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Scripture Reading: Acts 9:1-19
In this message we shall continue to consider the conversion of Saul (9:1-19).
As Saul drew near to Damascus, “suddenly a light from heaven shone around him; and he fell on the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (vv. 3-4). After he rose from the ground, he saw nothing, even though his eyes were opened (v. 8). For three days Saul was not able to see. The Lord not only took away his sight; He also dealt with Saul’s clever mind. We have seen that Saul was learned in Hebrew religion, Greek culture, and Roman politics. He was trained in the three basic elements of Western culture. In taking away Saul’s sight, the Lord Jesus wanted Saul to think about Him.
Acts 9:9 says that Saul “was three days without seeing, and neither ate nor drank.” What did he do during those three days? The answer to this question is found in the Lord’s word to Ananias recorded in verse 11: “Rise up and go to the lane called Straight, and seek in the house of Judas a man from Tarsus named Saul; for behold, he is praying.” Here we see that in those three days Saul was praying. He did not see anything, and he did not eat or drink anything. All he could do was pray.
I believe that as Saul prayed he tried to analyze Jesus, seeking to know who He is. Saul may have said to himself, “I know that Jesus was buried, yet He spoke to me from heaven. How can this be? Jesus said that I was persecuting Him. How could He have been among those I persecuted?” For three days Paul must have prayed about matters such as these.
It is likely that as Saul was praying, vision after vision and revelation after revelation came to him concerning Christ and the church. His experience during those days may have been one of watching a heavenly television in which he saw many things concerning the Lord Jesus. As he saw these things, Saul may have said, “Jesus the Nazarene is Jehovah. He is my Savior. No wonder that His followers testified strongly that He was resurrected. He surely has been resurrected, for He appeared to me from the heavens.” Saul may have gone on to consider the Lord’s ascension, which implies His incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. Saul may have come to realize that as the One who is now in the heavens, the Lord passed through the process of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension.
We need to be impressed with the fact that for three days Saul did not eat or drink. All he did was pray. While he was praying, the revelation concerning Christ was “televised” into his being. Saul beheld a wonderful view of the Lord on this heavenly television. No longer did Saul have any doubt concerning Christ’s resurrection. He also came to believe in His incarnation and death. Through the visions that he saw during those days, Saul received the full message of the gospel.
Saul not only saw that Jesus is Jehovah, the Savior, who died and was resurrected; he also saw that the Lord Jesus is one with His followers. Perhaps Saul said to himself, “I did not persecute Jesus — I persecuted His followers. But He told me that I persecuted Him. This must mean that He is one with His followers.” In this way Saul came to see the Body. He heard a message not only concerning Christ’s salvation, but also concerning the Body of Christ. When the Lord appeared to Saul, He asked him, “Why are you persecuting Me?” The Lord seemed to be saying, “Saul, this ‘Me’ includes Me personally and My Body corporately. Personally I am in the heavens, but corporately the Body is on earth. When you persecuted My followers, you persecuted My Body. To persecute My Body is to persecute Me.” Therefore, the “Me” in 9:4 is corporate, comprising the Lord Jesus and all His believers.
According to 9:5, Saul said, “Who are You, Lord? And He said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” The “Me” in verse 4 and the name “Jesus” in verse 5 are of great significance, and Paul must have considered much concerning Jesus and this corporate “Me.” During those three days he might have analyzed the two words Me and Jesus.
When Paul said, “Who are You, Lord?” he must have gotten saved and received the essential Spirit. Later, in the book of Romans, he said, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). In Acts 9:5 Saul called Jesus Lord even without knowing Him. No doubt, Saul was shocked by the Lord’s appearing and speaking. At that time the essential Spirit should have entered into his being. Then he was able to pray for three days without eating and drinking. Under the inspiration of the essential Spirit, his only interest was to pray in order to know the significance of what he had seen and heard. During those days, Paul received the full gospel concerning salvation and the Body of Christ.
Saul’s experience of the corporate Me, Christ and the Body, must have made a deep impression on him and affected his future ministry regarding Christ and the church. That experience laid the foundation for his ministry. Therefore, he was very strong in teaching the Body of Christ (Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:16; 4:4, 16). He is the only writer in the New Testament to use the term “the Body of Christ.” He placed great emphasis on the Body because at the time of his conversion he heard a message concerning the corporate Me, a message concerning the Body of Christ.
Immediately after Saul was saved, the Lord began to educate him concerning the Body. This was the reason He said to Saul, “Rise up and enter into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do” (9:6). Here the Lord seemed to be saying, “Saul, I shall not tell you what you need to do. You have been saved directly by Me, and no other person knows that you have been saved. Therefore, you need a representative of My Body to come to you and confirm the fact that I have saved you, chosen you, and called you. You also need such a representative of the Body to bring you into the identification with My Body.” As we shall see, when Saul came to Jerusalem and tried to join the disciples, “all feared him, not believing that he was a disciple” (v. 26). Such a situation made it necessary for his salvation to be confirmed by a representative of the Body.
