Acts 9:3–6

Here we see the most striking instance of his zeal for the Jews' religion. The damage done among believers in the Lord Jesus in Judea was not enough for him. He persecuted them even to foreign cities. His authority and commission came from the high priest, the chief priests, and the whole council of the elders. His zeal was so unbounded that he allowed himself no midday rest. While the sun was at its strongest he pushed on his way, and had come very near his goal. We see him in the pride of his greatness, when suddenly he is struck to the ground by a light greater than the brilliant sun.

Commenting on it later, the Apostle described it as "a light from heaven, brighter than the sun." Since it was midday, that would be the sun at its most brilliant. The sun may shed its rays of light, heat and life-giving properties on the natural body. But it takes a greater light out of heaven to affect the soul.

He is breathing out threats and slaughter. He is going to drag those simple, faithful Christians to Jerusalem, really for their murder. In that moment a light brighter than the sun at noon shines about him and those with him. Picture the Eastern noonday sun, casting its rays over all the land in undimmed splendour. And yet a brighter light dimmed it. What was that mightier light? "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." Where did that light come from? It came from the face of the Man in glory, and the brightness of that face eclipsed the sun at noon... It was light from heaven that struck him down: not an earthquake, not a lightning flash, not a hand.

The hint in Paul's later account is that it was "about midday," more precise than Acts 9:3. This makes the vision far more striking. It was not a trance, but an open fact. The light which shone around him out of heaven outshone the sun at midday, in the presence of men who were travelling with him. Deception was impossible.

Occupied in this way, he approaches Damascus. There, at the height of an unbroken career of self-will, the Lord Jesus stops him. A light from heaven shines around him, and wraps him in its dazzling brightness. He falls to the earth, and hears a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" The glory that threw him to the ground, together with that voice, left no doubt: the authority of God was revealed in it. His will broken, his pride overthrown, his mind subdued, he asks, "Who are you, Lord?"

The Lord had His eye on him. They all fell to the earth; they all saw the sudden light; Saul alone saw the Lord. All heard a sound, but not the voice of Him who spoke to Saul... He was to be an eyewitness of the glory of the Lord, and a witness to the words which He had personally spoken to him. But it was the glorified Lord. He had not known the Lord in His humiliation; he was to begin with the glory.

"I heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" Imagine hearing your own mother tongue from glory. That is what Saul heard that day… And be sure of this, when God speaks to a sinner, He always makes him understand… When God speaks to a man, He singles that man out. The man is like a wounded deer. A deer hunter goes out, and a whole herd may pass by, but he takes aim at only one. The wounded deer then leaves the herd and goes off alone to die. When the Holy Spirit convicts a man of his sin, he gets alone with God.

How completely grace is joined with the authority that so plainly belongs to the glorious Speaker! And how unanswerable is the question! It might have been a sentence of judgment, but it seeks only the soul's own judgment of itself.

With our natural thoughts about God and His ways, what would you expect Him to do with a wretch like Saul? He was breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the One he hated so terribly. Of course, you say, almighty power would sweep such a plague off the earth… But how different from all this natural thinking was His way with poor Saul. God will stop him — but with what? With the pit? No, with glory. A light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shone around him. At midday, when the sun is at its brightest, something brighter still stopped Saul.

The voice did not say "Mine," nor even "us," but "Me." "Mine" would imply a company of people who belong to Christ — true indeed, but not the whole truth. "Us" would imply a company of people associated with Christ — also true, but not the full truth. "Me" means a company of people in union with Christ, and so closely joined to Him that to touch them is to touch Christ.

"Why are you persecuting Me?" was the question. But Saul had never seen Him. How could he on earth persecute One in heaven? That question contained a truth, a revelation. This was the first glimpse of the Body of Christ, and it came, as was fitting, from the Head Himself. "Me," He said — not "My people," not "My saints," but "Myself."

What a revolution this brings about in his whole being! What a discovery of what man is at his best before God! All his strict conscientiousness, earnest religiousness, and blameless outward walk made him the most open enemy of Christ in glory the world had ever seen.

