), and is expressly declared by Ananias (Act_9:17; Act_22:14), Barnabas (Act_9:27), and Saul himself (1Co_9:1; 1Co_15:8). It is quite conceivable also that while the dazzling radiance of supernal glory struck Saul’s companions at once to the earth, Saul himself may have looked into the light and seen the form of the Redeemer before he fell prostrate on the ground (compare Rev_1:17). A certain measure of support is obtained for this view from the circumstance that Saul appears in after life to have suffered from weakness or dimness of eyesight (see Act_13:9, Act_23:1; Gal_4:13-31; Gal_6:11).
(2) That Saul heard Christ’s voice addressing him in articulate speech is with equal emphasis contained in Luke’s narrative, and in Paul’s after recitals, and is not inconsistent with the fact that Saul’s companions only heard a sound but could not distinguish words (compare Joh_12:29).
(3) That Saul carried on a conversation with the Risen Redeemer all the accounts affirm. Addressed with a twice repeated “Saul! Saul!” expressive of earnestness, and a penetrating question, indicative of solicitude, “Why persecutest thou Me?” he responded with an inquiry, “Who art Thou, Lord?” which half revealed his suspicion that his interlocutor was Stephen’s Lord (Act_7:59-60); and was in turn assured that his suspicion was correct, that the speaker who interrogated him was Jesus of Nazareth, whom he persecuted; after which he was directed to rise and go into the city, where it would be told him what he should do.
4. His actual conversion. Indicated in the narrative by his rising from the earth and entering into the city in obedience to Christ’s command (Act_9:8), it is more distinctly set forth by the question, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (borrowed from chap. Act_22:10), which signalised his surrender—instantaneous, swift, clear, decided, complete, final—to Jesus as his Lord. It meant the shattering of all his former views as a Pharisee, concerning not worldly ambition alone, but the grounds of acceptance and justification before God. It lifted self out of the seat and centre of authority in all his after life, and substituted Christ instead. In this experience lies the essence of conversion.
III. Saul’s entrance into Damascus.—
1. Helpless. Different from the fashion in which he had expected to pass beneath the gateway of the city, he was led by the hands of his companions, who must have been astonished at, and perplexed by the change which had come upon their leader.
2. Blind. Whereas he had purposed to ferret out with searching glance the hated followers of Jesus he had been so dazzled by the glory that his eyesight was gone, he saw neither man nor thing.
3. Humbled. He had intended to root out the Christians from the city, now he must obtain a lodging with one of these (Act_9:11). No thoughts now of letters for the high-priest.
4. Saddened. The three days of sightless existence in which he neither ate nor drank were emblematic of his spiritual condition. “Only one other space of three days’ duration can be mentioned of equal importance in the history of the world.” … (Conybeare and Howson, i., 90).
Learn.—
1. That no soul is beyond the reach of converting grace.
2. That Christ is often found of them who seek Him not.
3. That Christ observes everything that transpires on the earth.
4. That Christ regards persecution of His followers as equivalent to persecution of Himself.
5. That no conversion is complete which does not place the soul entirely at Christ’s command.
6. That the things of the Spirit are not discernible by natural men.
7. That Divine grace is sovereign in the selection of its objects.
Note.—On the Credibility of the Story of Paul’s Conversion.
I. It is not denied by any school of critics that such a man as Paul lived in the opening years of the Christian era, or that he was converted, meaning by this that from being a furious and fanatical Pharisee he suddenly became a follower of Christ and a preacher of the Gospel he had previously opposed.
II. There is nothing à priori impossible, except on the assumption that the supernatural is impossible, in the account given by Luke in the present narrative, that what converted Paul was a manifestation to him on the Damascus road of the risen and glorified Christ—a manifestation not internal but external, not to his mind’s eye but to his bodily sight.
III. The account given by Luke is confirmed, first, by two statements that are represented as having fallen from Paul’s own lips in public addresses given by him to his countrymen in Jerusalem (Act_22:6-11), and to Festus and Agrippa in Cæsarea (Act_26:12-18); and secondly, by three shorter but substantially equivalent statements that occur in two of his acknowledged epistles (1Co_9:1; 1Co_15:8; Gal_1:16). Even if the speeches in the Acts should be ascribed to Luke, no one can doubt that the allusions in the letters are to the Damascus miracle.
IV. The alleged contradictions in the various accounts are not sufficient to invalidate their united testimony.—Accepting these contradictions in their strongest form, allowing them to be wholly irreconcilable—which, however, they are not—what do they amount to? These—
1. That Act_9:4 represents Saul as the only one that fell to the earth, with which Act_22:7 agrees, whereas Act_26:14 says that all fell—i.e., Saul’s companions as well as himself.
2. That according to Act_9:7 the men who journeyed with Saul heard a voice, which according to Act_22:9 they heard not.
3. That in Act_9:15; Act_9:17, Saul’s call to be an apostle is made known first by Christ to Ananias, and then by Ananias to Saul, while in Act_26:16-18 it is communicated directly to Saul by Christ Himself. For the solution of these tremendous (!) difficulties the Critical Remarks and Homiletical Analysis may be consulted. But, conceding for a moment that they could not be satisfactorily removed, is it not simply ridiculous to assert that unimportant variations such as these, which do not in the smallest degree affect the central fact which is affirmed in every one of the narratives, are sufficient to relegate the whole story to the category of legend? On similar principles every history book on earth might be reduced to a collection of fables.
V. The explanations of the Damascus occurrence which have been offered are so palpably inadequate that it may be seriously questioned if those who put them forth believe them.
1. The natural explanations of the older rationalists and of their present-day followers need only to be mentioned to be set aside. That Christ never died at all but only swooned away on the cross and revived in the sepulchre (Paulus), or if He died continued twenty-seven years on the earth after His resurrection (Bahrdt), and afterwards appeared to Saul, is an interesting speculation of no value whatever as a contribution to theology or Biblical exposition. Scarcely more worthy of consideration is the modern hallucination (Renan), that Saul, when “in a state of great excitement,” partly “through the fatigue of his journey,” partly through “dangerous fever accompanied by delirium,” partly through “remorse as he approached the city where he was to commit the most signal of his misdeeds,” was suddenly overtaken by a thunderstorm which frightened and converted him.
2. The vision theory of modern critics, more especially of the Tübingen School (Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, Pfleiderer, Hausrath, Weizsäcker, and others), that Saul’s mental conflict with himself concerning the truth of Christianity, his growing conviction that his pharisaic views of religion were wrong, and that the doctrines of the Christians he was persecuting were right, combined perhaps with the remembrance of Stephen’s dying utterances and the impressions made upon him by the martyr’s apology—that all these things so wrought upon Saul’s mind as to raise it into an ecstatic condition which caused it to project its own subjective conceptions outside of itself, so as to make them appear objective realities, when in point of fact they were only images of the mind—this theory is open to serious objection.
(1) It is difficult to perceive how a mental vision should have struck the Apostle with bodily blindness.
(2) It is more difficult to understand how a vision projected from within could have effected the complete revolution of Paul’s character and life implied in his conversion, or how this vision could be said to have caused his conversion, and not rather his conversion to have caused the vision.
(3) It is most difficult to realise how a clear-headed man like Paul should have continued, after the excitement had passed, to represent as an outward objective reality what he must have known, on reflection, to be only an inward imagination, or how he could have placed this experience on a level with the “seeings” of the other apostles, and of the five hundred brethren, unless indeed he was sure that they also had seen Christ only in vision.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_9:2. Damascus.
I. The oldest city in the world.—Its origin lost in remote antiquity. Known to have been in existence in the days of Abraham. “In the midst of an oasis of verdure rise the shining crenellated walls of a city that was old in the time of Abraham, the steward of whose house was one of its citizens; old when the pyramids were young, old in the dawn of history, and whose beginning no man knoweth with certainty.”—Wanderings in the Holy Land, by Adelia Gates, chap. xvi.
II. A city of surpassing beauty.—“It is one of the few towns of antiquity that have never lost their own splendour and renown. By Oriental writers it is named “The pearl of the Orient, the beautiful as Eden, the fragrant Paradise, the plumage of the Paradise cock, the coloured neck of the ring dove, the neck band of beauty, the gate of the Caaba, the eye of the East, the Eden of the Moslem” (Dr. Wolff in Riehm’s Handwörterbuch des Biblischen Altertums, art. Damascus). “It bursts upon the view of a traveller like a vision of Paradise.” “The Damascenes believe that the Garden of Eden was located there, and that the clay of which Adam was formed was taken from the banks of the Abana.” When Mohammed saw the city and gardens below in all their enchanting beauty, he turnel away saying, “Man can have but one Paradise, my Paradise is fixed above.” Buckle, the historian, who “beheld the city from the same place only a fortnight before his death in 1862, exclaimed, “This is indeed worth all the toil and danger it has cost me to come here” (Picturesque Palestine, ii., 143, 144). “There may be other views in the world more beautiful; there can hardly be another at once so beautiful and instructive” (Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine, p. 414i). “Damascus occupies one of those sites which nature seems to have intended for a perennial city; its beauty stands unrivalled, its richness has passed into a proverb, and its supply of water is unlimited, making fountains sparkle in every dwelling.”—Dr. J. L. Porter.
III. A historically interesting city.—
1. The probable birthplace of Abraham’s servant (Gen_15:2).
2. The limit of Abraham’s pursuit of the Eastern Kings (Gen_14:15).
3. A city visited by Elisha (2Ki_8:7).
4. Paul’s journey to Damascus and the incidents connected therewith
(9).
5. Paul’s subsequent visit to the city (Gal_1:17).
Act_9:2. The Way.—This designation of the Christian religion appropriate, because the Christian religion—
I. Originated with Him who called Himself “the Way” (Joh_14:6).
II. Describes the way of truth, duty, life, and salvation for all who embrace it.
III. Is the only religion whose claim to do so infallibly can be established.
Act_9:4. Christ’s Question to Paul.
