Chapter 9 picks up the story from the beginning of chapter 8. There Stephen has just been stoned to death by a furious mob. Saul, who was present, gave his sanction to the deed. And then we read,
And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
From there the narrative of Acts follows Philip to Samaria, where an explosion of God’s power takes place: people being saved, healed, baptized. There’s the account of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, and the eunuch surrenders to Jesus and gets baptized. By the time we get to the end of chapter 8 we’re so excited and ‘high-fiving’ that we might forget the reality of the beginning of chapter 8. But chapter 9:1 quickly brings us back. While all of this has been going on in Samaria, the great persecution is still going on in Jerusalem, and Saul is still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
He is ‘flaring his nostrils’ (as it were) at the mere thought of the followers of Jesus. Years later, looking back on this time, Saul said this about himself,
I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury I persecuted them even in foreign cities.
This is not just religious zeal. This is a pathological hatred of the church. He was an extremist and he had both the authority and the means to do something about it. His obsession was to destroy the church. Even in foreign cities.
So at one point he asks for and receives the authority to go to the city of Damascus so that if he finds any Christians (most likely those who had been scattered there during the Jerusalem persecution), he might bring them back as prisoners. So he sets out with his company on the one week journey.
As he nears the city, the event happens that will ultimately divide his whole life into ‘before and after’. A light from heaven flashes around him and he falls to the ground. He hears an unfamiliar voice (but a voice that he will come to know intimately), ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’.
Saul, confused, answers, in a literal translation, ‘Who are you, sir?’
And then Saul hears the three words that will shatter his life, and we can hardly imagine the impact of hearing these words: ‘I am Jesus’. How Saul must have been horrified at those words, and what they signified for him.
We just need to pause and remember what Saul’s life was: Fanatically devoted to the Jewish religion. An extremist who knows and keeps the rigid religious law. Rabidly opposed to anything that might threaten the religion, and convinced he was actually fighting for God’s honor.
Jesus came and, in his earthly ministry, stripped away all the laws that had so encrusted the actual word of God so as to obscure it. He repeatedly (and often angrily) called the religious establishment on effectively removing God from the picture entirely. He even spoke and acted as if he were himself divine. So Jesus was killed, and rightly so. Good riddance! But then there arose an ever increasing mass of people who claimed Jesus as their living Lord, who affirmed Jesus’ ways and words, and who repeatedly spread this so-called ‘good news’ that Jesus is divine, that he is, in fact, God’s Son. Blasphemy! And what’s more, they basically claimed that to get Jesus wrong is to get God wrong.
Well! That just makes Saul livid and his full time occupation is to exterminate these vermin who are a blot on the honor of Saul’s God!
Now, suddenly, he hears the words, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’
Like a hammer these words fall! ‘I am Jesus, Saul. Not dead, but risen, speaking to you from the glory of heaven, from my place at the right hand of the God you think you’re serving by despising me. I am the Lord and as you execute and persecute my followers, you are persecuting me.’
All of Saul’s dearly held convictions that he was so willing not only to die for but to kill for, (convictions about God, about what pleased God, convictions about Jesus convictions about Christians, convictions about God’s view of him) are wiped out in three devastating words: ‘I am Jesus’.
Jesus continues to speak to Saul: ‘Rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do.’
The assumption of authority: Jesus does not invite Saul into his service. He conscripts him. The first communication from Jesus to Saul is a command and from now on Saul of Tarsus will refer to himself as a ‘slave of Christ’.
F.F. Bruce, in his wonderful book Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, said this:
With no conscious preparation, Paul found himself instantaneously compelled by what he saw and heard to acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified one, was alive after his suffering, vindicated and exalted by God, and was now conscripting him into his service. There could be no resistance to this compulsion. He capitulated forthwith to the commands of his new master. A conscript he might be, but henceforth also a devoted and lifelong volunteer.
Attempts to account for Paul’s experience in physiological or psychological terms are precarious and inadequate to boot, unless they take adequately into consideration the fact that it involved the intelligent and deliberate surrender of his will to the risen Christ who had appeared to him – the risen Christ who, from this time on, displaced the law as the center of Paul’s life and thought.
Saul’s life had a new center after this encounter on the road to Damascus.
That is the essence of conversion, the heart of what it means to be a Christian. For Paul was on one hand surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus. He had a new Master. But it was a joyful surrender. In the letters Saul (now known as ‘Paul’) wrote years later (and that we have in our New Testament) repeatedly emphasized that to be a servant of Jesus was his great joy:
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For me to live is Christ.
To me this grace was given, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
And so on. Jesus laid his authoritative claim on Paul’s life and Paul was filled with joy because of it.
Isn’t that what it is to be a Christian?
If we are very conscientious about obeying what we know God requires, living ‘right’ and being ‘good’ not just for the sake of religion but because we genuinely respect the Lordship of God, yet do not love him, then isn’t our Christianity only operating at 50%?
If we get all emotional at the songs we sing, and if we just love Jesus and thank him that he’s always there, if we are genuinely moved at the thought of God’s sending Jesus to die for the forgiveness of our sins, but we do not in any meaningful way allow him any authority in our lives (our gossip and criticism go unchecked, we are not personally engaged in any way in God’s great work of bringing people to himself, God is not a conscious factor in any of our decisions regarding career, house, and spending) then Jesus is not my Lord. We are only half-Christians (if we are Christians at all).
Theologians have often spoken of our ‘joyful duty’: To be a slave of Jesus and to revel in it. To be at his beck and call because you love him so deeply and because he loves you so much that you know he will never call you to anything that is not also in your own best interest.
That was Paul. Jesus laid claim to Paul’s absolute obedience (‘Arise and go into the city and wait for further instructions’), and Paul loved Jesus absolutely for the rest of his life. That is Christianity at its best and fullest.
The word that Paul would so often later use to capture that reality was ‘grace’. Paul had been a murderer and persecutor of Christians, filled with hatred and violence against those that had anything to do with Jesus, but instead of striking Paul down, Jesus appeared to him, appointed Paul to his service, and forgave him absolutely.
Paul was forever amazed at God’s grace.
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of who I am the worst.
And so are we, when we stop to think about it. Who among us has ever thought of God’s Lordship and then rebelled against it and made our own choice: ‘He’s not Lord. In this instance, I am lord.’ We are like Paul. We have chosen to turn our backs on God.
Paul’s story continues and shows that not only is God a God of grace, and Jesus a king and Saviour of grace, but his people are also people of grace:
For example Ananias. Paul had been in Damascus for 3 days. The Lord called Ananias to go to Saul. After some hesitation, he obeyed and the first word that Saul heard from Ananias, exactly who Ananias came to lead off to prison, was ‘brother’.
Or Barnabas. Paul had grown in influence in Damascus as a follower of Jesus and the Jews had plotted to kill him. He escaped and went to (of all places!) Jerusalem. The disciples were hesitant to accept him. (‘After all, wasn’t he going to Damascus to persecute our brothers and sisters in Christ?’) But after Barnabas’ encouragement they reluctantly brought him into their midst and quickly were convinced of the genuineness of Saul’s faith and service to Jesus.
Both Ananias and Barnabas (and countless Christians since then) were people of grace. It’s all about grace. It has to be! We can bring nothing to the table! Salvation is by grace only.
We are too called to be people of grace. Don’t write anyone off. Who do you need to love, forgive? Don’t write yourself off. God extends his grace to you no matter what (no matter what!) you have done.
Jesus is Lord and is to be obeyed. God is a God of grace. So we are a people of grace, are we not?
AMEN.