Brethren and fathers, hear my defence which I now make to you.
Paul stands above a hostile crowd and opens his defence with a greeting, not a protest. The form of address he chooses, and the language he speaks it in, do as much work as the story that follows.
The older wording sounds like three groups: men, brethren, and fathers. One reference work shows that it names two:
In "men and brethren" (Acts 1:16; Acts 2:29, and so on), two groups are not meant. The sense is "men who are brethren," or, as we would say, simply "brethren." So in Acts 7:2 and Acts 22:1 there are not three groups, but two: "men who are brethren, and fathers."
One writer names the language Luke calls "Hebrew," and says why it quieted the crowd:
He began to speak to his countrymen in a language dearer to them — Aramaic, which Luke calls "Hebrew." Since the Babylonian captivity it had become the everyday language of Jews born in the land. There is a charm in one's own language. It sounds like music to a native ear, however harsh and rough it may sound to a foreigner. The Jews were not indifferent to that. So when they heard him speak Aramaic, they grew quieter.
With the Roman commander he had used Greek. The change of language was a choice:
To the commander Paul had spoken in Greek. But he was always ready to win people by the attentions of love, above all when it was his own beloved though rebellious people. So he speaks to them in Hebrew — that is, in their ordinary language, which was called Hebrew.
Acts tells the story of Paul's conversion more than once, and the tellings differ. One writer traces the difference to the purpose of each account:
Earlier in this book we had the history of the apostle's conversion in its historical order. That account bears deeply on the progress of the gospel and the revelation of Christian truth. Here we have the same story as part of his defence before the people of Israel. So it has a particular aim, marked by his use of the Hebrew language, and that explains its other special features. There is really no contradiction here, any more than in other parts of Scripture. Any appearance of one comes only from the difference of purpose.
Paul first sets out a past his hearers would have admired, and credits them with the zeal he once had:
He had persecuted the Way to the death, and filled prisons with people under suspicion and accusation... Who had played the persecutor more relentlessly than he? Zeal for God had indeed marked him. Zeal for God, he acknowledged (22:3), marked them too. But there may be zeal for God without knowledge. That he had experienced in his own case.
Commentators differ on how to weigh this speech. Some see God-given skill in the way he builds it:
As we read the account in Acts 22, we cannot help seeing the skill God gave Paul as he spoke. He began by telling them what he had been in his early days, when his way of life matched their own thinking... He tells the story in a way that presses one point on his hearers: God had brought about the change in him that so offended them.
Another writer sees Paul excusing himself here, and asks why he told them of a mission they would not receive:
He excuses himself to the Jews, no doubt. But if they would not receive his testimony, why say that the Lord had sent him? This speech is the main point of the apostle's history, and all the rest depends on it.
The silence held while he spoke of himself. It broke at one word:
His countrymen listened with great attention while he spoke of his early life and his persecution of the church. They heard him tell of his mission to Damascus, his miraculous conversion, his vision in the temple, and his meeting with Ananias. But the moment he mentioned his mission to the Gentiles, the crowd below burst out in boundless anger and silenced him. They could not endure the thought of God's grace to the Gentiles.
- Greeting. "Brothers and fathers" names two groups, not three. Paul greets a hostile crowd as family.
- Language. Greek to the Roman commander, Aramaic to the crowd. Love pays attention to who is listening, and the crowd grows quiet.
- Design. Acts tells the conversion first as history; here Paul tells it as his defence to Israel. The differences come from the purpose, not from error.
- Common ground. He credits his hearers with the zeal he once had. His own life proves that zeal for God can run without knowledge.
- Limit. They heard him out until grace reached the Gentiles. Writers weigh the speech differently, but that one word ended the hearing.
And hearing that he addressed them in the Hebrew tongue, they kept the more quiet; and he says,
Paul stands on the barracks stairs above a crowd that has just tried to kill him. Instead of shouting for order, he changes language — and the noise drops.
In Acts, "Hebrew" does not mean the ancient language of the Old Testament scrolls. It means the everyday speech of Jews in Palestine.
The Jews who returned from Babylon brought many words of the Aramaic language with them. It doubtless went through various changes. Still, this was the language commonly spoken in Palestine when our Lord was on earth, and the New Testament calls it Hebrew.
Paul could handle Greek — the officer had just found that out. He chose the other language for what it did to the ear of the crowd.
He could speak Greek with ease, as the chief captain learned to his evident surprise. But he began to address his countrymen in a language dearer to them. It was Aramaic, which Luke calls "Hebrew." Since the captivity in Babylon it had become the common tongue of Jews born in the land. There is a charm in one's own language, a melody to the native ear, however harsh and rough it may sound to a foreigner. The Jews were not indifferent to that. So when they heard him speak in Aramaic, they grew quieter.
Paul used one language for the Roman commander and another for his own people. Writers see in that switch a habit worth copying.
To the chief captain he had spoken in Greek; to the Jews he speaks in Hebrew. These little attentions and considerations are the beautiful blending of love and wisdom, and ought to serve as a lesson for us. He was always ready to win, by "becoming all things to all men, that he might gain the more." ... He calmed the tumultuous sea of human passion by the sound of their sacred language. It fell like oil on troubled waters.
The calm was not only Paul's skill with words. One writer traces the whole sequence back to God.
In everything that happened to Paul in Jerusalem, the hand of God is not hard to see. He was controlling it all behind the scenes. Though the city was in an uproar, no one struck a fatal blow until enough time had passed for the chief captain to step in. Then Paul addressed him in Greek. That made a favourable impression, and it led to permission to speak to the rioting crowds from the stairs. Then Paul's choice of Hebrew for his speech brought complete silence and attention for what he had to say.
Acts tells the story of Paul's conversion more than once. Readers have asked whether the accounts contradict each other. The choice of Hebrew is the key to this one.
Earlier in this book we had the history of the apostle's conversion in its historical order. That account bears deeply on the progress of the gospel and the revelation of Christian truth. Here we have the account of it as part of his defence before the people of Israel. So it has a specific aim, marked by the use of the Hebrew language. That aim accounts for its other unusual features. There is no real discrepancy here, any more than in other parts of Scripture. It only looks like one because the purpose is different.
The hush bought Paul a hearing, but only up to one word.
His countrymen listened with great attention while he spoke of his early life, his persecution of the church, and his mission to Damascus. He went on to his miraculous conversion, his vision in the temple, and his meeting with Ananias. But the moment he mentioned his mission to the Gentiles, a burst of fierce anger rose from the crowd below and silenced him. They could not bear the thought of God's grace to the Gentiles. That hated name stung them to fury.
Commentators differ on whether Paul should have been in Jerusalem at all. One writer points out that the Lord had already warned him they would not accept his testimony, and asks, "What then was he doing at Jerusalem?" (J. N. Darby).
- Language. "Hebrew" here means the Aramaic spoken in Palestine — the mother tongue of the crowd.
- Love. Greek for the Roman officer, Hebrew for the Jews: love and wisdom together, adapting to win a hearing.
- Hand. God controlled the scene. The timing of the rescue, the officer's permission, and the sudden quiet all trace back to Him.
- Design. The Hebrew address explains why this account of Paul's conversion differs from the others. Different audience, different purpose, no contradiction.
- Limit. The calm held through his whole story and broke on one word: Gentiles. Grace beyond Israel was what they would not hear.
*I* am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to [the] exactness of the law of [our] fathers, being zealous for God, as *ye* are all this day;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
who have persecuted this way unto death, binding and delivering up to prisons both men and women;
Paul stands in chains before the crowd that just tried to kill him. He opens his defence with a confession: he had hunted followers of Jesus to death, and did it with a clear conscience.
Paul did not invent the phrase he uses here.
In the days of the apostles the Christian faith seems to have acquired the name of "the Way"; see Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22. Peter uses the term "the way of truth" (2 Peter 2:2).
Paul chooses his words for the crowd in front of him. Before Agrippa he named the same people differently, and admitted how far he had gone.
Before Agrippa he does not hesitate to confess to his own shame that he shut up "many of the saints" in prisons. To the Jews he had used the more vague expression, "this Way" (Acts 22:4); as Luke in the history spoke of "the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1). And it was not only imprisoning. When it came to putting them to death, had he not given his vote against them? That was clearly so in Stephen's case.
Paul offers his record as proof. No one could call him a half-hearted Jew, and that is why his testimony carried weight.
The apostle had never been a careless, light-hearted Israelite; as his training was most strict, so his personal zeal was thorough. Indeed he had given the fullest proof, for he persecuted this Way to the death. None like Saul of Tarsus, who was so active in binding and delivering to prison both men and women! He was the highest possible example of those who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. So who could speak from personal experience like him? He was speaking to men who did not know God's righteousness and were trying to set up their own.