I. Revealed to Saul Christ’s intimate knowledge of Himself.—Of His name, and doings, and intentions. The doctrine of Christ’s Omniscience.
II. Intimated to Saul Christ’s personal existence in heaven.—The doctrine of Christ’s resurrection.
III. Announced to Saul Christ’s sympathy with His persecuted followers.—The doctrine of Christ’s union with His people.
Act_9:5-6. The Soul’s Questions and Christ’s Answers.
I. The soul’s questions.—
1. Who art Thou, Lord?
(1) Necessary. Impossible to be evaded by any to whom Christ presents Himself.
(2) Important. More momentous inquiry cannot be imagined than whether Christ is what He claims to be.
(3) Urgent. Cannot be settled too soon. Danger in delay; advantage in an early decision, provided that be right.
(4) Vital. Carrying with it eternal issues of good or evil, life or death.
2. Lord! what wilt thou have me to do? The question of one who has decided
(1) That Christ is in His person divine, and in His office the Saviour of the world. Both implied in addressing Christ as “Lord.”
(2) That religion is for him a personal matter of highest interest and immediate concern. This thought conveyed by the pronoun me.
(3) That salvation can only be found by placing the soul under Christ’s direction. Suggested by Saul’s asking Christ what he should do to obtain forgiveness for the past and hope for the future.
II. Christ’s answers.—
1. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. That is to say, to the sincere seeker Christ reveals
(1) His name, office, and work—all expressed in the designation Jesus, or Saviour.
(2) His evil treatment at the hands of unbelieving and sinful men, who in opposing His cause and harassing His people are guilty of persecuting Himself.
(3) His secret ally in every honest heart that will consider His claims, the existence of which inward advocate makes it difficult and dangerous for earnest souls to stand aloof and refuse to yield submission to His grace.
2. Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. Which signifies—
(1) That no truly awakened soul will be left without Divine direction as to the way of peace.
(2) That such direction has in every instance been beforehand provided. The office performed by Ananias is now discharged by ministers or the word.
(3) That the direction of the word—which is, repent, believe, and be baptised (Act_2:38)—if humbly followed will infallibly conduct to peace.
Act_9:6. Conversion as illustrated by that of Paul.
I. Its nature.—
1. There is deep contrition. Knows that he has sinned, and that his sin is aggravated. His conscience is awakened.
2. There is spiritual illumination. With regard to himself and to the Saviour.
3. There is earnest self-surrender. Would go anywhere, would do anything.
4. There is a singular transformation. A new creature.
II. Its causes.—
1. The agent is God. An act of His omnipotence.
2. The instrument is truth. The truth in the Bible somehow becomes the truth in the heart.
3. The influence of love. Faith working by love.
III. Its rules.—
1. As to its subjects it is sovereign. There must be reasons for the selection, but we do not know them.
2. As to its mode it is invincible. The power of the Spirit may be resisted, but cannot be overcome.
3. As to its time it may be sudden. In one sense it is always sudden; in some cases it is remarkably sudden.
4. As to its circumstances it is variable. Sometimes violent, sometimes gentle.
5. There is no need for despair of the conversion of any.—G. Brooks.
Act_9:8. And Saul arose from the Earth.—“Saul rose another man: he had fallen in death, he rose in life; he had fallen in the midst of things temporal, he rose in the awful consciousness of things eternal; he had fallen a proud, intolerant, persecuting Jew, he rose a humble, broken-hearted, penitent Christian.”—Farrar, The Life and Work of St. Paul, p. 199.
The Conversion of Paul.
I. Remarkable as the conversion—
1. Of a young man (Act_7:56).
2. Of a self-righteous Pharisee (Act_23:6, Act_26:5.
3. Of a brilliant scholar (Gal_1:11).
4. Of a blood-thirsty persecutor (1Ti_1:13).
II. More remarkable, as the bringing over to Christianity of one who proved himself—
1. An incomparable type of Christian character. “Christianity got the opportunity in him of showing the world the whole force that was in it” (Stalker).
2. A great thinker which Christianity “specially needed at the moment” (Ibid.).
3. The most illus trious missionary the Church has ever produced or the world has ever seen.
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.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 14, 15, 20, 23, 26, 29, 31, 35, 37, 40 1-15. As the Romans looked upon the Nazarenes as…
SAUL’S CONVERSION
1-15. As the Romans looked upon the Nazarenes as an insignificant faction of Judaism, in some way to them utterly mysterious, out of harmony with their own church, they acquiesced in the purchase of Jewish favor with Nazarene blood. The miraculous appearing of the glorified Jesus to Saul was adumbratory of His glorious appearing at His second coming, just as His miraculous appearing to Abraham at Mamre in the humiliation of human flesh was a prelude of His incarnation in His first advent. It is also confirmatory of His revelation to the soul of every sinner in his conversion, since Christ is now glorified. He always appears in His glory when revealed by the Holy Ghost to the soul. The Holy Spirit is not only the personal Successor of Jesus on the earth, but His personal Revelator.
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Saul’s comrades saw the light, but no person; and heard the sound, but no utterance. Hence there is no disharmony with chapter 22. Saul was an indefatigable student, having graduated in the Greek colleges of Tarsus, and in the Hebrew schools of Jerusalem. Hence his eyes were feeble and much worn, so that they went into total eclipse under the supernatural effulgence of the glorified Savior, simultaneously symbolizing the significant fact that the great light of his wonderful unsanctified learning must go into total eclipse before the unspeakable glory destined to pour on him the Sun of Righteousness. So must every man become utterly blind to human learning and wisdom before he can receive the supernatural illuminations of God and His truth. Many great theologians are never struck blind like Saul.
Therefore they never receive the preternatural light of Paul. Oh, how we all need to be made blind that we may receive our spiritual sight. That good old evangelist, Ananias, falters till he hears that Saul is praying, then all his fears depart. You need not fear the most bloodthirsty desperado if he is praying.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Act 9:1-19
Act 9:1-19
The Conversion of St. Paul.
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That blessed war of aggression which Jesus Christ wages upon the evil one is a war which is made to maintain itself. Christ’s soldiers are His captured enemies. Every soul won from resistance to the Cross is marked at once with the Cross-badge and sent into the field to win others. Perhaps the most notable instance of this in history is the conversion of Saul. Jesus Christ never encountered a bitterer or an abler foe; Jesus Christ never won a mightier captain for His army.
I. The important fact that such a man suddenly abandoned the Pharasaic theology and became the Church’s foremost preacher amply justifies the detail with which the story is here related. The immediate occasion of Saul’s change of life was quite as exceptional as the change itself was eventful. Christ directly called this misguided persecutor to Himself; He called him personally. And this personal manifestation of Him whom the heavens had received is, I suppose, solitary in Christian history.
II. The general nature of the change which passed over Saul is, I think, to be pretty well made out from what we know of the man before and after. If the punctilious and legal obedience he had been striving after was proved to have been consistent it was a gross breach of the law in its spirit, and he saw how unholy and unrighteous a life his had been. Saul’s dialectic was quick enough to see that it must be the spirit and not the letter that God cares for. Yet there was little need for dialectic. The spiritual sense of the man, purged now from pride, which always blinds us, and illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God whom before he kicked against, saw what false education and self-righteousness had kept him from seeing, that the law by which alone we may please God is a spiritual thing. The moment this spiritual law of love to God and man, a law of heart motives, was made plain to him, sin revived, and he died. His mind reverted for help, turned round about in his loneliness to the names of those very disciples down in his note-book that he had come to arrest, and now, in a sweet vision, he seemed to see one of these friends of Jesus come into the home where he lay helpless and in darkness, and give him light. See how Jesus Christ must smite down that He may lift up. He first came in person by the way, and brought judgment, darkness, horror, and almost death. He came now, the second time, by the gentle words of His humble servant, came by the blessed sacrament of His Church, and so coming He brought light, peace, and the hope and desire of a better life.
J. Oswald Dykes, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 469.
Act 9:1-23
Early History and Conversion of Paul.
Viewed as a public event in the history of the Christian Church, the conversion of Paul furnishes new and independent testimony to the Divine origin of the gospel. The story is perfectly authenticated. Twice did the Apostle repeat it in detail before public assemblies; and the book in which we find it recorded was written less than thirty years after the events were said to have occurred. We learn from the incident:—
I. The wisdom of God’s providence. Saul, as he himself tells us, was separated from his birth for the work of Apostleship; but though he was advancing towards middle age before he was actually converted, yet all his intervening history was in reality a preparation for the true labour of his life. His birth and boyhood in a Greek city gave him familiarity with that language which he was to use in all his journeyings. His intimate acquaintance with the system of the Pharisees, acquired in the school of Gamaliel, enabled him to cope with those Judaizing adversaries with whom he had everywhere to contend. A "Hebrew of the Hebrews, yet at the same time a native Hellenist and a Roman citizen," he combined in himself, as Dr. Schaff has said, "the three great nationalities of the ancient world, and was endowed with all the natural qualifications for a universal apostleship."
II. We see here all the riches of the Redeemer’s grace. Had the Christians then in Jerusalem been asked to name the man who was least likely to become a convert to the faith, they might possibly have specified Saul of Tarsus. Yet observe how thoroughly he is changed, and how the transformation was effected by the might of gentleness. Nothing is more remarkable in the whole narrative than the tenderness of the remonstrance which our Lord addressed to the persecutor. He came in love, He spoke in gentleness, and the heart which might have been hardened by condemnation was melted by mercy.