Fallen to the earth, he heard a voice charging him with persecuting the One he could not admit to be the Lord. The astonished Saul learns, to his utter confusion before God, that it was Jesus — Jesus persecuted in His own, who were one with Him.

The words should arrest us as they arrested Saul; there is surely a fullness in them that is little understood. 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.

"And I said, Who are you, Lord?" He does not say, "Who are you?" No, he asks, "Who are you, Lord?" In a moment he senses it: 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. He was in the presence of God — in the presence of the exalted Son of Man. "Who are you, Lord?" His will breaks, once he recognises the Lord.

What a revolution this word caused in that mighty heart! It overthrew his confidence in man and in self, down to the foundations — everything his life had been building up with such zeal. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." It was the Lord, beyond doubt. He declared He was Jesus, and Jesus was Jehovah. He dared not doubt any longer: to him it was self-evident. If Jesus was Jehovah, what then had his religion been? What had the high priest or the Sanhedrin done for him?

The Lord of glory has His members on earth. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." It was Himself: those poor disciples were bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. He looked on them and cherished them as His own flesh. Two truths are tied to Saul's conversion: the glory, and the oneness of the saints with Jesus, their Head in heaven.

These few words hold the oneness of the church with Christ, its Head in heaven. Here is the seed of the blessed truth of the "one body." 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!

Think how we naturally picture God and His ways. What course would you expect Him to take with a wretch like Saul? He was breathing out threats and slaughter against the disciples of the One who was the object of his terrible hatred. Why, of course you say, Almighty power would sweep such a plague from the earth. But how different from all this natural thought of God was His way with poor Saul. Stop him God will; but with what? With the pit? No; but with glory. He comes not to hurl him into the bottomless pit, but to take him up, in the riches of grace and mercy.

Luke gives us the first account of his conversion (Acts 9). From that record we should leave out these words: "It is hard for you to kick against the goads. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what will You have me to do? And the Lord said to him." The passage should simply run: "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting; but arise, and go," and so on. That the Lord did say, "It is hard for you to kick against the goads," Paul declared at Caesarea.

Goads were the pointed sticks that drove oxen on while ploughing. When the oxen kicked against them, they only hurt themselves. The Lord applied this picture to Paul when he was struck to the ground at his conversion.

He said, trembling and astonished, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" This time it is not the answer of another who did not yet know his own heart — "Lord, I will go with You," and so on. No, that was the will of man. It is rather, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" This soul was converted to Christ. Here was the will of man broken; the will of God alone allowed. This was the instinct and the voice of obedience — the first mark of the new man.

In his own account to the Jews he tells us what he said: "What shall I do, Lord?" (Acts 22:10). The inspired historian does not quote it here, though he gives it later where it mattered. But in any case the Lord counts on obedience. He counts on it even before Saul could be expected to grasp the doctrine, or to rest in peace on the sprinkling of His blood… The newborn soul may not yet know that he is cleared of all guilt. Even then his heart is made up to obey. He does not obey through fear of punishment. Sovereign goodness draws him, and he submits to God's word… But even an apostle must be told what he must do; he cannot discover it for himself.

What must it have been to him to hear that comforting command, "Rise and enter the city"! The penalty of immediate death, with everlasting ruin to follow, was not to be measured out to him. This event stayed vivid in his memory. No wonder, then, that he could write in later years: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost."

He cried to Him in astonishment and submission: "Lord, what will You have me to do?" In that prayer we find the secret of all his later effectiveness as a servant of that Lord to whose will he then fully surrendered himself. He abandoned his own will so that the will of Christ should be supreme in his life and ways. That was the chief feature in this servant of the Lord, as it should be in all.

How perfectly natural, 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.

Here again was a striking break with all that had gone before among the apostles. The Lord commanded no return to Jerusalem. Saul must enter Damascus. There he would learn what had been appointed for him to do — not from an existing apostle, still less from the apostolic body, but from a disciple of no high position. This is how grace reigns: have we really learned this?

He asked what the Lord would have him do. The answer was a command: "Rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." He had to wait for more instruction, and for deeper soul-searching, before he could enter the enjoyment of peace and deliverance. He was to be a chosen vessel for ministering the truth of God. So he had to learn from his own experience the difficulties souls face in passing out of darkness into light.