1 But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Saul was filled with what the literal Greek called “snorting threats and murder” against the very ones God had left in charge of His New Contract with humankind. Fitting, for the word for snorting, was typically used metaphorically, as in a wild animal in a vineyard making waste of the thing. And Saul was laying waste to a vineyard. He was destroying the branches in the vineyard of God who had entrusted their fate to The Vine Himself. He was filled with a self-righteous purpose that was birthed from deep within his heart to bring maximum harm and death to his willing victims and their families. These branches knew well that they must remain in The Jesus Vine to walk confidently in God’s purpose for their lives.
Saul had refused to heed the advice of his respected teacher Gamaliel: he was not willing to allow God to handle what he thought to be an affront to Israel’s cherished traditions that had matured over the last 1600 years. No. He saw himself as Yahweh’s man, as God’s vengeance on earth. Saul instead aligned himself with the High Priest. The same priest who was denying the most important, exceedingly excellent Truth in all of human history. The truth in history that had been dogmatically proven to all of the haughty peers of the High Priest and that Sanhedrin Council. These rulers were also complicit in denying all the evidence: every miracle, every testimony of the Apostles, every display of Jesus’ superior knowledge and wisdom. The wisdom that flowed out of Him effortlessly; for he is the source of all wisdom and knowledge. The Council killed the “Author of Life,” denied the resurrection they knew had happened and continued daily in their shameful lust for power as a unified, jealous tactician. They, with the leading High Priest, were continuing the greatest cover-up in human history. The Council was readily willing to enlist their zealous persecution pupil, Saul. This student was armed with all of the confidence he needed, with the letters of the religious.
I am reminded before I stand in judgment of Saul too critically that I too am a murderer. For I have hated another in my own life. Our Lord Jesus has raised the bar of sin to our thinking lives to get to the root of a sin. Every sinful act is birthed by its evil thought proceeding from the wealth of evil thought within my own heart. These are the thoughts that Jesus warned about clearly, when he taught, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, [and] slander.”
The thoughts of every kinds of evil are in all of us. Although instructed clearly, we yet often refuse, to replace these triggers of evil with thoughts of “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, [whatever is excellent …], or worthy of praise.” Therefore we are on equal footing with the one who threw the stones at Stephen.
Saul had set himself in opposition with the Way’s followers. These were the brave ones of the first century. They had a Jesus-centric message they were calling the Good News; its backing coming from God Himself and stipulated with that spilt blood of His Son. Saul hated the substitutionary way in which they presented Jesus. Saul must have cringed at the sound of that name. Jesus’ followers proclaimed that God had done away with the Law due to His Son’s life, death, and resurrection must have been keeping Saul in a simmering and ready rage.
God’s people always knew that it was impossible for the Law to save in a Justified way. The knew the Law ignites our natural rebellious oppositions. The followers of The Way knew that Jesus had faithfully lived up to what the Law required. He accomplished what no other human could accomplish. They knew the one Man who was able to keep it–without error. His perfection ushered in the New Contract that was foretold in Jeremiah 31:13, when God wrote, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”
This new covenant was built on our Hero. Due to Jesus’ keeping of The Law to the last tittle, He gained the only and unique qualification as the innocent Lamb of God with the unique mission that had enlisted an Old Rugged Cross for His weapon of victory. He had never failed to love God and people in complete perfection. Jesus had no guilt of his own, but instead He willingly accepted all our sins into His being and onto His account. This righteous acceptance was for our sake, the benefit of his family.
Therefore He is The Way, for there is no other. There is no religious system, there are no good works good enough, there are no philosophies or secret wisdoms or societies which can deliver a man. Jesus is and shall forevermore remain exclusive.
There are, however, other ways offered to a readily accepting world who is insatiably looking for a way to achieve righteousness of their own. For instance, they hope to point to a lesser moral man on their judgment day. They hope that another’s excessive immorality is–proof enough–of their superior morality in a righteous God’s courtroom.