W. M. Taylor, Paul the Missionary, p. 27.
References: Act 9:2.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 340; Ibid., vol. xix., p. 117. Act 9:3, Act 9:4.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 46. Act 9:3-9.—B. F. Westcott, The Revelation of the Risen Lord, p. 191. Act 9:4.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 309; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 169.
Act 9:4-5
The Lord’s dealing with St. Paul has been precisely the way of His dealing with thousands and tens of thousands whom He has sought to make in like manner partakers of the light of the everlasting life. Them, too,—
I. He meets in the way. He hedges up that way with thorns so that they cannot find their path. He stands before them, as He stood before Balaam, with a drawn sword in His hand, willing them to go back to the path of duty and to choose the way of life. He shows them, too, His glory. The earthly in them stands abashed before the glory of the heavenly which is revealed to them, even as the stars of night fade and fail before the rising sun, and have no glory by reason of the glory which excelleth.
II. Notice another aspect in which St. Paul’s conversion was but the pattern and exemplar of what every other man’s conversion must be. We sometimes assume that there was no resistance of the old man in him, and that there could have been none—so mighty were the spiritual forces brought to bear, to cast down the strongholds of sin and Satan in him, that in this respect at least his conversion was unlike any other. But everything indicates the contrary. We are not permitted to see what passed within him during those three mysterious days when, having been brought to Damascus, trembling and astonished, he saw no man, and did neither eat nor drink. But of one thing we may be sure—that they were days of a mighty internal conflict; and in that "Behold, he prayeth," uttered by him who seeth in secret, in that, and only in that, at length there was a token that he had at last yielded himself the captive of Christ—vanquished by Almighty love. And here, too, in these outlines of his conversion, we must read what must be the main features of our own.
III. The whole after life of St. Paul was a continuation of the work which on that day was auspicated and begun in him. And such must be our lives, such must be our conversion. Not something which we remember once to have been, not something which every day is receding into greater and dimmer distance, but something in the ever new power of which we are to live from day to day.
F. Trench, Penny Pulpit, No. 3656.
Reference: Act 9:4, Act 9:5.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 160.
Act 9:5
This declaration points:—
I. To past impressions. Many persons regard this startling event as the first and only period that the Saviour sought the services of an ardent man; that without any previous internal preparation he was changed in the whole current and purposes of his life. But this cannot be altogether true. That this was the decisive moment in his history there cannot be a question. The grand transformation then took place, but the Divine Spirit had been at work within him before. There had been influences and arguments at work on St. Paul’s mind, and these had been the goads against which he had rebelled. And what were these past expressions, and whence did they arise? I think they must have arisen from his education and experience. It was impossible that he, with his candid nature, should have witnessed the pure, loving, self-sacrificing lives of these men and women whom he had haled to prison, and not make some inquiry as to the faith which had accomplished so much in them. And then the very teacher at whose feet he sat as a revering scholar had spoken about this new religion in a manner that seemed to imply that he had in his own mind a half-conviction of its truth. These things formed the goads which stung Saul, against which he struggled.
II. These words not only point to past impressions, but they describe present struggles. Many a man has been conscious of this battle going on within him for years; this struggle of what he knows to be right for the sin he loves so well.
III. These words proclaim certain misery and future defeat. There could be nothing but unhappiness and failure as the result of the course which Saul took, the opposition he offered to the progress of Christ’s kingdom. It was useless for him to kick against the goads; they only stung him the more severely; resistance was of no avail; he could not fight successfully against a superior power. This is a lesson which seems true enough, but it is difficult to learn. There is only one out of two courses—to bow and acknowledge the grace and power of Christ, or resolutely set yourselves against Christ, and at last be broken as a rod of iron. For the enemies of Christ shall be made his footstool.
W. Braden, Penny Pulpit, No. 516.
References: Act 9:5.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 709. Act 9:5, Act 9:6.—Ibid., vol. xxvi., No. 1520.
Act 9:6
The Apostle’s experience may never again be exactly reproduced as regards its external circumstances; but in every manifestation of God to the soul which has hitherto been ignorant of His true being, close upon the question "Who art thou, Lord?" will follow the further inquiry, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
I. Action is the necessary result of Divine illumination. When God lifts the veil to reveal Himself to His creature, it is not merely to satisfy the curiosity with which man seeks to penetrate into the mysteries of the invisible; it is not only to call into play the warm emotions of man’s heart, and set them all aglow with the tingling of the touch of an unseen world. It is indeed to increase man’s knowledge of the infinite, but to the end that that knowledge may lead him on to new roads of duty thereby thrown open to him; it is to kindle man’s affections with the coal from off the altar of the invisible, but on this account that he may so be empowered to act not in the power of the natural man, but in the strength of the supernatural gift of the Spirit.
II. But the means—the way by which, and in which, the blessed end is to be carried out—how difficult to select, how dangerous to be mistaken; to have the bright future forfeited by a wrong choice! Trembling and astonished at the dignity of his privilege, man fears by wilful or ignorant choice of means to frustrate the purpose which has so graciously been provided for him. Dedicating himself and all his powers to the God who has chosen him, he cries with the earnestness of hearty devotion, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" In other words, he realises and prepares to follow out his vocation.
III. In following out our vocation, we have to remind ourselves of two great principles that characterise the works of God as performed by Himself, and must therefore govern that work which, in union with Him, we hope to accomplish in the world. With God nothing is too minute to be taken count of. With God there is no undue haste. These must then be the laws of our conduct. "He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little." "Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come; it will not tarry."
H. Hollingworth, Oxford and Cambridge Journal, Oct. 18th, 1877.
References: Act 9:6.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iii., p. 310; W. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 74; Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 65; W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons, p. 250; Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 38; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 349; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 35; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 18; vol. iv., p. 89. Act 9:8.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 333; vol. xvi., p. 354; vol. xix., p. 119. Act 9:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1838. Act 9:11.—Ibid., vol. i., No. 16; vol. xxxi., No. 1860; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 308; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 131. Act 9:13-16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 944.
Act 9:15
I. Saul is here a vessel. The word here rendered "vessel" may also be translated "instrument," but either reading gives a good sense. God is an infinite spring giving inexhaustibly forth; men are empty vessels receiving everlastingly of His fulness.
II. He is a vessel unto Me. The vessel had been wrested that day from the power of the enemy; henceforth he will be a vessel separated unto and honoured in the service of Jesus Christ.
III. "He is a chosen vessel unto Me." (1) This must mean that he was a choice vessel. (2) He was chosen or ordained of God unto the work of the Apostleship.
IV. He is a vessel of election unto Me to bear My name. Paul bore the name of Jesus Christ (1) in his intellect, (2) in his heart, (3) in his ministry.
V. He was to bear God’s name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. (1) The wide scope of his ministry required certain social qualifications which the other apostles did not possess. (2) The work allotted to him demanded great intellectual culture in order to its successful performance. (3) The work demanded much moral courage.
J. Cynddylan Jones, Studies in the Acts, p. 196.
References: Act 9:15.—Bishop Stubbs, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 49. Act 9:16.—J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 48.
Act 9:19-30
Damascus—Arabia—Jerusalem.
We see from this chapter:—
I. The minute care which God has over His people. He gives to Ananias the street and the house in the great city of Damascus where Paul is sitting in his blindness, and sends him thither to his help. But though the commission came to Ananias supernaturally, we are not to imagine that similar things—similar, I mean, in kind, though lower in degree—are not occurring now. So let the people of God take comfort, whereever they are and whatever be their circumstances. God knows everything about them, and in some way or other He will manifest His care for them. His letters are all accurately addressed, and none of them go astray.
II. God gives special training for special work. This was furnished to Paul, not only by his conversion, but by his communings with the Lord in Arabia. He who would preach the gospel with power must be himself a believer in the Lord. The secret of true, heart-stirring eloquence in the pulpit is, next after the power of the Holy Ghost, that which the French Abbé has very happily called the "accent of conviction" in the speaker. He who would preach to others must be much alone with his Bible and his Lord, else when he appears before his people, he will send them to sleep with his pointless platitudes, or starve them with his empty conceits.
III. We learn, lastly, to give a cordial welcome to new converts and new-comers in the Church. Ananias went as soon as he was sent, and said, "Brother Saul!" How these words must have thrilled the heart of the blinded one! So again, in dealing with young converts, how slow some are to believe in the genuineness and thoroughness of God’s own work! It was not so with Barnabas, and it ought not to be so with us.
W. M. Taylor, Paul the Missionary, p. 47.
Act 9:20
I. Promptitude is a pre-requisite and essential element of success. A beginning is only a beginning, and yet much depends on how it is made. Some beginnings are like the spring on the mountain side, gushing into life and flowing clearly. Some are like waters from a mossy soil, trickling, oozing, so little visible and so uncertain that you cannot tell where they begin. But here is a vigorous clear beginning; here is the saliency of a new life. That promptitude of Paul’s saved him from many difficulties which else would have beset his course. It raised his conversion above suspicion. It opened his way. It conformed his faith. It made retreat more difficult. It made him a fit example for all who are beginning the Christian course to the end of time.
II. If the principle is true, it is applicable all down the scale; not to great men only, but to every man. "Straightway" do what thy hand findeth to do. (1) Straightway. And your new consciousness will become bright and clear, as it never will do by abstinence and repression. Doubts gather round the inactive mind, over the slumbering, reluctant will, as mists and exhalations over the stagnant pool. Work in spite of them; work through them on to duty,—they are gone or only linger, thin and luminous, like vapours that are vanishing away. (2) Straightway. And the outer difficulties, which gather like the inner doubts, will, like them, be dispersed, and you will see them no more; or better still, seeing them, you will not fear or regard them, but go on your unswerving way. (3) You will give to your soul one of the first and most indispensable conditions of growth. (4) You will lay the first stones in the great edifice of habit. This is the true tower with the heaven-reaching top, the tower of a man’s life; and on the very first stones of that tower you will see written the word "Straightway." (5) You will end no small part of what may be called the lesser miseries of life. (6) The enemies of our true life and of the gospel of Christ are taken at advantage, and timorous friends—the discouraged, the weak, the halting—receive as it were a new inspiration. Spiritual strength goes from one to another like electricity, and a soul in prompt action necessarily gives it out, charging other souls with the celestial fire till they too glow and burn with love to Christ.