Saul felt no guilt at the time. His own conscience approved the arrests.
Take the case of Paul before his conversion. He could say that he had lived in all good conscience before God, and yet he had been dragging men and women to prison because they were Christians. No doubt he did it with an untroubled conscience... Paul's zeal for Judaism blinded his eyes. In his conscience he could not recognise the God who gave the law and had also sent His Son. He could not see that God was free to act outside the law. It was an unenlightened conscience, a zeal without knowledge, and even a Christian can be led astray by it.
The verse says he bound both men and women. That detail shows how far the hatred went.
Religious rage is of all kinds the most unrelenting. Fresh victims do not satisfy it but sharpen its cruel appetite. It spares neither sex nor age.
The voice from heaven did not ask Saul why he was persecuting Christians. It asked why he was persecuting "Me".
When the voice from heaven said, "Why are you persecuting Me?" who did the Lord mean and include in that word "Me"? Was it not the very ones that Saul was committing to prison and to death (Acts 22:4-5; Acts 26:10-11)? Are we used to realising and enjoying our position and privileges in this way, as members of the body of Christ?
Full forgiveness did not cancel the consequences.
God's grace met him when he was at the height of his wicked opposition to Christ and His saints; he was saved, blessed and transformed. But this did not stop God's righteous government working on the earth. Many of his later sufferings for Christ exactly matched his own earlier misdeeds. He who "dragged off men and women and committed them to prison" had his full share of imprisonment in due time. He instigated the stoning of Stephen, and before long was stoned himself.
Paul never hid this record, because it became the proof of what grace can do.
The chief of sinners is in Heaven. How did he get there? Simply by the blood of Jesus; and moreover, he is Christ's "pattern" man. All may look at him and see how they too are to be saved... The grace that reached the chief can reach all. The blood that cleansed the chief can cleanse all.
- The Way. In the earliest days the faith Saul attacked went by the name "the Way". Paul uses that familiar term with a Jewish crowd.
- The zeal. His campaign was not carelessness but conviction. He was the highest example of zeal for God that is not according to knowledge.
- The blindness. A conscience can stay calm while doing terrible evil. An unenlightened conscience is no safeguard, even for a Christian.
- The victim. Every man and woman he bound belonged to Christ's body. So the voice from heaven charged him with persecuting Christ Himself.
- The mercy. The man who filled the prisons ended up in one, forgiven yet still under God's government. He became the pattern: the grace that reached the chief of sinners can reach anyone.
as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the elderhood from whom also, having received letters to the brethren, I went to Damascus to bring those also who were there, bound, to Jerusalem, to be punished.
Paul is defending himself before a hostile crowd in Jerusalem, and he does something unexpected. He calls his own accusers as witnesses. The high priest and the council can confirm every word about the man he used to be. They gave him the letters that sent him to Damascus.
Paul does not ask the crowd to take his word about his past. He points to the men who authorised it, and to the letters they gave him.
The high priest himself could not ignore this fact. He had to testify to it, and so did all the elders. They are reminded that Paul also received letters to the brothers — that is, the Jews living elsewhere — and travelled to Damascus to bring those who were there back to Jerusalem in chains, to be punished. The man who was later to go out to all the world with the gospel could not, in earlier days, keep his legal zeal inside the borders of Jerusalem or Judea.
The "brothers" in this verse are the Jewish communities of Damascus, not fellow Christians. Paul was heading for a city where believers had gone to be safe.
He heard that some of the persecuted believers had found shelter in Damascus, an ancient city in Syria. So he made up his mind to go there and bring them back to Jerusalem as criminals… In this way he became the very apostle of Jewish hatred against the disciples of Jesus. He acted in ignorance, no doubt, but he made himself their willing missionary.
The persecution was not a fit of temper. It grew out of his religious training, and it shows how firmly he once held what his hearers still hold.
The apostle had never been a careless, easy-going Israelite. His training was as strict as could be, and his own zeal matched it. He had given the fullest proof of that, for he persecuted this Way to death. No one was like Saul of Tarsus, who was so busy arresting men and women alike and handing them over to prison! He was the prime example of those who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. So who could speak from personal experience like him to people who did not know God's righteousness, and were trying to set up their own?
Saul felt no guilt while he did this. That raises a warning about trusting our own sense of being right.
But note this! Conscience is no guide to a man. Conscience is like the rudder of a ship. If you have a correct chart and a good steersman, the rudder is useful for steering the ship. But if you let wind and wave toss the rudder about, the ship will go on the rocks. We hear nowadays that if a man walks by his conscience, all will be well for time and eternity. That teaching is not from God, and it will not do. Here Saul was "in all good conscience" doing everything he could against the name of Jesus.
Naming the high priest is deliberate. Paul builds common ground with the crowd before he describes what changed him.
He began by saying what he had been in his early days, when his way of life matched their own thinking completely. He was faultless in his family line, his education, his zeal, and his hatred of the Christians. Then heaven stepped in, and it was plainly an act of God… He tells the story in a way that presses one point on his hearers: God had made the change in him that offended them so much.
The record Paul reads out here is the record of the worst kind of sinner. That is exactly why his story matters to everyone else.
The chief of sinners is in heaven. How did he get there? Only by the blood of Jesus. And more than that, he is Christ's "pattern" man. Anyone may look at him and see how they too are to be saved… The grace that reached the chief can reach all. The blood that cleansed the chief can cleanse all.
- Witnesses. Paul needs no witness of his own. The high priest and the whole council gave him the letters and can confirm them.
- Warrants. The letters went to the Jewish communities in Damascus. They let him arrest believers and drag them to Jerusalem for punishment.
- Zeal. His violence came from real religious zeal — zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. It is the very fault of the crowd he is facing.
- Conscience. He felt right the whole time. So conscience alone is no safe guide. It steers well only with a true chart.
- Grace. The man these letters describe is now in heaven. He is the pattern: grace that reached the chief of sinners can reach anyone.
And it came to pass, as I was journeying and drawing near to Damascus, that, about mid-day, there suddenly shone out of heaven a great light round about me.
Paul stands before a hostile crowd of his own people. Instead of arguing his case, he tells them what happened on the road to Damascus at noon. He names the hour, the place and the light. Every detail presses one claim: what changed him was not an idea but an act of God.
Acts tells this story three times. This telling is for his own people. One writer points to the order Paul uses: first his flawless credentials, then an interruption from heaven that no human hand arranged.
As we read the account in Acts 22, we cannot help seeing the God-given skill with which Paul spoke. He began by stating what he had been in his early days. Back then his manner of life was completely in line with their thoughts. He was perfect in his pedigree, his education, his zeal, and his hatred of the Christians. Then came an intervention from heaven which was clearly an act of God. Now every true conversion is the result of an act of God. Yet it usually comes about through some human instrument, and only faith recognises the act of God. In Paul's case there was no human instrument. Instead there was something supernatural, which appealed to both eye and ear — a great light and a voice of power. It threw him face down on the ground.
Acts 9 reports the light. Here Paul adds the time of day, and that detail carries weight.
So the indication here is that it was "about noon", stated more precisely than in Acts 9:3. This makes the vision far more striking. It was not a trance, but an open fact. The light that shone around him out of heaven surpassed the sun at midday. It happened in front of the men who were travelling with him. Deception was impossible.
Noon is the sun at full strength. Something outshone it.
It was at midday, when the sun shines most strongly, that another light brighter than the sun stopped him on the road to Damascus. Then the voice of the Lord was heard. The uncreated light threw the created light into the shade.
The three accounts describe the same light in three different ways. One writer finds the difference not in the light but in the man remembering it.
In Acts 9, "a light from heaven"; in Acts 22, "a great light from heaven." In Acts 26, it is not a light before noon, but a light brighter than the noon-day sun. There had been no change in the light — the change was in his understanding, for he had grown spiritually since the light shone upon him and into his heart. He wrote to the saints in Corinth, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6).
Saul was not a man at the bottom of life. He was at the top of it, and the light took the top away.
The astonished, persecuting Saul fell to the ground. He had now come to the end of himself. That was true not only of the sins of the flesh, but of the righteousness of the flesh, with all his advantages, natural and acquired, from his birth to that day and hour. This is the true preparation of heart for truly grasping a glorified Christ — our heavenly object. The light of the glory shines into our souls when we are down, when we are nothing, when we are no longer looking for holy feelings or an inward change for the better to make us worthy of divine favour. It shines when, with our faces on the ground, we obey the heavenly vision.