May the hearers of the Gospel find the only Way that is marked out by God so clearly. Every time we write a date we are reminded of God’s exclusive Son. Time restarted with the Last Adam and all of history points to him! All of the stars declare the glory of God! All of creation testifies night and day that God is divine and good and may be sought and found, for He is close by to every one of us. In Psalm 25:14 God wrote to humankind, “The secret counsel of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” There is no another way that leads to life. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom that leads to secret counsel. What is that secret counsel? Jesus Christ was crucified and raised on the third day for our sins. This is the message we hold in these jars of clay.
Jesus described Himself as the Narrow Door. All other doors are missed marks. They are slightly veiled counterfeits. Other doors offered to a world so ready to open them! But such ways lead to damnation. Outside there is an innumerable line of souls ready to choose any other door that would not have them say, “I am guilty God and have no hope apart from you; save me!” God is ready to reveal more of Himself to the one who would mean that type of prayer. Every person’s rescue is only an honest sentence away from God.
God’s Church has been entrusted to tell this easiest of fix to the greatest problem of every person. You are a sinner from birth and there is no hope for you. But trust in Jesus plus nothing else and you shall have a seat at the table of the Creator of the Universe. We have a responsibility to tell this on every mountain, hill and valley. To tell it in the workplace, in schools, in homes, on streets. Let us be purposeful about our responsibilities to the Gospel.
As Saul became an unwitting ally of Satan more so than Yahweh, his meticulous plan, in the persecution of God’s saints, was hoping to conquer new ground. Damascus. Saul had heard that followers of The Way may be there, and he had not grown tired of the hunting.
Saul’s previous prisoners including not a few women were willing to be chained for transport and walked the way of suffering to the center of Jerusalem to be paraded as Great Jewish trophies. These would welcome prison rather than imagine the disappointment in the eyes of their Savior and diminish the truth of the cross.
These women are a good example for us. An example that gives us strength when they contrast the weary saints today. Ones who shiver at the prospect of being defriended by the deep relational friends on social media. May we take heart that there have been many who have begun to risk a social shunning in turn for their proclamation of truth. This vocalized truth of the cross bringing with it straighter spines and bolder hearts.
3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.
This is one of the miraculous times in all of the Bible where God showed himself visually and auditorally to another mere man. Saul’s experience reminds me of Moses’. Moses woke on another day of shepherding. **Later he crossed paths with a holy, inextinguishable, burning bush and with it, the most important of conversations with Yahweh. But, while Moses was corralling sheep for his father-in-law, Saul was corralling God’s sheep for altogether different reasons.
Saul was always driven, methodical, and overachieving. It seemed he was preparing to go to the end of the known earth to prove his drive, passion, and energy to himself, his peers, and teachers. Saul seemingly approached life on his fateful day of transformation, in the steady routine of His passion, having no clue he was about to become a Moses type. His commission would soon be clarified as the chosen Apostle to the Gentiles who would be used to bring a message of deliverance out of their Egypt, their life of sin and separation. This would be a day like non-other Saul would ever experience again this side of heaven. A few moments and the briefest of conversations with the crucified, risen, forever glorified Son of God would not only change his day and life, but it would change his forever.
Jesus decided in Saul’s case to leave less of Himself to Saul’s imagination. He, like Moses, had seen the glory of God. Their circumstances between the two could have not been greater. Nevertheless the outcome the same for both men. Both men would be pillars of faith. Both men had participated in murder. Both men later had a fire for God that seems unmatched. O don’t we wish we could be a Moses or a Paul?
What did Paul see? Our Lord, in His throne room, is the uttermost ascetically pleasing person to behold. He surpasses other people, all places and things. But in response to his beauty, it seems there is one impulse for men: to present themselves low in His presence. No man may leave the presence of the Lord unchanged by such an experience. Every man shall bend his knees in the presence of God’s unique One, His Holy One. Saul went down a Saul, he arose Paul. A man God would use for His hand to write most of the source text of the New Contract with humankind. This text’s impact is eternal.