A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 87.
Act 9:31
Our Lord tells us that the Comforter’s work as Comforter is to abide, to teach, to remind, to testify, to reprove. These are the ways in which He comforts. The text carries on the same idea. "The Churches... were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." What then is the conclusion at which we arrive? That the Holy Ghost does not perform the office of Comforter by comfort only or by direct comfort, but through the exercise of other of His prerogatives, such as teaching, testifying, and reproving.
I. We must not divide the sevenfold operation of the Holy Ghost. We must not seek comfort without holiness, nor holiness without comfort; and often the path to any one of His influences lies direct and straight from the other. If you endeavour to obtain any one of His actings without the rest, probably you will thwart Him. The best way is to acknowledge the Holy Ghost as that great Being who acts upon the human mind, and to place yourself entirely in His hands, to do with you just as he sees best.
II. I believe that the Holy Ghost generally begins His consoling processes by increasing our distress. He convinces of sin first, i.e., Christ justifying; and righteousness, i.e., pardon; then of judgment, i.e., the judgment, the termination of all evil; and so He brings out "judgment unto victory," and "tribulation has worked patience," and patience experience, and experience hope; and that hope maketh not ashamed; the sorrow is turned into joy, the Sanctifier is the Comforter, and the comfort is true, deep, holy, and for ever. Thus, then, even in His comfortings, the Holy Ghost, in His incalculable processes, vindicates the truth of the emblem, and is as the wind, acting in His sovereignty, but no man knoweth whence He cometh nor whither He goeth. But deep and utterly out of reach as His methods are, it is a wonderful provision that the Third Person in the blessed Trinity should be revealed to us characteristically as a Comforter. It is this which makes Him over to us in a relationship that matches the necessity of our daily being. The Holy Ghost is many things. He is a quickener, He is a gladdener, He is a glorifier, but above all He is a Comforter. "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 181.
References: Act 9:31.—C. J. Vaughan, Church of the First Days, vol. ii., p. 41; W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 266. Act 9:32-35.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii., No. 1315. Act 9:34.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 329. Act 9:36-42.—N. Axtell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 211. Acts 9—Contemporary Pulpit, vol. i., p. 278. Act 10:1, Act 10:2.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 29; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India, p. 240; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 255. Act 10:4.—E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 112. Act 10:5.—A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 801. Act 10:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1823.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On vv1, 31 Subdivision 3. (Act 9:1-30.)
Subdivision 3. (Act 9:1-30.)
The Gospel of the Glory of Christ.
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In perfect order of development, we are now to see the conversion of the apostle of the Gentiles; who receives grace and apostleship front the ascended Lord. We have noticed already the connection between Stephen’s witness and that of Paul. In Stephen Israel has definitely rejected the Messiah, and thus put from her the blessing to be brought in by Him; the blessing for the earth at large being identified with that of the earthly people. But God has other and higher purposes, -the display of a fuller grace which shall both stoop lower and lift up higher. Man having been thoroughly shown out, not merely impotent and rebellions under law, but in the cross of Christ the mind of the flesh being manifested as enmity against God, He will now act for Himself, to display Himself; and since He is Love, it must be in love that He is displayed, -love in answer to enmity; which is, therefore, grace: of which the messenger is in himself also the perfect exponent. Saul has shared in the national sin of Christ’s rejection, is of the party that could be quoted as to an individual in opposition to Him (Joh 7:48), was in agreement with the murder of Stephen, and is only roused by it to greater violence; he is the apostle of Jewish malignity, pursuing the disciples even to strange cities, at the very time when he is smitten down by the light from an open heaven, and transformed from the persecutor of Christ into His most devoted follower, -ever afterwards the apostle of the grace that has transformed him. Here, where there could:be no possible thought of claim, heaven, closed to man’s righteousness, opens to its central, infinite glory, to display in the midst of it, whence the light came, the One whom as yet Saul knew not, but who identified Himself with His suffering saints on earth. The gospel of the glory of Christ was henceforth his gospel.
It is evident that here the meaning of Stephen’s radiant face is now made plain. Heaven is really opened, -a Man gone in there, but occupying a place that no mere man could occupy. Paul preaches Him from the first, that He is the Son of God (ver. 20). Yet he sees Him none the less the Representative of His people, and the bringing men to see and fill their place in Him is henceforth to be his effort, -that for which the Spirit of God has taken him up and uses him. We may not find it come fully out in the Acts, but the necessary first consequence is that Jew and Gentile have no more any separate standing. It is not a Christ after the flesh that he sees, but a Christ in heaven; and that is not the place of a Jew’s blessings, nor one from which, if grace bestow it, he can exclude the Gentile. The apostle of the Gentiles is here prepared.
1. Grace is the foundation of all, -free, sovereign grace. Of what use his privileges as a Jew to one taken red-handed on his mission of blood, as Saul is now! It is not a mere repentant sinner suing for and finding mercy. He is an enemy, when as such he is reconciled to God. Legality is an impossibility to one in his position. He cannot dream of any of those half-gospels with which men delude themselves first, and then their hearers. He, at least, had not done his best, save to be lost. His Pharisaism tumbled in one rag-heap at his feet, his cry was now that he was "chief of sinners;" and under no legal system whatever could the chief of sinners possibly have hope. But he, met and conquered by divine love, was given no room to dishonor it by a single question. And "in me," he says, "did Christ Jesus show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them that should hereafter believe on Him, to life everlasting." (1Ti 1:16). Thus was Paul’s doctrine prepared for him at the start; and he also, even in his unconverted state, for it.
"Concerning zeal, persecuting the Church," was Paul’s own account afterwards of the state in which divine grace found him (Php 3:6). It did not alter his conviction that he was the chief of sinners; "the least of the apostles," he says elsewhere, and "not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God" (1Co 15:9). A man’s religion may be the worst thing about him; and his sincerity in it will not hinder its effect upon him, but rather make it the more sure. In this case, how solemn to realize that Saul’s religion was zealous law-keeping; the law being that which God Himself had given: it was one of Moses, disciples, of whom they could rightly say, "We know that God spake by Moses," who was in that character attacking Christ!
"Touching the righteousness of the law, blameless;" this is another thing that, looking back at himself with full Christian enlightenment, he says of his unconverted state. That was what his conscience said: it did not condemn or accuse him; and that was undoubtedly what in his case made him the zealous persecutor that he was: he had a zeal for God and for that law under which he had fared so well, and deserved so well of Him who gave it! Thus all that seemed so favorable in Saul’s case was what was most against him: his own good character, his zeal for law, and, as he allows with regard to his nation at large, his zeal for God even (Act 22:3); and that God was the true God, not a false one: whom yet he was bitterly against, and knew it not, and who was therefore, in so far, against him, even while He pursued in His love this zealous antagonist. What confusion is here! And this is the confusion which springs out of all self-justifying efforts: "for they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God "(Rom 10:3). Paul will tell us himself in his first epistle, how the scales fell from his eyes in this respect. At present it is with the consequences that God faces him; and on the road to Damascus he suddenly finds himself smitten down by the light of a glory shining in the face of Him against whom the full current of his legal prejudices, with his traditionalism and his strong passion for his nation, all combined to carry him.
It is striking that, while we know from Paul’s own statements afterwards, and even from the words of Ananias to him in the present chapter, that Jesus Himself appeared to him, we hear in this first account only of the Light and of the Voice; light out of heaven, in which, certainly for the first time, he stood revealed to himself; a Voice along with it, which fastened his eyes upon himself, even then to raise with himself the question, rather than to accuse, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?"
There could, of course, be no answer. Under the power of that glory which had transfigured Stephen, the very throb of the heart must have been hushed, called to expectant stillness in the presence of God. No need for answer! Had he not helped to batter out that glory from a human face with stones? Now a Human Voice from the midst of that glory was appealing to him, claiming these persecuted ones as His own -Himself! Yet he is drawn, -not repelled. Even now he can seek from Him who is speaking the anticipated answer which condemns -but HE has not condemned -him: "Who art Thou, Lord?" And the Royal Voice answers, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest."
Thus they come together -Lord and follower; never to be separated more! How grand and wonderful is the simplicity of it all! The chief of sinners and the Lord of saints come together in a manner which has cost how great a price to effect; and the grace shown is as implicit as it wakes up implicit confidence to receive it. Has not this smitten sinner been in the outshining glory of God, unsmitten? -in the radiance shining on Stephen himself? There are other accounts, but they do not alter this; one can only say, the grace of it is perfect: and when we learn that he is to be the teacher of grace to others, we realize how completely fitted for such a purpose is that of which the history is recorded here. But it is the same grace which meets all of us.
We can see too, that the identification of Christ with His people is here, which is to be developed on two sides, as "ye in Me and I in you." And in this Jew and Gentile disappear, and the way for the mystery of the Church is prepared. Heaven is opened: God has come out to men; and Man -how glorious a MAN! -has gone in to God. Who that knows what was committed to Paul to teach us, but must see how the Pauline truths begin to appear in Paul’s conversion? We must not expect to reach their development in the Acts; and it is not yet, therefore, the time to follow their development. We must wait for Romans, Ephesians, Corinthians, Hebrews, to have the working out.