This was more than one man's rescue. One writer sees a new stage in God's ways starting on that road.
For the time had now fully come for a new step in God's ways. A chosen witness was to see the heavenly glory of Christ. Christ called him in sovereign mercy from on high — the persecutor, taken out of his career of religious rebellion. It is grace, no doubt, in every case where a soul is brought from darkness into the marvellous light of God. But here all the truth shines with the greatest brilliancy. Stephen closed his testimony with the sight of Jesus in the glory of God. Saul begins his testimony for Jesus with Him seen in the same glory.
- Noon. Paul names the hour, so no one can call this a dream. It was an open fact, in front of witnesses. Deception was impossible.
- Light. At the sun's strongest, a stronger light arrives. The uncreated light throws the created into the shade.
- Fall. Saul goes down not only as a sinner but as a religious success. The righteousness of the flesh ends there, face on the ground.
- Glory. The same light later shines inward: the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The light never changed, but Paul's grasp of it deepened over the years.
- Torch. Stephen ended his witness seeing Jesus in glory. Saul begins his witness at that same sight, and tells the story to show that God had changed him.
And I fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
Paul stands on the castle stairs in Jerusalem and tells the mob below what happened on the road to Damascus. A light threw him down and a voice spoke his name — but who speaks from heaven, and how can a man on earth persecute Him?
Paul is not arguing here. He is telling them what God did to him. One writer notes how he shapes the account for this crowd.
As we read the account in Acts 22, we cannot help seeing the God-given skill with which Paul spoke. He began by stating what he had been in his early days, when his manner of life fully matched their own thinking. He was perfect as to his pedigree, his education, his zeal, and his hatred of the Christians. Then came an intervention from heaven which was clearly an act of God. Now every true conversion is the result of an act of God. It usually comes about through some human instrument, and only faith recognises the divine act. In Paul's case there was no human instrument. Instead something supernatural appealed to both eye and ear — a great light and a voice of power — and threw him face down on the ground.
Paul does not describe a force that crushed him. He says he fell. One writer points to what put him there.
However, he had forgotten heaven's authority, and the light suddenly shining from heaven was more than he expected. It was the light, not some exertion of great power, that threw him to the ground. Then a voice he could not ignore searched deep into his conscience.
The sound reaching him carried two things at once — a man's speech, and God's authority.
Overwhelmed by the light, he fell to the earth. What a moment in his history! He hears that all-commanding voice — completely human, yet intensely divine. It was the voice of a man, but he felt it was the voice of God. A human being was speaking to him from glory in his own mother tongue. Still, it was the voice of the eternal God to that man's soul and conscience.
The doubled name is not new. God had called others this way before, and they answered at once.
When He called, "Abraham, Abraham," at once the answer came, "Here am I." To Moses He spoke, "Moses, Moses!" and the answer came at once, "Here am I." … We hear the same One speaking as before, in the same manner, but now come down in lowly grace: "Martha, Martha!" and "Simon, Simon!" Once again, after His ascension, "Saul, Saul!" And Saul inquired, "Who are You, Lord?" What astonishing words brought this answer to the persecutor: "I AM JESUS!"
Saul was hunting down believers, not Jesus Himself. One writer shows how much hangs on a single word in the question.
He arrested Saul of Tarsus, the devil's determined agent to destroy the church from the earth. His words were, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?" His church is more than a valued and beautiful possession; it is a living thing, it is His body. Looked at from this angle, there is not a relationship between two parties, but an indivisible unity. Christ and His members are one. Jesus of Nazareth, glorified and crowned in heaven, did not say, "Why are you persecuting Mine?" but ME. … To persecute one saint of God on earth is to persecute Christ; to despise or neglect one saint of God on earth is to despise and neglect Christ.
Heaven had every right to pronounce judgment on him. Instead it asked him one word: why.
How completely grace goes with the authority that clearly belongs to this glorious Speaker! And how unanswerable the question is! It could have been a sentence, but it seeks only one thing: that the soul should judge itself.
- Light — What put Saul on the ground was not force but light from heaven.
- Voice — A man's voice, in his own language, carrying the authority of God to his conscience.
- Name — "Saul, Saul" puts him with Abraham, Moses, Martha and Simon. God calls people by name.
- Me — The Lord counted the attack on His people as an attack on Himself. He said "Me," not "Mine": Head and members are one.
- Why — He could have passed sentence. He asked a question instead, so that Saul would judge himself — grace joined to authority.
And *I* answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said to me, *I* am Jesus the Nazaraean, whom *thou* persecutest.
Paul stands before a Jerusalem crowd that has just tried to kill him, and he retells the moment his life turned around. Everything hangs on one answer: the voice from heaven gives its own name, and it is the name Paul had been trying to wipe off the earth.
Paul's question is not a demand for proof. He already grants the Speaker a title before he knows His name.
He does not say, "Who are you?" No, he asks, "Who are you, Lord?" In a moment he has the sense, I am in the presence of One who knows all about me. I am in the presence of One who Himself is God. He knew very well who it was; though perhaps he dared not mention His name... His will is broken, after he has come to recognise the Lord.
Until that moment Saul had felt no guilt at all about what he was doing.
No man was ever more sure that he was serving God when he threw the disciples out of the synagogue, or even killed them. He had a good conscience, according to the law, in the zeal that persecuted the church (Phil. 3:6). As yet he knew neither the Father nor the Son... But now the light that shone around him was only the first sign of something greater. It announced a glory human eyes cannot see: "the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
Among men, "Jesus of Nazareth" was a name of low standing. That is not how heaven treats it.
If this title is one of dishonour and disrepute among men, angels are not ashamed to use it. The angel at the tomb said to Mary Magdalene, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him" (Mark 16:6). The apostles used this same title in their preaching. They testified that Jesus of Nazareth is the crucified but risen and glorified Messiah and Lord (Acts 2:22; Acts 3:6; Acts 4:10; Acts 10:38). And more striking still, the exalted One Himself used that name of shame. He spoke from the glory to Saul of Tarsus, the bigoted Jew and proud Pharisee, and named Himself by it.
Glory did not make Him someone else.
The Lord still calls Himself Jesus of Nazareth. We know that He was glorified, but this makes Him shine with a light more brilliant than that of the sun. He is ever the same kind and gentle Man who learned human sorrows among men. He thinks of others, and considers all Christians as part of Himself... Infinitely precious truth!
Saul had never laid a hand on Jesus. He had arrested ordinary men and women. The Lord's wording refuses that distinction.
There are poor Christians, dishonoured by people of standing and labelled with insulting titles. To these people, despised and pointed at because of their faith, the Lord makes His relationship with them clear beyond all doubt... He says, I am all those men whom you persecute.
This identification cuts two ways.
So the Lord Jesus, though He is in heaven, declares that He is still identified with His disciples on the earth... To be at war with the saints is to be at war with the Lord Himself. Blessed truth for the believer, but how solemn for the persecutor!
The Speaker had every right to end Saul's life. Instead He asked a question.
How fully grace is joined with the authority that plainly belongs to the glorious Speaker! And the question cannot be answered. It might have been a sentence of judgment, yet it seeks only that the soul should judge itself! Saul can plead his ignorance — which he later says was the only ground on which mercy could have been shown him, though that ignorance was itself the result of unbelief.
Once Saul knows the name, only one response remains, and he kept it for life.
A complete revolution has taken place. He had been driven by the deadliest hatred against both Christ and His people. Now he is transformed into a willing servant. "What shall I do, Lord?" shows how completely he had changed, and it marked the attitude of his whole life afterwards.
- Light — a light from heaven stopped Saul while his conscience was still clear before the law.
- Name — the voice takes the very title of contempt, "of Nazareth." Heaven is not ashamed of the despised Man.
- Same — glorified, He is still the gentle Man who knew human sorrow, and He counts Christians as part of Himself.
- Wound — He does not say "My people" but "Me." To touch a believer is to touch the Lord: comfort for the saint, warning for the persecutor.
- Surrender — the question could have been a death sentence. Instead it drew out a life-long "What shall I do, Lord?"
But they that were with me beheld the light, [and were filled with fear], but heard not the voice of him that was speaking to me.
Paul stands before a hostile crowd in Jerusalem and retells the day on the Damascus road. His companions saw the blazing light, but the voice that changed his life meant nothing to them — and Acts 9 says they did hear a voice.
The puzzle clears up once you look at the wording. The Greek word behind "voice" can also mean "sound."
