Acts 9:10

10-12. While this scene of anguish was transpiring in the presence of the astonished Jews who surrounded Saul, the Lord was not unmindful of the promise he had made him. As he had sent him to Damascus to learn what to do, he provides him with a teacher. (10) "Now there was a certain disciple in Damascus, named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias! And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. (11) And the Lord said to him, Arise, and go upon the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas, for one named Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying, (12) and has seen in a vision a named named Ananias coming in and putting his hand upon him that he might receive his sight." It will be observed, that, in these directions, the Lord does not tell Ananias what to tell Saul to do. This omission only proves that Ananias already knew perfectly what such a person should be told to do, and corresponds with the fact that the things in which he was to be instructed were "the things appointed for him to do."

It is well to pause for a moment here, and inquire what progress has been made toward the conversion of Saul, and by what means the progress made has been effected. That he is now a believer, it is impossible for any man who has followed the narrative intelligibly to doubt. That he is also a penitent is equally certain. But the Holy Spirit-by whose direct agency alone, it is taught by man, a man can be brought to faith and repentance-has not yet been imparted to him, nor does he receive it till after the appearance of Ananias. Such an agency of the Spirit, then, is not necessary to faith and repentance. Moreover, as we have already observed, the only influence yet brought to bear upon him was that of the words of Jesus, proved to be of divine authority by the miraculous vision. He was convinced, then, by the same means that the eunuch and the three thousand on Pentecost had been, by the word of the Lord miraculously attested. His case differs from both of those, in that the Lord himself was his preacher, instead of an inspired man; and from that of the eunuch, in that the miraculous attestation was a physical display in his case, and the fulfillment of prophesy in the eunuch's. The nature of the influences was the same in them all.

Saul is now a believer, and a penitent believer; but he is not yet justified. The theory, therefore, drawn from his own words in the epistle to the Romans, that a man is justified by faith only, the moment he believes, is proved false by Paul's own experience. He says, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." But he had faith for three days before he was justified, or obtained peace with God. Interpreting his words, then, by his experience, we conclude that men are justified, not by faith only, nor the moment they believe, but when they are led by faith, as he was, to do what is appointed for penitent believers to do.

There is another fact in the case worthy of notice just here. There is some such necessity for the co-operation of a fellow man, in order to one's conversion, that, although the Lord himself has appeared to Saul, and conversed with him, he can not find peace of mind, though he weeps and groans and prays for three days and nights, until Ananias comes to him. In this particular, also his case is like that of the eunuch, whose conversion could not be effected, though an angel had been sent from heaven, and the Spirit had operated miraculously, until the man Philip took his seat in the chariot. The necessity, in his case, differs from that of the eunuch, in that he needed not the man to preach Jesus to him; for this had already been done by Jesus himself. But there was something to be done before he obtained pardon, which a man must do; and the sequel will show what that something is. In the mean time, let it be observed, that all these pretended conversions of the present day, which are completely effected while the subject is in his bed at night, or alone in the grove, or praying in some solitary place, lack this something of being scriptural conversions. No man was so converted in the days of the apostles.