The words that follow, in the common version, this declaration of Himself upon the Lord’s part are borrowed from the other accounts of what is here. Luke gives us in this place only the direction to the new disciple to enter into the city, and there it shall he told him what he is to do. The men accompanying him stand speechless, hearing the sound of the voice, but nothing more; the significance is for Paul. He on the other hand remains blinded by the light, and has to be led by the hand into Damascus; in which condition he continues three days without food or drink. He needs this, doubtless, for the tempest aroused within him to subside, -for the review of the now terrible past, and the realization of the new beginning. The resurrection number may well have its significance here in the apprehension of the old things now for him passed away, and all things become new. Shut up in darkness, amid his now uncongenial associates, he is made to realize his entire dependence upon God to bring him forth, and to accomplish in him the purposes of His marvellous grace.
2. We have now a lovely picture of the free intimacy between our Lord and His disciples in those yet unclouded days of early freshness. Saul is to take his place among the followers of the Crucified in the lowly way of baptism at the hands of those who had preceded him as such. A disciple named Ananias ("Jah has shown grace") is chosen by the Lord for the introduction of Saul. He is simply termed a "disciple," and yet is chosen, not only for the administration of baptism, which is in keeping with all that we have elsewhere in relation to this, but also for that which at Samaria just now required a special visit of apostles from Jerusalem -the communication of the Spirit. We have not yet come to this, however, here; but simply to consider the choice of Ananias to minister in the way we see him do to one designed to be the special apostle of the Gentiles. In Paul we see, as he himself declares to us, any Jewish thought of succession from the original twelve broken through. Paul is an "apostle, not of men, nor through man;" and on this account confers not with flesh and blood, nor even goes up to Jerusalem in the first place, to those who were apostles before him, but to Arabia, to the "backside of the desert" (Gal 1:16-17). The living and abiding Spirit is to be Himself the Source of supply; and the warrant for what is said is, first of all, the truth of it, intertwining with, confirmed by and confirming, all that is truth elsewhere.
Ananias is therefore, as a simple disciple, all the more suited to be sent to Saul; and the Lord accordingly appears to him in a vision, bidding him go and seek in the house of Judas this man who has seen him in a vision, in answer to his prayer, laying his hands upon him, that he may receive his sight. Thus he who is to be in such a large and blessed way, the minister to others is to learn himself, first of all, his own need of ministry, and to receive it. How suited a messenger must this Ananias, with his significant name have seemed to the thankful and humbled man! "Grace" was, indeed, his new found joy. But Saul’s reputation has gone before him, and Ananias shrinks from his task, and ventures even to remonstrate with his Lord. Do we, who perhaps wonder at his foolish faint-heartedness, never imitate it, and reason with Omniscient Love as to His ways with us? But the Lord replies by letting him know that Saul was a chosen vessel unto Him, to bear His Name in testimony of the widest range, -to Gentiles and to Jews both; but the Gentiles here come before the Jews. That which he is to suffer also is proportioned to the breadth of his testimony; to bear the Name of Jesus implies suffering; witness and martyr are to be the same word.
3. There can be no more demur, but Ananias departs upon his errand; and entering the house, lays his hands upon Saul, acquainting him with his commission. It is remarkable that Ananias here joins his being filled with the Spirit as that for which he is sent, while yet it is not mentioned when, or in connection with what, Saul receives the Spirit. With Jews, as having openly rejected Christ, the order elsewhere was that they owned him in baptism, by which they received public remission of their sins, and then they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost nothing is said of the laying on of hands for this, which is first recorded as done in Samaria; but at Ephesus also John’s disciples are first baptized, and then they still wait for the Spirit until Paul’s hands are laid upon them. In the case of Cornelius and his friends, there is no previous baptism, and no laying on of hands at all. Was there any laying on of hands for this by Ananias? Two things would argue for it, -the words of Ananias himself, and the case of John’s disciples. On the other hand, on the imposition of hands all we hear of as following is the healing of Saul’s blindness; there is nothing said of the Spirit being given at that time; nor of any imposition of hands at a later time. The insistence upon baptism first in the case of the Jew seems likewise against it though the apostle of the Gentiles is so exceptional a case, and seems so to reflect the gospel that he carries, and the change in regard to the Gentile is so marked, that one is inclined to read his saying, "Christ sent me not to baptize," back into his own history here. In this unsatisfactory way, it seems, we have to leave it.
"Filled with the Holy Spirit," however, he is indeed; immediately preaching in the synagogues to which his letters of authorization are addressed that very Jesus, whose followers he is commissioned to destroy. He preaches Him also as yet the twelve, as far as the history goes, have not done, in the very character in which Israel had rejected Him, as Son of God. This is the fullest reversal of his own mad unbelief, and the completest challenge of that of Israel. The missionary of their own enmity is suddenly become the very champion of the "Way" he persecuted. Astonishment, which for the moment must have been dismay, falls upon those who hear him and know that which has wrought this change; to which his companions on the road could but bear witness as far as that strange interruption of their journey was realized by them. And Saul increased more and more in strength, and confounded the Jews dwelling at Damascus, proving that the One whom he confessed was indeed the Christ.
The preaching of Jesus as the Son of God we should naturally have expected to have heard in the first place from the lips of John, whose writings are, as we know, so full of this. In Paul’s epistles, if Hebrews is, as I doubt not, to be included among these; we have the Lord spoken of in this character twenty-nine times; but in John’s epistles (of only seven chapters) there are twenty-three occurrences. In one passage alone in the rest of the General Epistles, where Peter quotes the Voice from the "excellent glory" (2Pe 1:17), do we find this title; this, although Peter is in the Gospels the first of the inspired writers to own Christ openly in this way. The kinship between Paul and John is thus plainly declared. The connection with Paul’s doctrines we must consider later, as we take up his epistles.
4. The visit to Arabia, of which the epistle to the Galatians speaks, takes place evidently during those "many days" at the end of which the persecution breaks out, in which first Saul has to taste of the same cup of which he had been compelling others to drink in the dark days forever ended. At first the wonder of his conversion had discomfited the adversaries; but this naturally terminates in a violent reaction on the part of those who have not been brought by it to God; and now they join together in a plot to slay him: but He who in so extraordinary a way had brought him to Himself had no intention of leaving him in the hands of his enemies. The plot became known to Saul; and the gates being watched day and night, the disciples let him down in a basket through a window in the wall by night, and he escapes their hands.
So ends Saul’s testimony at Damascus; nor is he rescued by a miracle from the death designed for him, but escapes in a lowly manner enough, more suited to the way of the Cross which he had begun to tread. It is but the beginning of those many sufferings which the Lord had said that He would show him that he was to endure for His sake. The Glory which was henceforth his guiding star did not light up the earth for him, but drew him out of it. His was to be in a peculiar sense a heavenly testimony, and the power of it that by which the world was crucified to him, and he unto the world.
Driven from Damascus, Saul goes up to Jerusalem, according to his own statement to see Peter (Gal 1:18); for what purpose we are not told; but he abode there only fifteen days. Although three years had elapsed from the time of his conversion, the report of it which had reached the disciples there had yet found no credit in the scene of his former "ravages" upon the flock of Christ. In Arabia he had been for some time probably away from observation, and his recent testimony again in Damascus seems not to have been known. Thus when he essayed to join himself to those whom he had helped to scatter, and who had, no doubt, many of them, vivid remembrances of those unhappy days, there was a general recoil. "They were all afraid of him, not believing him to be a disciple." At this juncture the future companion of his labors,Barnabas, appears as mediator. He took and brought him to the apostles; that is, as Paul himself tells us, to Peter and James, the Lord’s brother, and represents to them the whole matter. The cloud is cleared away, and Saul remains with them going in and out at Jerusalem, and speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
He takes up now the work of the first martyr, disputing with the Hellenistic Jews, who go to work to give him Stephen’s portion; but in an ecstasy (Act 22:17-18) the Lord appears to him, and bids him depart from the city, assuring him that they will not hear his testimony, and that he is to be sent far off to the Gentiles. The brethren thereupon bring him down to Caesarea on the sea-coast, and send him forth to Tarsus, his native city. There for awhile we leave him.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 17, 31, 34 Act 9:1 - Act 9:12; Act 9:17 - Act…
Acts
GRACE TRIUMPHANT
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Act 9:1 - Act 9:12; Act 9:17 - Act 9:20.
This chapter begins with ‘but,’ which contrasts Saul’s persistent hatred, which led him to Gentile lands to persecute, with Philip’s expansive evangelistic work. Both men were in profound earnest, both went abroad to carry on their work, but the one sought to plant what the other was eager to destroy. If the ‘but’ in Act 9:1 contrasts, the ‘yet’ connects the verse with Act 8:3. Saul’s fury was no passing outburst, but enduring. Like other indulged passions, it grew with exercise, and had come to be as his very life-breath, and now planned, not only imprisonment, but death, for the heretics.
Not content with carrying his hateful inquisition into the homes of the Christians in Jerusalem, he will follow the fugitives to Damascus. The extension of the persectution was his own thought. He was not the tool of the Sanhedrin, but their mover. They would probably have been content to cleanse Jerusalem, but the young zealot would not rest till he had followed the dispersed poison into every corner where it might have trickled. The high priest would not discourage such useful zeal, however he might smile at its excess.
So Saul got the letters he asked, and some attendants, apparently, to help him in his hunt, and set off for Damascus. Painters have imagined him as riding thither, but more probably he and his people went on foot. It was a journey of some five or six days. The noon of the last day had come, and the groves of Damascus were, perhaps, in sight. No doubt, the young Pharisee’s head was busy settling what he was to begin with when he entered the city, and was exulting in the thought of how he would harry the meek Christians, when the sudden light shone.