"The men that journeyed with Saul were standing speechless, hearing the sound but beholding no one" (Acts 9:7). The word often means "voice," as it is rightly translated in Acts 9:4, where Saul clearly heard what the Lord said to him. Here his companions did not hear one word distinctly, as we are plainly told in Acts 22:9. Yet they did hear that something was being said. So "sound" seems to be a more accurate picture of the fact intended. A small difference in the form of the Greek phrase confirms this. One form of the word is used where the hearing was incomplete, and another where the words were sent home in power.
The ESV translates the phrase "did not understand the voice." Older translations read "heard not the voice." Several of the writers quoted here work from that older wording.
Far from weakening Paul's story, the other travellers strengthen it. And the two accounts in Acts do not clash.
The light which shone around him out of heaven surpassed the sun at midday, in the presence of men who were travelling with him. Deception was impossible. Here Paul says the rest did not hear the voice of Him who was speaking to him. Yet the writer of Acts told us earlier that his fellow-travellers stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. To a casual reader this looks like a contradiction. But a reader must be very careless, or set on evil, to miss that the two statements agree completely beneath the surface. In Acts 9 we learn that his companions heard a sound, and no more. Here we learn that he alone heard the voice of Him who spoke to him.
The other men had a role, and it was a limited one.
They did not see the Lord, nor did they hear His words, but they saw a great light, and heard a voice without being able to make out the words. This is just what was needed. They were undeniable witnesses that the vision was true and real, but the communication was for Paul alone. Only he saw the Lord. He had to be taught by Him, and to give testimony as an eyewitness that he had seen Him.
The barrier was not language. So what made the difference?
The voice spoke in Hebrew. This is remarkable, for we have been told earlier that though his companions heard the voice it conveyed nothing to them. It was in their own language, yet they did not understand. They were affected physically, but only Paul was affected spiritually. The essential element in conversion is not great sights, nor wonderful sounds, but the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.
The two small words at the end of the verse carry the weight. Standing near the light, the sound, and the converted man is not the same as hearing God speak to you.
These men "saw indeed the light." They saw much of the outward events that had stopped this furious zealot. But as Paul himself says, "they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me" (Acts 22:9). Here is the main point. The voice must speak "to me" — "the God of glory" must appear "to me," before I can take the place of a pilgrim and stranger in the world... It is not national faith, nor family faith, but personal faith that will make us real witnesses for God in the world.
This is not only about one road and one day. The same split appears whenever people hear the gospel today.
Even now the voice of the Son of God is sounding in the gospel. Those who "hear" it live, but not all "hear" it (John 5:25). They do hear the preached gospel, but they have no ability to catch the divine voice in it. They are like the soldiers who were with Saul at his conversion. Those men heard a sound (Acts 9:7), but, as Paul says, "they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."
- Sound. The companions caught noise, not words. Acts 9 and Acts 22 show the same moment from two sides, and the Greek wording marks the difference.
- Sight. They saw a light brighter than the midday sun. That makes them independent witnesses that the event was real.
- Silence. No words reached them. The message belonged to Paul, who alone saw the Lord and had to testify that he had seen Him.
- Separation. The voice spoke their own language and still meant nothing. It reached them in body only. The Spirit alone changed Paul.
- Summons. Faith is not inherited from a nation or a family. The voice must say "to me." That is how the gospel still divides a crowd today.
And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Rise up, and go to Damascus, and there it shall be told thee of all things which it is appointed thee to do.
Paul is retelling the day his life changed on the road to Damascus. His first words as a believer form a question, not a plan. The Lord does not answer on the spot. He sends Saul into Damascus, where he will hear what is already appointed for him.
One writer contrasts Saul's question with another disciple's promise to follow Jesus:
It is not now the answer of another who did not yet know his own heart — "Lord, I will go with You." No, that was the will of man. It is rather, "What shall I do, Lord?" This soul was converted to Christ. Here was the will of man broken; the will of God alone allowed.
At this moment Saul knows almost nothing. He has no settled assurance yet, and no relief of conscience. Yet the desire to obey is already there. One commentator sees that as the first proof of new life:
The first effect on his believing and repentant soul was the spirit of obedience. Life was there through faith, and life always shows its true character at once by obedience, which the Lord saw. … The Lord counts on obedience, even before Saul could be expected to grasp the doctrine and rest in peace on the sprinkling of His blood. … Even before the newborn soul knows it is cleared of all guilt, the heart is made up to obey — not from fear of punishment, but drawn by sovereign goodness and submission to God's word.
Saul speaks to Jesus Himself. One writer sets this beside other times when believers spoke straight to the Lord:
At the beginning of his Christian life Paul (Saul) asked the Lord Jesus directly, "What shall I do, Lord?" Peter, too, had direct conversation with the Lord about the blessing of Cornelius. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul "three times pleaded with the Lord" that the thorn in the flesh might be removed.
Christ could have given Saul his orders there on the road. Instead He sends him into Damascus, to the very people he had hated, to hear it from them:
How perfectly normal then that he should ask the Lord what he should do. But the Lord did not give him instructions independently of His own followers. He is told to go into Damascus and there he would be told what he was appointed to do. Blinded by the light for the time, he needed the help of others to find his way.
Saul does not design a career for God. The Lord tells him that things are already appointed for him, and that he will hear what they are. The change runs deeper than a change of plans:
A complete revolution has taken place. The one who had been driven by the deadliest hatred, both against Christ and His people, is now turned into a willing slave. "What shall I do, Lord?" expresses his changed condition, as well as the attitude of his whole life afterwards.
And no one outgrows this, whatever their place:
But even an apostle must be told, not himself discover, what he must do.
The question is not only for the hour of conversion. One writer takes it into everyday choices:
The lordship of Christ covers the whole life of the believer. He is introduced to this at the very start of his Christian life. … Subjection to Him would settle many problems: where we should go, how we should use our leisure, what we should wear, how we should treat our possessions as stewards of the bounty of the Lord.
- Question — Saul's first words as a believer ask what to do. He does not tell the Lord what he will do.
- Surrender — the value of the question lies in the broken will behind it. From here God's will alone is allowed.
- Evidence — obedience comes before assurance or peace. The readiness to obey is itself the mark of new life.
- Sent — the answer waits in Damascus, and comes through the people Saul had hated. Christ ties a new believer to His people.
- Appointed — his work is already chosen, and even an apostle must be told it rather than discover it. That first question became the attitude of his whole life.
And as I could not see, through the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came to Damascus.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And a certain Ananias, a pious man according to the law, borne witness to by all the Jews who dwelt [there],
Paul is defending himself before a Jewish crowd, and he tells them, in their own language, how his life turned around. When he reaches the man God sent to him in Damascus, every word of the description is aimed at his listeners.
Paul chose his words for the people in front of him. One commentator shows how far that choice reaches:
Clearly he chooses a language meant to catch their attention and to reach the heart of the Jew. He speaks in the tongue they know. He tells the story of his conversion in the way he thought would win the Jews over… The apostle describes his conversion and the miracles that went with it. He describes his meeting with Ananias, a devout man according to the law — and he takes particular pains to say so.
The word behind "devout" belongs to a family of words used across the New Testament. One writer traces them:
The adjective eusebes, "devout" (Acts 10:2, 7 and Acts 22:12), can be compared with the noun eusebeia, so often found as "godliness," or perhaps better "piety," in the Pastoral epistles and 2 Peter. It covers not only reverence rightly directed to God, but reverence to parents and others too. Still, the first is how Scripture generally uses these words.
Ananias was a believer, yet the Jews of Damascus could find no fault in him. That reputation mattered. It ruled out the charge that Paul and his friends had cooked the story up between them:
Paul was to be, beyond all others, a witness of Christ to the Gentiles. So God took special care to remove from every fair and upright man any suspicion that Jews had arranged it between them. The outward vision of glory was unmistakable, and many saw it. Only Saul of that company heard what passed between the Lord and His servant. But divine wisdom told Ananias what had happened, with no word from Saul or from anyone else on earth.
Each man received his own vision about the other. That pairing is the point:
He was himself a devout man according to the law, and the Israelites of Damascus spoke well of him beyond question (Acts 22:12). This was the man who had a vision of the Lord about Saul, just as Saul had a vision about Ananias. Both visions confirmed, in the simplest and most important way, the miracle worked at Saul's conversion.
God did not send an apostle to Saul. He sent a plain disciple, and that choice carries a lesson:
The most striking fact in the whole affair is the gift of the Spirit through Ananias. God's wisdom in Saul's case broke clean through the ordinary way of giving the Spirit, which was through the hands of an apostle — if, for special reasons, hands were used at all. God took the utmost care here to show how He lays all human pretensions in the dust. Using a disciple like Ananias lays the axe to the root of official pride. And this happened just where the Lord was calling out the most honoured servant He ever chose to use.