When the Lord told Ananias to seek Saul, Ananias replied, “Lord, I have heard from many concerning this man, how many evil things he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem” (v. 13). Here we see that Ananias did not want to have anything to do with Saul. Then the Lord went on to say to Ananias, “Go, for this man is a chosen vessel to Me, to bear My name before both the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer on behalf of My name” (vv. 15-16). Then Ananias went to contact Saul. In his contact with Saul, Ananias recognized him as a brother in the Lord (v. 17). If the Lord had not told Ananias to seek out Saul, none of the believers would have recognized Saul as a brother. Through Ananias the Lord gave Saul excellent instruction concerning the practice of the Body life.
In 9:17 Ananias said to Saul, “The Lord has sent me, Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, so that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The filling here is the outward filling with the economical Spirit. Both in the case of Saul in chapter nine and in the case of the Samaritans in chapter eight, the Head of the Body withheld the economical Spirit. The Lord held back the economical Spirit from the Samaritan believers because the Jews regarded them as strangers and had no dealings with them. The Jews would have found it difficult to believe that God would save the Samaritans. Therefore, the Head of the Body withheld the economical Spirit until Peter and John came to Samaria to lay their hands on the Samaritan believers. Through the laying on of the hands of Peter and John, the Head passed on the economical Spirit as a sign to the Jewish believers that even Samaritans could be members of the Body of Christ.
Saul of Tarsus, of course, was a typical Jew, a pure Hebrew. However, he was a leading persecutor of the church, one who devastated the church in Jerusalem. Who would ever believe that he had turned to the Lord and had been saved? When Paul received the Lord’s salvation, he also received the essential Spirit within him. However, the Head of the Body held back the economical Spirit until a representative of the Body came to Saul and laid his hands on him. At that juncture, the economical Spirit came upon him as strong evidence of the fact that he had been saved and had been accepted by the Head into the Body as a member. Actually, Saul was a particular member, a member that was to bear the weighty commission to minister God’s New Testament economy to the Gentile world.
It is not easy to have the proper understanding of all that is portrayed in 9:1-19. Likewise, it is not easy to see the significance of what is recorded in this section of Acts. Our understanding of this portion of the holy Word came not only from reading the Bible and books written by others, but also from considering our own history and experience. As a result of many years of study and experience, we can see the crucial points in 9:1-19. Each point should not merely be a teaching to us; rather, every point should be a vision that we see on the heavenly television.
In Acts 9 we see that the leading persecutor and foremost opponent of Jesus was saved and became a vessel. Saul became one with the Head and with the Body. As a member of the Body, he was qualified to receive the heavenly commission to complete the word of God’s New Testament revelation. Concerning this, he himself says, “I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God” (Col. 1:25). Without the Epistles of Paul, God’s New Testament revelation would not have been completed. Among the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, fourteen were written by Paul as the completion of God’s New Testament economy. With the ministry of Peter and his company we have the initiation, but we do not have the completion. If we had only the ministry of Peter and his company, the New Testament economy of God would not be complete. For this completion there was the need of another vessel, the vessel chosen by God to carry out His New Testament economy. Eventually, God in His wisdom put Paul into prison so that he could write those Epistles which are especially crucial to the New Testament economy of God.
In 9:15 we see that Saul of Tarsus was a chosen vessel. In reading the Scriptures we may not pay adequate attention to the word “vessel,” an important spiritual term. A vessel is a container and therefore is different from a tool or a weapon.
In the Epistles of Paul there is a strong emphasis on the importance of vessels. For example, Romans 9:23 speaks of God making known “the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory.” In Romans 9 we have the thought that human beings were made by God to be vessels to contain Him. In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul again speaks of vessels: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” Then in 2 Timothy 2:20 he says, “In a great house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also wooden and earthen, and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor.” God’s intention in saving Saul of Tarsus was to fill him with Himself and thereby make him an outstanding vessel. In Paul’s writings we see the development of the spiritual significance of the word “vessel.”
It may have been from Ananias that Saul learned that he was a chosen vessel. Saul of Tarsus was chosen by the Lord not only to be His apostle, His servant, and His minister; he was also chosen to be His vessel. In Acts 9:15 the Lord Jesus seemed to be saying to Ananias, “Saul is a chosen vessel. He will contain Me, and his ministry will be to convey Me to the Gentile world.” We all need to see the importance of Saul being a chosen vessel.
In Paul’s life and writings we can see the three elements of western culture — the Hebrew element, the Greek element, and the Roman element. Paul was a composition of these three elements. Therefore, he embodied Hebrew religion, Greek culture, and Roman politics. Because he was a composition of these elements, he became suitable as an earthen vessel to contain and convey the all-inclusive Christ. Paul was adequate to be such a vessel.
In studying the Bible it is not sufficient to know only the letters in black and white. We also need spiritual vision and insight. The Lord Jesus had such vision and insight when He revealed that the divine title “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” indicates resurrection (Matt. 22:23-33). We cannot see such a thing simply by reading the Bible in letters. Only by having spiritual vision and insight can we see that resurrection is implied in this divine title. To have such an understanding is not to allegorize the Scriptures or merely to make inferences. On the contrary, this is to receive revelation through the study of the written Word of God. In our reading of chapter nine of Acts we also need to see the heavenly vision concerning “Me,” Jesus, and the chosen vessel.