At all events, the narrative does not warrant the view, often taken now, that there had been any preparatory process in Saul’s mind, which had begun to sap his confidence that Jesus was a blasphemer, and himself a warrior for God. That view is largely adopted in order to get rid of the supernatural, and to bolster up the assumption that there are no sudden conversions; but the narrative of Luke, and Paul’s own references, are dead against it. At one moment he is ‘yet breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,’ and in almost the next he is prone on his face, asking, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’ It was not a case of a landslide suddenly sweeping down, but long prepared for by the gradual percolation of water to the slippery understrata, but the solid earth was shaken, and the mountain crashed down in sudden ruin.
The causes of Saul’s conversion are plain in the narrative, even though the shortened form is adopted, which is found in the Revised Version. The received text has probably been filled out by additions from Paul’s own account in Act 26:1 - Act 26:32 First came the blaze of light outshining the midday sun, even in that land where its beams are like swords. That blinding light ‘shone round about him,’ enveloping him in its glory. Act 26:13 tells that his companions also were wrapped in the lustre, and that all fell to the earth, no doubt in terror.
Saul is not said, either in this or in his own accounts, to have seen Jesus, but 1Co 15:8 establishes that he did so, and Ananias {Act 9:17} refers to Jesus as having ‘appeared.’ That appearance, whatever may have been the psychological account of it, was by Paul regarded as being equal in evidential value to the flesh-and-blood vision of the risen Lord which the other Apostles witnessed to, and as placing him in the same line as a witness.
It is to be noted also, that, while the attendants saw the light, they were not blinded, as Saul was; from which it may be inferred that he saw with his bodily eyes the glorified manhood of Jesus, as we are told that one day, when He returns as Judge, ‘every eye shall see Him.’ Be that as it may,-and we have not material for constructing a theory of the manner of Christ’s appearance to Saul,- the overwhelming conviction was flooded into his soul, that the Jesus whom he had thought of as a blasphemer, falsely alleged to have risen from the dead, lived in heavenly glory, amid celestial brightness too dazzling for human eyes.
The words of gentle remonstrance issuing from the flashing glory went still further to shake the foundations of the young Pharisee’s life; for they, as with one lightning gleam, laid hare the whole madness and sin of the crusade which he had thought acceptable to God. ‘Why persecutest thou Me?’ Then the odious heretics were knit by some mysterious bond to this glorious One, so that He bled in their wounds and felt their pains! Then Saul had been, as his old teacher dreaded they of the Sanhedrin might be, fighting against God! How the reasons for Saul’s persecution had crumbled away, till there were none left with which to answer Jesus’ question! Jesus lived, and was exalted to glory. He was identified with His servants. He had appeared to Saul, and deigned to plead with him.
No wonder that the man who had been planning fresh assaults on the disciples ten minutes before, was crushed and abject as he lay there on the road, and these tremendous new convictions rushed like a cataract over and into his soul! No wonder that the lessons burned in on him in that hour of destiny became the centre-point of all his future teaching! That vision revolutionised his thinking and his life. None can affirm that it was incompetent to do so.
Luke’s account here, like Paul’s in Act 22:1 - Act 22:30, represents further instructions from Jesus as postponed till Saul’s meeting with Ananias, while Paul’s other account in Act 26:1 - Act 26:32 omits mention of the latter, and gives the substance of what he said in Damascus as said on the road by Jesus. The one account is more detailed than the other, that is all. The gradual unfolding of the heavenly purpose which our narrative gives is in accord with the divine manner. For the moment enough had been done to convert the persecutor into the servant, to level with the ground his self-righteousness, to reveal to him the glorified Jesus, to bend his will and make it submissive. The rest would be told him in due time.
The attendants had fallen to the ground like him, but seem to have struggled to their feet again, while he lay prostrate. They saw the brightness, but not the Person: they heard the voice, but not the words. Saul staggered by their help to his feet, and then found that with open eyes he was blind. Imagination or hallucination does not play tricks of that sort with the organs of sense.
The supernatural is too closely intertwined with the story to be taken out of it without reducing it to tatters. The greatest of Christian teachers, who has probably exercised more influence than any man who ever lived, was made a Christian by a miracle. That fact is not to be got rid of. But we must remember that once when He speaks of it He points to God’s revelation of His Son ‘in Him’ as its essential character. The external appearance was the vehicle of the inward revelation. It is to be remembered, too, that the miracle did not take away Saul’s power of accepting or rejecting the Christ; for he tells Agrippa that he was ‘not disobedient to the heavenly vision.’
What a different entry he made into Damascus from what he expected, and what a different man it was that crawled up to the door of Judas, in the street that is called Straight, from the self-confident young fanatic who had left Jerusalem with the high priest’s letters in his bosom and fierce hate in his heart!
Ananias was probably not one of the fugitives, as his language about Saul implies that he knew of his doings only by hearsay. The report of Saul’s coming and authority to arrest disciples had reached Damascus before him, with the wonderful quickness with which news travels in the East, nobody knows how. Ananias’s fears being quieted, he went to the house where for three days Saul had been lying lonely in the dark, fasting, and revolving many things in his heart. No doubt his Lord had spoken many a word to him, though not by vision, but by whispering to his spirit. Silence and solitude root truth in a soul. After such a shock, absolute seclusion was best.
Ananias discharged his commission with lovely tenderness and power. How sweet and strange to speaker and hearer would that ‘Brother Saul’ sound! How strong and grateful a confirmation of his vision would Ananias’s reference to the appearance of the Lord bring! How humbly would the proud Pharisee bow to receive, laid on his head, the hands that he had thought to bind with chains! What new eyes would look out on a world in which all things had become new, when there fell from them as it had been scales, and as quickly as had come the blinding, so quickly came the restored vision!
Ananias was neither Apostle nor official, yet the laying on of his hands communicated ‘the Holy Ghost.’ Saul received that gift before baptism, not after or through the ordinance. It was important for his future relations to the Apostles that he should not have been introduced to the Church by them, or owed to them his first human Christian teaching. Therefore he could say that he was ‘an Apostle, not from men, neither through man.’ It was important for us that in that great instance that divine gift should have been bestowed without the conditions accompanying, which have too often been regarded as necessary for, its possession.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Saul Becomes a Christian
Saul Becomes a Christian
1-30. The Conversion of Saul is to regarded as a miraculous event. The way for it may have been prepared by Stephen's speech, by the spectacle of the constancy of the Christian martyrs, and by Saul's own consciousness of the imperfections of the Law (Rom_7:7 to Rom_8:11). Yet there is no indication that he was anything but a violent enemy of Christianity until the moment of his conversion. His own language on this point is quite clear (1Co_15:9; Gal_1:12-16; 1Ti_1:13). St. Paul always maintained that the appearance of the risen Christ to him which brought about his conversion, was as objective and real as the appearances to the other Apostles. He regarded it as the turning-point of his life, and the beginning of his new vocation. He claimed to be an Apostle of equal rank and authority with the other Apostles (2Co_11:5; Gal_2:8, etc.), (1) because Christ had appeared to him as to the others (1Co_15:8; 1Co_9:1), and (2) because Christ had appointed him an Apostle just as He had appointed the others (Act_22:21, etc.). For confirmation of the truth of this he appealed to 'the signs of an apostle' (miracles, conversions, etc.) which accompanied his ministry (2Co_12:12).
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Saul's conversion at once gave Christianity a higher social status. He was an educated man, of good family, a rabbi, and (probably) a member of the Sanhedrin. It could no longer be objected to the teachers of the new faith that they were all ignorant and unlettered men.
The conversion of Saul is a turning-point in the history of Christianity. By conversion he became not merely a Christian, but an enlightened Christian. He perceived that the ceremonial Law was no longer binding, and his perception of this fact enabled him to preach Christianity as a universal religion. The Twelve already held this view in principle, but to Saul belongs the credit of acting upon it with energy, and of carrying it out to its logical results.
1. The high priest] The Romans allowed the Sanhedrin to exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction (except in capital cases) over the whole Jewish community, even outside Palestine.
2. Synagogues] clearly the Christians had not yet separated from the Jewish synagogues. This way] 'Way,' thus used absolutely for Christianity, is peculiar to Acts: see Act_16:17; Act_18:25-26; Act_19:9, Act_19:23; Act_22:4; Act_24:14, Act_24:22.
3. A light] according to 1Co_9:1, Paul saw, within the light, Jesus Himself, in His risen and glorified body.
5. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks] These words, which the RV omits as an interpolation from Act_26:14, mean that the rôle of a persecutor is impossible to Paul. Paul is really in the position of a plough-ox. Jesus is his driver, and holds the goad. Paul can no more resist Jesus than the plough-ox can resist his driver. There is probably no allusion to stings of conscience, as some have supposed.
6. According to Act_26:16, Jesus also told Paul that his mission would be to preach to the Gentiles.
7. Stood speechless] According to Act_26:14, they fell to the earth. Hearing a voice] RV 'hearing the voice.' Yet in Act_22:9; Paul says, 'they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.' The latter account, being Paul's own, is to be preferred. Those who wish to harmonise the two accounts translate here 'hearing the sound' (RM). But it is not necessary to harmonise. The variations in unimportant details only accentuate the general harmony.
8. Saw no man] RV 'saw nothing.'
9. Saul fasted to show his penitence.
10. Ananias] probably the head of the Christian body at Damascus. Late tradition makes him one of the Seven, consecrated bishop of Damascus by Peter and Andrew, and a martyr.
15. A chosen vessel] i.e. a chosen instrument: cp. Act_13:2; Gal_1:15, etc. The Gentiles] cp. Act_22:21; Act_26:17; Rom_1:5; Rom_11:13; Gal_2:7, Gal_2:8. And the children of Israel] Though Paul's mission was mainly to the Gentiles, it was his custom to preach the gospel first to the Jews: see Act_13:14, etc.