Two things stand out about this messenger. He was nobody important, and he lived in the city Saul had come to raid:
First, he was just "a certain disciple," clearly a man of no special standing. It was fitting that the only man to help Saul at all was a very humble one… Second, Ananias lived in Damascus. So he was one of those against whom Saul had been breathing out threats and murder. The Lord sent one of the very people Saul would have killed to call him "Brother Saul," to open his eyes, and that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit. Saul's evil was repaid with good in this overwhelming way.
One writer turns this into a practical rule for receiving any believer:
Nobody ought to be recognised on his own bare word. Even the apostle Paul was not, at the first. God took care to give an extraordinary witness through a certain disciple named Ananias — a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived in Damascus. Later in Jerusalem God gave a second witness through Barnabas.
- Named: Paul tells his story to a Jewish crowd. He takes particular pains to call the man who came to him devout according to the law.
- Devout: the same word family gives us "godliness" and "piety" elsewhere. It means reverence rightly directed to God.
- Trusted: every Jew in Damascus spoke well of him. So nobody could say that friends had arranged Paul's conversion between them.
- Confirmed: Ananias learned about Saul in his own vision. Two men, two visions, one miracle confirmed.
- Lowly: God used an unknown disciple, not an apostle, to open Saul's eyes. The man Saul came to arrest called him "Brother Saul."
coming to me and standing by me, said to me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And *I*, in the same hour, received my sight and saw him.
Paul stands before a hostile crowd in Jerusalem, telling them how he stopped being their champion and became a Christian. The turning point he picks is not the blazing light on the road, but two words from a stranger in a Damascus house: "Brother Saul."
Paul calls his conversion the act of God alone. Yet he gives careful space to the man God sent, and to that man's standing among his own people.
Paul presents his conversion as a pure act of God. Yet he tells how God used Ananias to restore his sight, and to bring him the call to be a witness and to be baptized. He also stresses that this Ananias was a devout and well respected member of the Jewish community in Damascus. Notice that Paul was both to see the glorified Saviour and to hear His voice. He was to bear witness to what he saw and heard.
Paul chose what to tell and what to leave out, with that crowd in front of him.
Here, again, we have the beautiful fruit of confidence in the word of the Lord. "Brother Saul" — how refreshing it must have been to the heart of the converted zealot! What he puts in here, and what he leaves out, both follow one purpose: the apostle is recounting his conversion to the Jews.
Saul's blindness was not wasted time.
That blindness gave the occasion for a fresh display of divine power. The channel of that power was a simple disciple. Yet he was a devout man according to the law, and all the Jews living there spoke well of him. No one asked him to come, but he came. He stood by the blind man and said, "Brother Saul, receive your sight." The word carried power: Paul received his sight and looked at him.
Ananias had objected when first sent, since Saul's reputation was known. The greeting he finally used shows where he had arrived.
Ananias may have hesitated at first. But what he did, and the way he spoke to Saul, show plainly that he had come into full communion with the mind and heart of his Lord. He put his hands on him and said, "Brother Saul." … He had been three days without sight, but now the time of darkness was over.
The healing was not only physical. What Ananias carried from the Lord reached Saul's conscience.
Here we have the gospel, carried by Ananias from the Lord to Saul. It removes the fear of God which had filled his soul. It speaks peace to his troubled conscience. With a tender hand it draws out the barbed arrow of conviction. And Saul now receives the Spirit of God as a seal of this message of mercy. Until now his eyes had been blind to everything but the darkness within. Now they can "look up" to the source from which it all had come — to the very face of Jesus Christ in glory.
Commentators differ here. Kelly has Paul looking at Ananias. Patterson takes the same moment as a look up, to Christ in glory.
Two visions stand behind this meeting, one given to each man.
Ananias and the new convert had been total strangers to each other. All Ananias knew was public rumour of Saul's fierce hatred for everyone who called on the name of the Lord. This was the man who had a vision of the Lord about Saul, just as Saul had one about Ananias. Both confirmed, in the simplest and most important way, the miracle shown at Saul's conversion. … God took special pains to supply outward evidence of unusual fullness and unquestionable force, so as to rule out every reasonable charge of delusion on the one hand or of collusion on the other.
That double witness was arranged so that no fair-minded hearer could dismiss the story.
Such unusual and unquestionable outward evidence was given so as to rule out any reasonable charge of delusion on the one hand or of collusion on the other.
- Blindness — The three days of darkness were not wasted. They set the stage for a fresh display of divine power in a Damascus house.
- Brother — The first word Saul heard from a Christian was one of kinship. It came from a man who now shared his Lord's mind about the persecutor.
- A plain man — God's channel here was a simple disciple. No one sent for him, yet he was devout and well spoken of by everyone in his city.
- Sight — The same word that opened his eyes opened his conscience. Fear gave way to peace, and he could look up to the face of Christ in glory.
- Witness — Sight came with a commission. Paul was to bear witness to what he saw and heard, and he tells the story to Jews with every detail chosen to rule out delusion or collusion.
And he said, The God of our fathers has chosen thee beforehand to know his will, and to see the just one, and to hear a voice out of his mouth;
Paul stands in chains before an angry crowd in Jerusalem. He is retelling his conversion on the road to Damascus, and repeating what a man named Ananias said to him there: a choice made by God, a sight of a Person, and a voice.
Paul is speaking to Jews who suspect he has left their religion. The title Ananias uses answers that suspicion head on.
The key to what Paul says here, and to what he leaves out, is his purpose: he is recounting his conversion to the Jews. "The God of our fathers" appears only here. It was He, as Ananias said, and not another, who had appointed him to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice out of His mouth. It is much more than the simple fact that the Lord, even Jesus, had appeared to him on the way he came.
Ananias's message breaks the calling into three parts.
The message he brought was most striking: "The God of our fathers has chosen you." How could he escape the reality of this call of God? This was no mere visionary impression that Saul had received. Rather, God had stepped into his history so decidedly that it was impossible to ignore. This choice of God involved three vital matters for Saul's own soul. First, the knowledge of God's will. Second, that he should actually see "that Just One," the Lord Jesus. Third, that he should hear the voice of His mouth. God had special work for him to do, and chose no one else for it. So He would prepare him in a special way. He was to be a particular witness of God to all people of what he had seen and heard. This reality had a wonderful effect. It kept him going through every hardship, declaring the truth he knew.
(Where older translations read "has chosen you," the ESV reads "appointed you.")
"The Righteous One" — older translations read "the Just One" — is not a title invented for the moment. Jesus already carries it earlier in Acts, and it fits with what He said about Himself.
That is a fine title, dear friends, among others — "the Just One." See it in Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14. Jesus had already linked Himself and righteousness (or justice) together in John 16:10.
Paul's travelling companions were part of the event, yet they did not receive what he received.
Paul's companions saw the light, but did not hear the voice of Him who spoke with him. In chapter 9 we read that they heard the voice, but saw no one. They did not see the Lord, nor did they hear His words, but they saw a great light and heard a voice without being able to make out the words. This is exactly what was needed. They were undeniable witnesses that the vision was true and real, but the communication was for Paul alone. Only he saw the Lord (Acts 22:14-15). For he had to be taught by Him, and to bear testimony as an eyewitness that he had seen Him.
The other apostles came to know Christ slowly, while He lived among them. Paul began at the opposite end, with the glory.
It was not, as with the twelve, the patient tracing with slow understanding of the unfolding glory of the Man Jesus living among them... but the sudden and unlooked-for perception of the heavenly glory of the Lord, brighter than the sun, and the discovery that this was Jesus. That is, he began at the glory, the heavenly glory. He knew that he saw and heard the Lord speaking from heaven. So he asks, and finds that this glorified One, this glorious Lord, was Jesus whom he was persecuting. His mission therefore came wholly from the glory. He was not a witness of the suffering who would share the glory still to be revealed. He was a witness of the glory who shared the sufferings.
The first item on Ananias's list is the one every believer still asks about.
In Acts 22:14 we read how the Lord called Saul of Tarsus in the glory, so that he would know His will. I stress here that the knowledge of God's will, from then until today, is tied to a glorified Man in heaven. This characterizes Paul's ministry from beginning to end. What about our knowledge of Christ in heaven? Appreciation of this truth will greatly affect our understanding of God's will in our lives.
- Chosen — the call came from "the God of our fathers," not some rival God. The God Paul's accusers claimed was the One who appointed him.
