to the ground. He saw and heard, he trembled and obeyed, he believed and rejoiced. As he rose
from the earth he saw no man. Like a helpless child, blinded by the dazzling light, he was led to
Damascus, and after three days of blindness and fasting he was cured and baptized—not by Peter
or James or John, but—by one of the humble disciples whom he had come to destroy. The haughty,
self-righteous, intolerant, raging Pharisee was changed into an humble, penitent, grateful, loving
servant of Jesus. He threw away self-righteousness, learning, influence, power, prospects, and cast
in his lot with a small, despised sect at the risk of his life. If there ever was an honest, unselfish,
radical, and effective change of conviction and conduct, it was that of Saul of Tarsus. He became,
by a creative act of the Holy Spirit, a "new creature in Christ Jesus."^365
We have three full accounts of this event in the Acts, one from Luke, two from Paul himself,
with slight variations in detail, which only confirm the essential harmony.^366 Paul also alludes to it
five or six times in his Epistles.^367 In all these passages he represents the change as an act brought
about by a direct intervention of Jesus, who revealed himself in his glory from heaven, and struck
conviction into his mind like lightning at midnight. He compares it to the creative act of God when
He commanded the light to shine out of darkness.^368 He lays great stress on the fact that he was
converted and called to the apostolate directly by Christ, without any human agency; that he learned
his gospel of free and universal grace by revelation, and not from the older apostles, whom he did
not even see till three years after his call.^369
The conversion, indeed, was not a moral compulsion, but included the responsibility of
assent or dissent. God converts nobody by force or by magic. He made man free, and acts upon
him as a moral being. Paul might have "disobeyed the heavenly vision."^370 He might have "kicked
against the goads," though it was "hard" (not impossible) to do so.^371 These words imply some
psychological preparation, some doubt and misgiving as to his course, some moral conflict between
the flesh and the spirit, which he himself described twenty years afterwards from personal experience,
and which issues in the cry of despair: "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?"^372 On his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus, which takes a full week on
foot or horseback—the distance being about 140 miles—as he was passing, in the solitude of his(^365) 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15.
(^366) Acts 9, 22, 26. These accounts are by no means mere repetitions, but modifications and adaptations of the same story to
the audience under apologetic conditions, and bring out each some interesting feature called forth by the occasion. This has been
well shown by Dean Howson in Excursus C on Acts 26, in his and Canon Spence’s Commentary on Acts. The discrepancies of
the accounts are easily reconciled. They refer chiefly to the effect upon the companions of Paul who saw the light, but not the
person of Christ, and heard a voice, but could not understand the words. The vision was not for them any more than the appearance
of the risen Lord was for the soldiers who watched the grave. They were probably members of the Levitical temple guard, who
were to bind and drag the Christian prisoners to Jerusalem.
(^367) Gal. 1:15, 16; 1 Cor. 15:8, 9; 9:1; 2 Cor. 4:6; Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim 1:12-14.
(^368) 2 Cor. 4:6.
(^369) Gal. 1:1, 11, 12, 15-18.
(^370) This is implied in his words to King Agrippa, Acts 26:19.
(^371) Acts 26:14. Christ said to him: σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν. This is a proverbial expression used by Greek writers
of refractory oxen in the plough when urged by a sharp-pointed instrument of the driver. The ox may and often does resist, but
by doing so he only increases his pain. Resistance is possible, but worse than useless.
(^372) Rom. 7:7-25. This remarkable section describes the psychological progress of the human heart to Christ from the heathen
state of carnal security, when sin is dead because unknown, through the Jewish state of legal conflict, when sin, roused by the
stimulus of the divine command, springs into life, and the higher and nobler nature of man strives in vain to overcome this fearful
monster, until at last the free grace of God in Christ gains the victory. Some of the profoundest divines-Augustin, Luther,
Calvin-transfer this conflict into the regenerate state; but this is described in the eighth chapter which ends in an exulting song
of triumph.
A.D. 1-100.