16. I will shew him] see Act_20:23; Act_21:11; 2Co_11:23.
18. And was baptized] It is added (Act_22:16) that St. Paul received at his baptism the remission of his former sins.
The three accounts of St. Paul's conversion (Acts 9, 22, 26) present some not very important variations. Thus, St. Paul alone fell to the earth (Acts 9), but in Acts 26 all fell to the earth The men heard a voice (Acts 9), but in Acts 22 they heard not the voice. These men 'saw no man' (Acts 9), but in Acts 22 they 'saw indeed the light.' In Acts 26 it is the Lord who declares that St. Paul is to be 'a minister and witness' to the Gentiles; in Acts 9 and Acts 22 it is Ananias. In Acts 26 no allusion is made to the Apostle becoming blind, or to Ananias, but it is noted that the Lord spoke in Hebrew.
19. Certain days] St. Luke makes no mention of the Arabian sojourn of St. Paul, which, according to Gal_1:17, took place immediately after the conversion. Either St. Luke did not know of it, or thought it unimportant for his purpose. By 'Arabia' is probably meant the territory of the Nabatæans, which in the period of their greatest prosperity extended from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. To this race belonged king Aretas, whose ethnarch in Damascus endeavoured to arrest St. Paul (2Co_11:32).
20. Christ] RV 'Jesus.' The Son of God] Whatever may be the meaning of this term in the Synoptic Gospels, in the Pauline theology it undoubtedly means a preexistent divine being, consubstantial with the Father, and His agent in the Creation and Redemption of the world.
23. After many days] according to Gal_1:18, after' three years.' The Jews] These must have persuaded the governor of king Aretas to persecute Paul: see 2Co_11:32.
25. The disciples] RV 'his disciples.'
26. It is strange that after this arduous work at Damascus the Church of Jerusalem should still doubt the fact of Paul's conversion.
27. To the apostles] according to Galatians 1, Paul stayed in Jerusalem fifteen days, and of the Apostles saw only Peter and James the Lord's brother.
29. Grecians] i.e. Greekspeaking Jews.
30. The reason why Paul was willing to leave Jerusalem is given in Act_22:18; (a vision of Jesus in the Temple).
31. Extension of the Church in Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria.
The churches] RV 'the Church.' The local churches formed one organic whole.
32-43. Activity of Peter at Lydda and Joppa.
32. Throughout all quarters] or, 'throughout all the saints.' Lydda] in the plain of Sharon, about 10 m. SE. of Joppa, on the way to Jerusalem.
33. Ænìas] the name is different from that of the hero of Virgil's poem (¯nças).
34. The Apostle healed 'in the name of Jesus.' Jesus healed in His own name, as being Himself the author of the cure.
35. Saron] or, Sharon, is a very fruitful plain extending along the coast of the Mediterranean from Joppa to Carmel (1Ch_27:29; Son_2:1, etc.).
36. Joppa] now Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem, and the only seaport ever possessed by the Jews. Dorcas] i.e. 'gazelle.'
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1–43 IX: 1, 2. These is a sudden transition in…
IX: 1, 2. These is a sudden transition in our narrative at this point, and it assumes more the character of a biography. The writers of sacred history, in both Testaments, devote the greater part of their space to biographical sketches. The greater familiarity of the masses of the people with such portions of the Bible fully attests the wisdom of this course. This familiarity is the result of a deeper impression made upon the heart, and, consequently, upon the memory. We accept it, therefore, thankfully, that Luke, in his sketch of apostolic labors, was directed to record, somewhat connectedly, the labors of Paul, rather than detached sketches from the lives of all the apostles. What is lost to our curiosity in reference to the other apostles is far overbalanced by the more thrilling effect of a continuous personal narrative. This effect is all the more thrilling, from the selection of him, who, among all the apostles, was “in labors most abundant.”
Saul has already been introduced to the reader in the account of Stephen's martyrdom. By the aid of his own subsequent statements concerning himself, we are able to trace his history to a still earlier period. The early education and ancestral remembrances of a man have much to do in forming his character and shaping his career. Those of Saul were calculated to thrust him into the very scenes in which he first figures in history. He was born in the city of Tarsus, in Cilicia, not far from the period at which Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He was of pure Jewish extraction, of the tribe of Benjamin, and descended from pious ancestry. This insured his careful instruction in Jewish history, and such portions of the law of Moses as he could understand in childhood. His parents were Pharisees, and, therefore, his understanding of the Scriptures was modified by the peculiar interpretations and traditions of that sect, while his prejudices were all enlisted in its favor.
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Besides this religious instruction, he was taught the trade of tent-making. The goat's hair which was used in this manufacture was produced in Cilicia in such abundance, and of so fine a quality, that the manufactured article acquired the name Cilicium, from the name of the province. The wisdom of his parents in teaching him this trade as a means of providing against the unfortunate contingencies of life, will be fully exemplified in the course of this narrative.
The child was being educated, under the eye of an overruling Providence, for a future unthought of by either himself or his parents. His residence in a city where the Greek language prevailed was not the least important circumstance bearing upon his education. Like the children of foreigners in our own country, though the ancestral tongue was the language of the fireside, on the streets and in all places of public resort he was compelled to employ the language of the adopted country. In this way he acquired that familiarity with the Greek, which enabled him, in after-life, to employ it with facility both in writing and speaking.
It was only his earliest childhood that was thus devoted to parental instruction, and to the acquirement of the Greek language and a trade; for he was “brought up” in the city of Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel. Under the instruction of this learned Pharisee, whose prudence and whose calm indifference to the cause of Christ we have had occasion to notice, in commenting on the second trial of the apostles, his Pharisaic prejudices must have been intensified, with his knowledge of the law was enlarged, and his zeal for it inflamed.
A youth of Paul's intellectual capacity would be expected to make rapid advances with the opportunities which he now enjoyed, and so, he tells us, he did. “I made progress in the Jew's religion above many my equals in age in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” This pre-eminence among his school-fellows was accompanied by the strictest propriety of religious deportment; so that he could appeal, after the lapse of many years, to those who knew him in his youth, though now his enemies, to testify that, “according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.” He could even declare that he was, “touching the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.” Such was his character, and his reputation, when he finished his course of instruction in the school of Gamaliel.
If the usual supposition concerning Saul's age is correct, it is not probable that he was in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, or for several years previous. If he had been, it would be unaccountable that in all his epistles he makes no allusion to a personal knowledge of Jesus. The supposition that he was at that time still confined in the school of Gamaliel is not only inconsistent with his supposed age, which could not have been less than thirty at the time he is introduced to us, but it is insufficient to account for his ignorance of events over which the every children of Jerusalem rejoiced. The supposition that he left the school and returned to Tarsus previous to the immersion preached by John, and reappeared in Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus, is most agreeable to all the known facts in the case. By an absence of a few years he had not forfeited his former reputation, but appears now as a leader in the movements against the Church. We have already, in commenting on Acts 6:9 , ventured the assumption, that among the Cilicians there mentioned as opponents of Stephen, Saul bore a leading part as a disputant. Such a position of his superior learning and piety would naturally assign him, and his prominence at the stoning of Stephen affords evidence in favor of this assumption. The law required that the witnesses upon whose testimony an idolater was condemned to death should throw the first stones, in the execution of the sentence. In accordance with this law, the witnesses against Stephen, preparatory to their cruel work, laid off their cumbrous outer-garments, at the feet of Saul, who “was consenting of his death.” After the death of Stephen, he still maintained the position of a leader, and continued to commit men and women to prison, until the Church was entirely dispersed. Many of those committed to prison met with the fate of Stephen. This fact is not stated by Luke, but is confessed by Paul in his speech before Agrippa. Many others were beaten in the synagogues, and compelled to blaspheme the name of Jesus as the condition of release from their tortures.
After the congregation in Jerusalem had been dispersed, Saul doubtless thought that the sect was effectually crushed. But soon the news came floating back from every quarter, that the scattered disciples were building up congregations in every direction. One less determined than Saul might have despaired of final success is destroying a cause which had thus far been promoted by every attack made upon it, and which even sprung up with increasing strength from apparent destruction. But his was a nature which gathered new resolution as obstacles multiplied before him; and thus he appears in the present text, which, after so long delay, we must now have before us. (1) “ But Saul, yet breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, (2) and requested from him letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that, if he found any of that way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”
Why he selected Damascus as the scene of his first enterprise, rather than some of the cities of Judea, is acknowledged by Olshausen as “difficult to determine.” But when we remember the sensitiveness of patriots, in reference to the reputation of their country and its institutions in foreign lands, the difficulty disappears. The ancestral religion of the Jew was his pride and boast in every land. It was bitter enough to the proud Pharisee that it should be brought into disrepute among a portion of the population at home; but when the hated authors of this reproach began to spread it abroad in surrounding kingdoms, it was beyond endurance. When the news reached Jerusalem that this dishonoring heresy had begun to spread in the ancient and celebrated city of Damascus, where thousands of Jews then lived, and had obtained a religious influence over a large portion of the population, the exasperation of the Pharisees knew no bounds, and Saul, with characteristic ardor, started in pursuit of the fugitives. He had reason, of course, to believe, that, upon requisition of the high priest, the authorities of Damascus, which was then embraced within the dominions of the Arabian king Aretas, would deliver up the disciples as fugitives from justice. That he was correct in this is sufficiently demonstrated by the zeal with which the governor afterward lent the aid of his guards to the orthodox Jews, for the purpose of seizing Paul himself.
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 vv2, 4, 7, 20, 22, 26, 29, 36, 39 of this way
of this way
that were of The Way, i.e. Christ. Joh 14:6.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The vision of Glory on the road to…
CHAPTER 9
1. The vision of Glory on the road to Damascus (Act 9:1-9).
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2. Instructions given to Ananias (Act 9:10-16).