- Shown — he was to see the Righteous One with his own eyes, a title Jesus already carries earlier in Acts.
- Heard — the light was public, but the voice and the words were his alone. He had to be taught by the Lord and to speak as an eyewitness.
- Sent — his ministry began at the glory instead of ending there. So he was a witness of the glory and a sharer in the sufferings.
- Kept — knowing God's will still runs through a glorified Man in heaven. That certainty carried Paul through every hardship.
for thou shalt be a witness for him to all men of what thou hast seen and heard.
Paul defends himself before the Jews by repeating what Ananias told him after his conversion. Three questions follow: who sent him, what he had to report, and how far "everyone" reaches.
The name Ananias used for God carries the whole defence.
"The God of our fathers" appears here alone. As Ananias said, it was He and not another who had appointed him to know His will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice out of His mouth. It is much more than the simple fact that the Lord, even Jesus, had appeared to him on the road.
The men travelling with Paul saw something, but not what he saw. That gap is why his account could be checked and still stayed his own.
Paul's companions saw the light, but did not hear the voice of Him who spoke with him. In chapter 9 we read that they heard the voice, but saw no one. They did not see the Lord, and they did not hear His words. They saw a great light and heard a voice, but they could not make out the words. This is just what the case required. They were undeniable witnesses that the vision was true and real. But the message was for Paul alone. Only he saw the Lord. For he had to be taught by Him, and bear testimony as an eyewitness that he had seen Him.
God also told Ananias what had happened, and there was a reason for that. Paul would be accused. His account had to stand clear of the charge that Jews had arranged it among themselves.
Paul was to be a witness of Christ to the Gentiles beyond all others. So God took special care to remove from every fair, upright man all suspicion that any Jew had arranged it. On the outside, the vision of glory was unmistakable before many witnesses. Of the whole company, only Saul heard what passed between the Lord and His servant. But divine wisdom told Ananias what had happened, independently of Saul and of every other person on earth.
Paul's message differs from that of the other apostles. They reported life with Jesus on earth. His commission came from a Christ already taken up.
He received no commission from Jesus on the earth. His commission came from Jesus "received up in glory." He was specially to witness to the glory into which Christ was exalted. The saints, made alive by the Spirit, were called to that same glory. The other apostles "bear witness because they had been with Him from the beginning"… They were witnesses to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus. But Paul was witness to something beyond this fact.
What Paul saw did more than fill his mouth. It changed what he wanted.
Paul faithfully testified to the glory of the heavenly Christ, for that glory dimmed for him all that had attracted him in this world.
The reach of Paul's calling was set at the very beginning. Older translations read "all men" where the ESV has "everyone."
Here we learn too that Ananias told the apostle, before his baptism, that he should be a witness for Christ to all men of what he had seen and heard. This ought to have prepared the Jews for the wide scope given to Paul's ministry. Would they have him resist the "God of our fathers" and His known will? There were two witnesses, by whose mouth every word should be established.
Paul's commission was personal to him. But the role of witness is not only for apostles.
Every believer is a witness, if not in the special sense in which Paul was. It belongs to what we are. It is bound up with our very profession of Christianity. So in no place and in no circumstances can we strip ourselves of this character.
The same rule of "what you have seen and heard" holds for every believer's testimony.
If we are to have power in testimony, we must go on what we have seen ourselves. We cannot act on the faith or understanding of another.
- Chosen — The call came from "the God of our fathers," not from men. He arranged for Paul to know His will, see the Righteous One, and hear His voice.
- Shown — Paul's companions saw light and heard a sound, but no words. They prove the event was real. The message stayed his alone.
- Sent — He had seen a Christ already received up in glory. So his testimony went beyond the resurrection the earlier apostles reported.
- Spread — Ananias named the scope before Paul's baptism. His reach to everyone was God's known will from day one, not a later drift.
- Shared — Every believer is a witness. That witness has power only when you speak from what you have seen yourself.
And now why lingerest thou? Arise and get baptised, and have thy sins washed away, calling on his name.
Paul is speaking to a hostile crowd in Jerusalem, retelling the day a stranger named Ananias came to him. The words Ananias spoke raise a question readers still wrestle with: can baptism wash sins away?
Ananias begins by challenging the delay. One writer sets these words beside the pool of Bethesda, where sick people lay waiting for the water to move:
With Christ it is, "Let anyone who desires take the water of life." It is, "Why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins." But that strange, mysterious water never spoke either of these words, or anything like them, from its troubled surface.
Every writer in the collection agrees that the water itself does nothing to a person's standing before God. The washing here belongs to a different sphere:
This has nothing to do with God's cleansing of sins by the blood of Christ, which is a vital, eternal matter for all who receive Christ as Saviour. It is instead a public washing away of the sins Saul had been guilty of when he publicly opposed the blessed name of the Lord Jesus. That is, in the eyes of men he would wash away his sins by baptism, not in the eyes of God, for this is only by the blood of Christ. In baptism he was taking a public stand against his former course.
The order of the sentence carries weight. Ananias does not tell Saul to be baptized because something has already happened to him:
Saul was in the condition that belonged to him as a sinner with sins on him, though he himself was safe, when he was told to arise and be baptized and wash away his sins. His sins were not washed away — that is, he was outwardly connected with the first man — until baptism to Christ, and as to himself as a man on the earth he was not in a Christian state until after baptism. If baptism implied life, would Scripture not have said, "Rise, and be baptized, because your sins are washed away"?
If baptism does not picture the start of new life, what does it picture?
Baptism is nowhere the symbol of the new birth. It is the symbol of Christ's death, and so it is said to be for remission of sins and for death with Him. In short it is a figure of salvation, as in 1 Peter 3.
Saul had publicly opposed the name of Jesus. That background explains why Ananias presses baptism on him. One added phrase also shows which baptism he means, since John the Baptist had baptized too:
Ananias added, "calling on the name of the Lord," which shows that he pointed to Christian baptism and not John's. Baptism is especially significant for a Jew. That is why it had such a prominent place on the day of Pentecost and in Paul's case. These rejecters of Christ must bow their proud heads and go down symbolically into death, acknowledging His Name. It was the token of their submission to the One they had refused, and only in this way could their sins be washed away.
The washing hangs on two acts done together: going into the water, and calling on the name of the Lord. One writer asks what would have happened without the second:
Saul took his place openly as a disciple by baptism, and he called on the name of the Lord, confessing Him before everyone. By doing this he thoroughly broke with the past and condemned his whole course. Had he not called on the name of the Lord, would his sins have been washed away? That result was closely bound up with his open acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ in that double way.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. Grant treats the washing as a matter of how Saul stood before men, since only the blood of Christ clears sin before God. Darby holds that Saul's sins were not washed away, and that he was not yet in a Christian state, until he was baptized.
- Blood — nothing but the death of Christ removes sin before God; the water never touched that question.
- Break — baptism cut Saul publicly from the life he had been living, in front of the people who knew him.
- Burial — the sign points not to new birth but to Christ's death, and to going down into death with Him.
- Bowing — for a man who had fought the name of Jesus, submitting to that name was the whole meaning of the act.
- Begin — the call leaves no room for delay: rise, be baptized, and call on the name of the Lord.
And it came to pass when I had returned to Jerusalem, and as I was praying in the temple, that I became in ecstasy,
Paul stands before a hostile crowd in Jerusalem. He tells them about a moment years earlier, when he was praying in the temple and the Lord spoke to him. Two questions follow: why was he told to leave the city he loved, and why did telling that story enrage the crowd?
One reference work traces the word behind "trance" through the rest of Scripture:
The word is ekstasis, "ecstasy," in which the mind is, as it were, carried beyond the body. It is translated "astonishment" in Mark 5:42, and "amazement" in Acts 3:10. It is rendered "trance" when Peter had the vision of the sheet let down from heaven, and when Paul in the temple saw the Lord and heard Him speak to him. Acts 10:10; Acts 11:5; Acts 22:17. The same word is used in the Greek Old Testament for the deep sleep of Adam and of Abram.
His hearers would not have found such a thing strange:
Jews would understand God stepping in by a trance to speak to a man; they even looked for such signs (1 Cor. 1:22).
One writer notes the gap between what Paul learned at his conversion and what he learned at prayer:
Of Paul we learn this. The character of his future work was told him at his conversion, before he rose from the ground (Acts 26:17-18). Yet he received his directions to depart to the Gentiles while he was praying in the temple at Jerusalem. (Acts 22:17-18.) That house had been left desolate to the Jews, for the presence of the Lord was not there. Even so, in that house the divine command to go to the Gentiles came straight to the servant fitted for the work.