While we surely cannot force God’s hand with a simple “show me your glory,” we may work to see God’s glory by faith! Thus receiving some benefit to the motivation part of our lives. God shall use more men and women in great ways. His work is not finished.
Let us listen to John’s account of Jesus thrown-room in Revelation 4.
4:2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”
John was another Apostle who experienced heaven before his death of course. Christian you are headed to the throne room of the universe! May we live out our days with a vision of heaven in our hearts.
Acts 9:4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”
Reading the accounts here and of other mortals who have had the privilege of peeking into the room of heaven, a thing that stands out is this: they are looking for instructions. Men seem to be frozen through a reverent fear–who wouldn’t be! Surprisingly, men don’t run from the presence of the Lord; they seem to more be in a state of stone. They prostrate themselves or are still; they wait for instructions. These are the ultimate God events He uses to get and hold the uttermost attention of persons. Therefore, the Lord told Paul to get up and go into the city.
We too have opportunities to have our forever changed by conversations at our burning bush moments. In our prayer rooms where the Lord speaks to our hearts and directs our lives. We may not be given the sight of heaven, as only a few have God-given this privilege and responsibility. But those life-changing conversations are available to all the saints. They are there in our alone times with God, in our stillness, in our contemplative hearts, and in our careful listening.
7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
The encounter left Paul’s traveling co-conspirators speechless. What earthy words may properly express and describe even the sounds from heaven without falling short?
The unique One, whose glory from heaven seemingly caused a glory burn to Saul’s eyes, was about to speak to Saul. These brief moments of peering into the God source light that shines brighter than the brightest star would find their contrast in three days of blindness and fasting. Saul was left to think for those days having no idea what His Master would require of him, having no idea if he would ever see again. Jesus sent Saul on a journey through his mind and heart with his 72 hours of introspection. God took his most valuable sense away for a three-day heart-to-heart: Saul, “Why are you persecuting me?” A simple, but revelatory, question would cut through the fragile accolades of Saul’s life. Framed awards he had hung on his walls of his life and heart. For he was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, [… unmatched]; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” (Philippians 5:3) . One question from the Heavy God tore down his walls built on sand. For all houses shall fall save those built on the Rock of Ages.
Dung. is how Paul would later describe his resume’.
We are greatly equipping for the work of the kingdom when we are humbly partnered with the living God. Listen to the truth of Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” You were born at the right time, you are the right gender, you have the perfect spiritual gift to walk in what God has called you to. It’s not about a resume’ it is about a relationship. Close relationship with God is how we travel our Road to Emmaus, how we get our hearts to burn with heavenly passion that is steady and predictable.
Saul’s mind must have been filled with some angst as he contemplated all the lives he had changed through the chains he carried, and how he and they were now so very intertwined with the glorified Lord. How had he missed Jesus, the one that is utterly unmissable? Paul’s heart must have been as a ship’s anchor as he sat there blind; the only thing he could see was the last thing that would forever flash on his retinas. Staring into the heavy truth of his actions, he must have asked, “How did I miss the Suffering Servant?” “How did I miss Stephen’s Savior, the foot-washer, the homeless One, the miracle worker, raiser of the dead, the calmer of storms?” Theological clarity must have started rushing into Saul’s mind. Surely this committed Bible student was becoming aware of his largest error: He had missed The Foundation of Faith. All the Scriptures he memorized as a boy, all of his higher education suddenly had new vivid clarity. The persecuted witnesses’ words must have been beating Paul’s eardrums as he was with sight. Their words suddenly having sharp validity and precision that their deaths emphasized.
How do we continue to miss more of Jesus in our lives?
Hasn’t He shown us His glory to the core of our hearts?
Are we listening?
Will we listen?