3. Saul filled with the Spirit, is baptized and preaches that Jesus is the Son of God (Act 9:17-22).
4. Saul persecuted and back in Jerusalem (Act 9:23-31).
5. Further Acts of Peter (Act 9:32-43).
The previous chapter must be looked upon in its main part as a parenthesis. The record now leads us back to the close of the seventh, and the person who was connected with the great tragedy enacted there is prominently brought now before us. The witnesses of the wicked deed had laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. This is the first time this remarkable man is mentioned. We also learned that he was consenting unto Stephen’s death; he made havoc of the church and committed men and women to prison. While the scattered believers had carried the Gospel throughout Judea, Philip had gone down to Samaria and with great results preached the Gospel, and during the same time Peter and John preached in the Samaritan villages, Saul carried on his work of persecution. This we learn from the opening verse of the present chapter. “And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest.” The conversion of this great persecutor and his call by the risen and glorified lord to be the Apostle to the Gentiles is the event which is next described. It is the greatest event recorded in Acts next to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
Saul was from Tarsus in Cilicia, where he had become acquainted with Greek life, literature, art and philosophy. The chief industry of Tarsus was tent making. This trade the young Saul learned. He had a married sister living in Jerusalem (Act 23:16). He also was a Roman citizen.
Saul received his religious education in Jerusalem. We find this from his own words, “I am verily a man, a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city (Jerusalem) at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye are all this day” (Act 22:3).
That Saul was highly respected in Jerusalem and close to the leaders of the people, is seen by the letters entrusted to him and the commission to Damascus. He may have been even a member of the council, for “he voted.” “When they (Christians) were put to death, I gave my voice (literally, my vote) against them” (Act 26:10).
And now God’s marvelous Grace and Power in salvation is to be manifested. Israel as a nation had rejected the offer and Stephen’s death marked the end of that gracious offer. But God can manifest even greater riches of His Grace and display His great Love. Saul not alone belonged to the nation, which had rejected Christ, but shared in that rejection, but he was, so to speak, the heading up of all the hatred and malignity against the Christ of God. He personified the blindness, unbelief and hatred of the whole nation. He was indeed an enemy, the greatest enemy, the chief of sinners. Surely only Grace could save such a one, and Grace it is, which is now to be manifested in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the Grace which he was to know first by the vision of the glorified Christ, and which he, ever after, was to proclaim and make known to others.
The vision itself which burst upon Saul on the road to Damascus is one of the greatest in the whole Bible. It has baffled unbelief. Infidels of all descriptions, French rationalists like Renan, reformed rationalistic Jews, and the worst of all, the advocates of the destructive Bible Criticism, have tried to explain the occurrence in some natural way.
Renan said that it was an uneasy conscience with unstrung nerves, fatigue of the journey, eyes inflamed by the hot sun, a sudden stroke of fever, which produced the hallucination. And this nonsense is repeated to this day. Others of the critics have stated that it was a thunderstorm which overtook him, and that a flash of lightning blinded him. In that lightning flash he imagined that he saw Christ. Again, others have tried to explain his vision by some physical disease. Jews and others have declared that he suffered from Epilepsy, which the Greeks called “the holy disease.” This disease, they say, put him into a state of ecstasy, which may have greatly impressed his Gentile hearers. In such an attack he imagined to have seen a vision and heard a voice. All these and other opinions are puerile inventions. The fact is, the conversion of Saul is one of the great miracles and evidences of Christianity.
The ninth chapter does not contain the full record of what happened on the road to Damascus. The Apostle Paul himself relates twice his own experience in chapter 22:5-16 and in chapter 26:12-18. He also mentions his conversion briefly in 1Co 15:8; Gal 1:15-16 and 1Ti 1:12-13. The three accounts of Saul’s conversion are not without meaning. The one before us in the ninth chapter is the briefest, and is simply the historical account of the event as it had to be embodied in the Book of the Acts, as history. The account in the twenty-second chapter was given by Paul in the Hebrew tongue; it is the longest statement and was addressed to the Jews. The account in the twenty-sixth chapter was given in presence of the Roman governor Festus and the Jewish king Agrippa, therefore addressed to both Jews and Gentiles. But are there not discrepancies and disagreements in these three accounts? Such has been the claim from the side of men who reject the inspiration of the Bible. There are differences, but no disagreements. These differences in themselves are the evidences of inspiration. The differences, however, are simply in the manner in which the facts of the event are presented.
He saw then the glorified One and heard His voice. This great vision became the great turning point of his life. He received perfect knowledge and assurance, that the rejected Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. The great event is prophetic. It will be repeated on a larger scale when the Lord Jesus comes again and the remnant of Israel sees Him coming in the clouds of heaven.
The words which the Lord addressed to Saul:--”Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” contain the blessed Gospel he was soon to proclaim. He did not persecute Christ, but those who had believed on Him.
Every believing sinner is a member of the body of Christ. Christ in Glory, the Lord, who spoke to Saul in the way, is the Head of that body, the church. Christ is in each member of His body, His life is there; and every believer is in Christ. “Ye in Me and I in you.” And this great hidden mystery flashes forth in this wonderful event for the first time “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me.” “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” The poor, hated, despised Nazarenes, whom the mad, Jewish zealot Saul of Tarsus had driven out of Jerusalem, put into prison and delivered unto death, were one with the Lord in Glory. They were identified with Him and He with them. Their persecution meant His persecution, in their affliction He was afflicted. They were members of His body and that body was in existence.
Soon after we see the erstwhile persecutor preaching Jesus, that He is the Son of God. Persecution soon followed. He also spent a time in Arabia and then paid a visit to Jerusalem for fifteen days (Gal 1:17-24). Further Acts of Peter by divine power conclude this chapter.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 10, 13, 17, 20, 23, 26, 32, 36 The Conversion and Early Labors of Paul.
The Conversion and Early Labors of Paul.
Paul’s continued enmity against the Church:
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v. 1. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,
v. 2. and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
In marked contrast to the earnest labors of Philip in building up the Church of Christ we have here the hostile and destructive activities of Saul. With the passing of time the fire of his enmity did not abate, but was rather fanned to ever greater heat and fierceness. This state of mind had become so habitual with him that he actually breathed threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord. That was the atmosphere which he breathed, in which he lived. The threats alone were a base transgression of the Fifth Commandment, but he also actually followed them up with murder; he delivered all the disciples whom he could capture to prison and death. But his worst sin consisted in his blaspheming the name of the Lord by this opposition and persecution. Saul’s greatest delight at that time would have been to destroy both Christ and all Christendom in one day, had he been able to do so, 1Ti 1:13; Php 3:6; Gal 1:13; 1Co 15:9 In this frame of mind he went to the high priest and earnestly besought him for letters, credentials setting forth his authorization in the name of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. For Saul’s attention had been called to the fact that Christian congregations were being established elsewhere, and the matter gave him no rest. Damascus had a large Jewish population and was the nearest foreign city of importance. To check the spread of the Gospel in this city would be a great victory for the Jews. The Sanhedrin at that time, even under Roman government, had great power and jurisdiction, both civil and criminal. Not only could it have arrests made by its own officers, but it could also deal with cases where the death penalty was not involved. And the authorities of Damascus were not liable to hinder such activities, as long as they were confined to the Jews. It was Saul’s plan, therefore, to have his credentials addressed to all the synagogues of Damascus, in order that he might have full jurisdiction to act. Should he then find any persons, either men or women, "of this way," addicted to this new doctrine, as he supposed, he intended to bring them to Jerusalem in bonds. Note: The hostility of the vehement enemies of Christ in our days may not be able to show itself in just this way, but they make use of the flimsiest excuses and subterfuges to persecute the Church of Christ. Even as Saul, the Pharisee, sought to establish his own righteousness over against the righteousness of Jesus of Nazareth, and thus became the most dangerous enemy of Christ, so the modern Pharisees take offense at the preaching of salvation by the blood of the crucified Christ.
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 vv1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 17, 20, 23, 26, 28, 31, 33, 36, 38, 40 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
The story shifts back to Saul and his salvation.
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General Information:
These verses give background information telling us what Saul has been doing since the stoning of Stephen. (See: Background Information)
General Information:
Here the word "him" refers to the high priest and "he" refers to Saul.
still speaking threats even of murder against the disciples
The noun "murder" can be translated as a verb. AT: "still speaking threats, even to murder the disciples" (See: Abstract Nouns)
for the synagogues
This refers to the people in the synagogues. AT: "for the people in the synagogues" or "for the leaders in the synagogues" (See: Metonymy)
if he found any
"when he found anyone" or "if he found anyone"
who belonged to the Way
"who followed the teachings of Jesus Christ"
the Way
This term appears to have been a title for Christianity at that time.
he might bring them bound to Jerusalem
"he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem." Paul's purpose can be made clear by adding "so that the Jewish leaders could judge and punish them" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
Paul
disciple
high priest
epistle
synagogue
Damascus
bind
Jerusalem
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 vv1, 2, 10, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 43 9:1-19 The conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the…
9:1-19 The conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road is of central importance to the narrative of Acts—Luke recounts the story three times (also 22:1-21; 26:1-29). Paul (Saul) also alludes to this experience several times in his letters (1 Cor 15:8-10; Gal 1:11-17; Phil 3:4-11; see 1 Tim 1:12-17). Saul’s conversion was his prophetic call and commission as an apostle (Acts 9:15; 22:15, 21; 26:15-18). No one is beyond the power of God to reach, redeem, and use for holy purposes—nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). Paul was prepared through his training, upbringing, and experience to play a unique role in taking the gospel into the broader world as the “apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom 11:13; see 1 Cor 15:9; 2 Cor 12:11-12; Gal 1:1; Eph 3:8).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.