The same writer weighs the place itself:
God had not dwelt in His earthly house since the captivity. He left it in Ezekiel's day (Ezek. 10:18-19; 11:22-23). The house remained stripped of the divine presence the whole time the Lord was on earth (Matt. 23:38). That building was graced by the divine presence on only one occasion. It was when the Lord Jesus appeared to Paul and told him to leave Jerusalem: "because they will not accept your testimony about me." A command from One speaking with authority in the temple!
Paul did not just take the order in silence. He answered back. One commentator says that exchange is why the account was kept at all:
The incident at Jerusalem is full of spiritual interest, because it shows the perfect ease and intimacy in which Scripture sets out the relations of the servant with the Master. It would have been easy to leave the account out, if it had not been of lasting importance and general value.
Paul argued that his own past made him the right man to reach the Jews.
His heart yearned over Israel; his burning desire was to have laboured among them. The Lord had told him to withdraw from Jerusalem, because the Jews would not receive from him testimony about Christ. Even so, he pleads that he was just the man to go to Jerusalem... It is clear that Paul used all this as qualifying him to labour among the Jews. But He who made the heart knew best, far better than Paul, and He said to him, "Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles."
Another writer weighs the same reasoning and finds affection running ahead of obedience:
Could Paul possibly think that, though his arguments would not change the Lord's mind, yet by reporting them he might change Israel's mind? This does show his love for his nation, but not a full subjection to his Lord.
The crowd listened to Paul's whole story until he reached the word "Gentiles." Commentators differ on Paul's part in this: some point to his love for his nation, others to the word that he should not be in Jerusalem at all. One writer marks what happened as Paul repeated that word:
There stood that word of the Lord, spoken twenty or more years before: "They will not accept your testimony about me." The Holy Spirit had backed it with a special message that he should not go to Jerusalem. At that moment the Lord's words were verified. His mention of the Gentiles becoming objects of divine mercy stirred his hearers to frenzy.
- Praying. Paul's orders reached him at prayer in the temple, not while he was making plans.
- Present. God had left that house long before. The one time His presence returned there, the word was: go out.
- Plea. Paul argued that his violent past made him the perfect witness to Jerusalem. The One who made his heart knew better.
- Pushed out. Love for his nation was real, but it was not the same as subjection — the Lord sent him far away instead.
- Proved. When Paul repeated that old sentence, the crowd proved it true on the spot.
and saw him saying to me, Make haste and go quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.
Paul stands before a hostile crowd in Jerusalem, telling them about a vision he once had in their own temple. In it the Lord ordered him to leave the city at once — so why would God refuse His servant the mission his heart wanted most?
Paul was praying in the temple when the Lord appeared to him. One writer asks who could have spoken with such authority in that place.
The Lord had appeared to him in God's house at Jerusalem. Would the God of Israel, jealous of His glory, have allowed a blasphemer or impostor to appear in that temple? That is how the Jews regarded Christ. Who then and what must He be who had there spoken to Paul? It was One who had authority, and could send him on a mission from Himself. "I will send you." Who in Jehovah's house could speak like this but He who is God over all, blessed forever?
Paul's calling and his instructions came at two separate moments.
Paul learned the character of his future work at his conversion, before he rose from the ground (Acts 26:17-18). But his directions to depart to the Gentiles came while he was praying in the temple at Jerusalem (Acts 22:17-18). That house had been left desolate, because the presence of the Lord was not there. Yet there God gave the command to go to the Gentiles, straight to the man fitted for the service.
This word wounded Paul. He was not the first servant of God to feel it.
"Make haste," said the Lord, "and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about Me." This was very painful to the apostle's heart. Others had tasted similar sorrow even before Christianity. Moses knew it in early days. But Jewish stubbornness then was nothing compared with what it became at the cross. Later, Jeremiah and other prophets drank enough of this cup to feel the bitterness and grief. But Paul loved Israel as remarkably as Moses did. He tasted the bitterness of Jewish rejection more, perhaps, than any of their prophets. In God's ways this made him all the more suited to be sent as Christ's ambassador to the Gentiles. Had he loved Israel less, he would not have been so fit for the new and heavenly mission.
Paul did not simply obey. He answered back, offering his own record as the reason he was the ideal preacher to Jerusalem.
Paul in his answer says to the Lord that he is precisely the man suited to bear witness for Him in Jerusalem. I have persecuted You, and they know it; will they not see in me how effective Your grace is? Such was the reasoning of Paul. But the Lord takes no account of it.
Paul even takes the blame for their unbelief on himself. It still does not move the Lord.
What pleading is here! "Their unbelief is all my fault; my vileness is the great barrier that keeps them from receiving the testimony — only let me remain." Impossible! "Depart: for I will send you far away, to the Gentiles." And if Paul returns to Jerusalem after all this, he must be carried away from it in bonds! He does return again.
Paul reaches the last words of the Lord's command, and the crowd answers for itself.
If confirmation was needed, it soon came. The renewed shouting of the crowd supplied it, as the apostle spoke the last words of the Lord's command. "Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live" (22:22). That was a sad and solemn confirmation of what the Lord had said years before.
Love for his nation is what drew Paul to Jerusalem. One writer asks whether such love is a safe guide.
We may fully recognise his consuming love toward his people Israel, and his earnest desire to see them turned to the Lord. This is what moved him so strongly to go to Jerusalem. However, it is a mistake to trust our devotion to God and to the interests of His people, no matter how deep it may be. We can trust only the Word of God for guidance, as for everything else.
- Place. The command came while Paul prayed in the temple. Only God could speak there with such authority and send him out.
- Pain. Hearing that his own nation would refuse him cut Paul deeply — a grief the prophets before him had also tasted.
- Plea. Paul argued that his record as a persecutor made him the ideal witness in Jerusalem. The Lord did not accept the reasoning.
- Proof. The mob's cry to have him removed from the earth confirmed, on the spot, a warning spoken years before.
- Principle. Deep love for people is not guidance. Only God's Word is safe to steer by. Paul went back to Jerusalem anyway, and left it in bonds.
And *I* said, Lord, they themselves know that *I* was imprisoning and beating in every synagogue those that believe on thee;
Under arrest in Jerusalem, Paul recalls a vision in the temple: the Lord told him to leave the city, because the people would not accept his testimony. This verse is his answer back — so why would a man offer his worst crimes as a credential, and why did the Lord refuse?
Local synagogues could try cases and hand out limited punishment. Paul had used that power against believers.
Pilate said to the Jews about the Lord, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law" (John 18:31). This makes it clear that they were allowed to judge certain matters and to inflict limited punishments. It appears they did this wherever there was a synagogue... The Lord told His disciples that the synagogues would flog them (Matthew 10:17). And Paul confessed that when persecuting the church he had imprisoned and beaten in every synagogue those who believed on the Lord (Acts 22:19). Paul himself no doubt suffered the same punishment in those same buildings (2 Corinthians 11:24). So they made a very undignified use of their places of worship.
Paul lists his crimes to persuade. The Jews knew how far he had gone against the faith, and he expects that to weigh with them.
How little those who saw or knew of Paul evangelising the Gentiles appreciated the feelings with which he had entered on the work! His heart yearned over Israel. His burning desire was to have laboured among them. The Lord told him to withdraw from Jerusalem, because the Jews would not receive his testimony about Christ. Even then he pleads that he was just the man to go to Jerusalem... He calls up the most terrible record of persecuting zeal as the crowning reason why the Lord should let him preach to the Jews. It is also his reason why they must surely welcome him, if they welcomed no other preacher of the gospel.
One writer hears Paul taking the blame for his nation's unbelief on himself.
What pleading is here! "Their unbelief is all my fault. My vileness is the great barrier to their receiving the testimony — only let me stay." Impossible! "Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles."
Notice how freely Paul argues with his Master. One writer draws two lessons from that freedom.
No Israelite more fervently sought to commend the gospel to the Jews. No servant pleaded for it more earnestly with his Master. The freedom with which he appeals is a standing lesson to us of the liberty into which the gospel brings us. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17). But we should also learn that the gospel leaves no uncertainty about the path and the service.
Not every writer reads the plea kindly. Years later, Paul repeats to the crowd the argument the Lord had already turned down.
His arguments would not change the Lord's mind. Could Paul really think that, by reporting them, he might change Israel's mind? This does show his love for his nation, but not full subjection to his Lord. As he says, the Lord's answer was a summary command: "Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles."
Commentators differ on how much to fault Paul. They agree on the outcome: the Lord's command, not Paul's reasoning, settled the matter.
The crowd answered the question themselves. The moment Paul mentioned the Gentiles, the warning he was quoting came true in front of him.
Did he feel that at least some of his people must be convinced? Yet there stood that word of the Lord, spoken twenty or more years earlier: "They will not accept your testimony about Me"... At that moment the Lord's words came true. His mention of the Gentiles becoming objects of divine mercy stirred his hearers to fury... When Paul followed his God-given mission to the Gentiles, God gave him the joy of being used to reach the "remnant, chosen by grace" from his own people. When he turned aside and concentrated on his own people, his words bore no fruit in blessing.
- Credential — Paul offers his record of jailing and flogging believers as his best qualification to reach the Jews.
- Freedom — He says it straight to the Lord; the exchange shows the open liberty a servant has with his Master.
- Limit — That liberty does not decide the path. The Lord's reply was a plain command to go far away.
- Love — His yearning over Israel was real. Commentators call it love running ahead of obedience.
- Proof — The crowd that heard this plea shouted for his death. That proved the warning he was resisting.
and when the blood of thy witness Stephen was shed, I also myself was standing by and consenting, and kept the clothes of them who killed him.
Paul is defending himself before a hostile crowd in Jerusalem, and he repeats to them the argument he once made to the Lord: his part in Stephen's death made him the right man to stay. Why would Paul keep raising the worst thing he ever did — and why did the Lord say no?
Paul had every reason to bury this detail. Instead he names it years later, in the city where it happened.
In the eyes of Saul of Tarsus, and of most in his own nation, this was the highest proof of his devotion to God. But to Paul the apostle it was a grief he could never forget: "I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Corinthians 15:9). His part in the murder of Stephen seems to have stayed with him all his days. Such is the heart of the most religious of men!
Paul calls Stephen the Lord's witness. Older translations render the word "martyr," and the two are the same word in the original.
The Greek word is μάρτυς, and is very often translated "witness." A martyr is one who meets death because of the witness he bears. Stephen was a martyr, Acts 22:20… Christ Himself was the faithful and true witness, Revelation 1:5; 3:14. He said to His persecutors, "you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth" (John 8:40). So the Lord Jesus was the true Martyr. But His death included much more than dying as a martyr — it was atonement.
Stephen died asking mercy for the men who were killing him. The one guarding their coats was standing right there.
Stephen, the first Christian martyr, ended his short but striking course in the likeness of his Lord… He had nothing more to say to men; he spoke his last words to his Lord. To the Lord he committed his spirit, and taking the posture of prayer, he asked mercy for his murderers. Who could have expected so astonishing an answer as his exalted Lord gave? He answered Stephen's prayer in the conversion of Saul, the chief murderer. Acts 22:20 shows that Saul himself never forgot it.
The Lord had told him to leave Jerusalem. Paul answered by offering his own past violence as the reason he should stay.
In the history of Paul we see his conversion in Acts 22:3-16. Then he is in a trance (Acts 22:17-21), in which the Lord commands him to leave Jerusalem. It is for Him to decide these things. Paul in his answer says to the Lord that he is exactly the man suited to bear witness for Him in Jerusalem. I have persecuted You, and they know it; will they not see in me the power of Your grace? Such was Paul's reasoning. But the Lord takes no account of it.
Notice what Paul can do in the Lord's presence. He goes over his sin in detail instead of leaving it vague.
What strikes one most is that Paul recalls to the Lord all his wrongdoing; and this, because his conscience was perfectly purged before God. Paul sets before the eyes of the Lord every detail of his sin. He does not stop at saying, You know it all; he puts it all before God, with no thought that God could charge any of it against him. He talks about his sins as a matter settled once and for all.
Commentators differ on how to weigh it. One hears deep love for his nation in it, but "not a full subjection to his Lord" (Leslie M. Grant). Another sees "the perfect ease and intimacy" of a servant with his Master (William Kelly).
The Lord did not debate. He repeated the order to leave, and the crowd's reaction proved His words true.
God had not lived in His earthly house for centuries; it stood empty of His presence even while the Lord was on earth. God's presence graced that actual building only once: when the Lord Jesus appeared to Paul and told him to leave Jerusalem, "for they will not accept your testimony about Me." A command from One speaking with authority in the temple!… If confirmation was needed, it soon came. The renewed shouting of the crowd, as the apostle spoke the last words of the Lord's command, supplied it. "Away with such a fellow from the earth; for he should not be allowed to live" (22:22) was a sad and solemn confirmation of what the Lord had said years before.
- Witness — the word Paul uses of Stephen means one who dies for the testimony he bears; Christ Himself was the faithful and true witness.
- Prayer — Stephen asked mercy for his killers; the answer came in the conversion of the man minding the coats.
- Memory — Paul never buried his part in that death; what his nation counted as devotion he carried as lifelong grief.
- Freedom — he could lay out every detail of that sin before the Lord, because God had purged his conscience and settled the matter.
- Sending — the Lord set his argument aside, repeated the order to leave, and the crowd's fury proved Him right.
And he said to me, Go, for *I* will send thee to the nations afar off.
Paul is telling a hostile crowd in Jerusalem how his life changed direction. He has just repeated what the Lord said to him in the temple, and this one sentence about the Gentiles — the nations outside Israel — is where the crowd stops listening.
Paul had argued back. He thought his record as a persecutor made him the ideal witness in Jerusalem.
Paul falls into a trance (Acts 22:17-21), and in it the Lord commands him to leave Jerusalem. It is for Him to decide such things. In his answer Paul tells the Lord that he is exactly the man suited to bear witness for Him in Jerusalem. I have persecuted You, and they know it; will they not see in me the power of Your grace? Such was the reasoning of Paul. But the Lord takes no account of it.
That answer settled the direction of Paul's work for the rest of his life.
The decisive word was spoken. Whatever Paul might feel, he now learns the Lord's will about his work. Now it was not merely, Get out of Jerusalem quickly, but, "I will send you far away to the Gentiles." No Israelite sought more eagerly to commend the gospel to the Jews. No servant pleaded for it more earnestly with his Master. The freedom with which he appeals is a lasting lesson to us of the liberty the gospel brings us. But we should also learn that the gospel leaves no uncertainty for the path and the service. The true light shines. Christ is the way, as well as the truth and the life, and He is not more truly the way to the Father than in Paul's case toward the Gentiles.
The Lord had appeared to Paul once before. This word came at a second appearance, in a place that made it all the more striking.
He had another vision. A second time the Lord had appeared to him and spoken to him. This appearance was all the more striking, because it happened in the temple at Jerusalem. It was Paul's first return to the city after his conversion. He was praying there when he fell into a trance and saw the Lord, who said to him, "Get up and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about Me" (22:18)... But the Lord's reply was firm and decisive: "Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles" (22:21).
The choice looks strange: the man who loved Israel most is the one sent away from them.
This was very painful to the apostle's heart... Paul loved Israel as remarkably as Moses did. He tasted the bitterness of the Jew, perhaps more than any of their prophets did. In God's ways that made him all the more suited to be sent as Christ's ambassador to the Gentiles. If he had loved Israel less, he would not have been so fit for the new and heavenly mission. In everything, it takes more than nature to represent grace rightly, even in a small measure.
The distance in the command is not only geography. It changes who the message now reaches.
The power of the ministry of reconciliation shows itself not in staying at Jerusalem, but in going out to the Gentiles wherever they may be. For we are not Israelites, nor the lost sheep of that house. We are not the people; compared with them, the law counts us "dogs." Now, however, all is changed. It is the gospel, and all things have become new.
Up to this word the crowd had listened.
This special service was to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God to the Gentiles. Carrying it out stirred up the malice of the prejudiced Jew and brought the apostle into prison. In the way the Jew saw it, a man who could talk of going to the Gentiles was not fit to live (Acts 22:21-22).
What they refused was mercy itself.
As a nation the Jews rejected the gospel just because it was mercy, sent specially to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21-22 shows this). In the end they will be deeply humbled, and they will receive blessing on the same ground as the Gentile dog.
- Sent, not self-chosen. Paul argued that Jerusalem needed him; the Lord did not take his reasoning into account. The commission came from Christ, not from Paul's judgment of where he would be most useful.
- Sent from prayer. The words came while Paul prayed in the temple, in a trance. It was the Lord's second appearance to him.
- Sent because he loved. His deep love for Israel, and the grief when they refused him, made him fit to carry grace to others.
- Sent far. The reach of the message now runs past Israel to those who had no claim at all under the law.
- Sent, and hated for it. The mission to outsiders turned the crowd murderous. Yet the mercy they rejected is the mercy they will one day receive.