Acts 9:5

5, 6. Though his conscience was now aroused, and he knew full well that the vision before him was from heaven, he can not comprehend it until he knows who it is that speaks to him and asserts himself the object of his persecutions. (5) "And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you persecute." It is impossible for us, who have been familiar with the glory of our risen Savior from our infancy, to fully appreciate the feelings which must have flashed, like lightning, into the soul of Saul, upon hearing these words. Up to this moment he had supposed Jesus an impostor, cursed of God and man; and his followers blasphemers worthy of death; but now, this despised being is suddenly revealed to him in a blaze of divine glory. The evidence of his eyes and ears can not be doubted. There he stands, with the light of heaven and the glory of God around him, and he says, "I AM JESUS!" "Now is Jesus risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." Stephen was a blessed martyr, and I have shed innocent blood. My soul is guilty. "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" I have gloried in my shame. All that I have gained is lost. It is filth and refuse. I will throw myself upon his mercy. (6) "And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" The die is cast. The proud spirit yields, and the whole mighty current of that soul is turned back in its channel, to flow forever, deeply and strongly, in the opposite direction.

The glorious power of the one great gospel proposition was never more forcibly illustrated than on this occasion. A moment ago, Saul was sternly, and with fearful calmness, pressing to the destruction of the cause of Jesus, but now he is a trembling suppliant at his feet. What has produced this change? It is not the fact that he has seen a light and heard a voice. For when he fell to the ground in alarm, his unbelief and ignorance still remained, and he still had to ask the question, "Who art thou?" Thus far, he is no more convinced that Jesus is the Christ than he was before; but he is convinced that the vision is divine, and this prepares him to believe what he may further hear. When that heavenly being, whose word he can not doubt, says, "I am Jesus," one new conviction, that must, from its very nature, reverse all the purposes of his life, takes possession of his soul. To stifle its effects he is not able; to resist its impulse is contrary to the honesty of his nature; and he has no time, if he would, to steel his heart against it. The change flashes over him in an instant, and he lies there a penitent believer. The word of the Lord, miraculously attested, gives him faith. The conviction that Jesus, whom he had persecuted in the person of his disciples, is really the Lord of glory, brings him to repentance. He mourns over his sins, and yields his will. These facts reveal the glorious simplicity of gospel salvation; and while we contemplate them, the sickly talk about "irresistible grace," which floats, like the green scum on a stagnant pool, over the pages of many commentaries, in reference to this conversion, is swept away, while the sights and sounds which haunt the memory of many a superstitious convert are driven back to dwell with the ghosts and hobgoblins of a night of ignorance now nearly gone.

To the question, What wilt thou have me to do? the Lord gave an answer which naturally divides itself into two parts. One part is given by Luke, in the verse before us, and by Paul, in his speech to the Jerusalem mob; the other, in the speech before Agrippa. The latter contains his commission as an apostle, and is expressed in these words: "I have appeared to thee for this purpose, to appoint thee a minister and a witness of the things which thou hast seen, and of those in which I will appear to thee, delivering thee from the people and the Gentiles, to whom I now send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins, and inheritance among the sanctified, by faith in me." In this sentence, which we will notice more at length in its proper connection, Jesus states the object of his personal appearance to Saul, and gives him his commission as an apostle. The former was necessary to the latter; for an apostle must be a witness of the resurrection, and this he could not be without having seen him alive since his crucifixion. Having now seen him, not only alive, but glorified, his evidence was afterward classed with that of the original apostles and witnesses. If he had been converted without having seen the Lord, he would not have been an apostle, unless the Lord had afterward appeared to him to make him one. Instead of this, the Lord chose to appear to him in connection with his conversion. While this appearance was necessary to his apostleship, we may not assume that it was necessary to his conversion, unless we take the strange position that it was impossible for him to be convinced in any other way.

Before Saul could enter upon the office of an apostle, it was necessary that he should become a citizen of the kingdom of which he was to be a chief officer. The other portion of the Savior's reply has reference to his duty in this particular. It is stated by Luke in these words, constituting the last clause of verse 6 Acts 9:6>, of which we have already quoted a part: "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." Saul's own statement of it is more minute: "Arise and go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee concerning all the things which are appointed for thee to do." The things which he was to do as an apostle had just been told him, and concerning these there had been no previous appointment. The things which had been appointed for him to do concerned him in common with all other penitent sinners. These having been already appointed by the Lord himself, and their execution committed to the hands of faithful men, the Lord shows respect to his own transfer of authority, by sending the suppliant to Damascus to learn them.

During his personal ministry, Jesus sometimes spoke pardon, at once, to penitent sinners. But, since his resurrection from the dead, and the appointment, by formal enactment, of the terms of pardon, there is no instance of this kind. Moreover, his refusal to tell Saul his appointed duty, or to pardon him on the spot, establishes the presumption that he will not do so in any case. If there ever was an occasion on which we would expect the glorified Savior to speak pardon, in person, to a sinner, it is here, when he is in actual conversation with the penitent, and the request is formally preferred. But he refuses to do so. Those, therefore, who imagine themselves to have received a direct communication of pardon from Christ, either orally, or by an abstract spiritual agency, are deluded. They claim for themselves what was not accorded to Saul, and what is inconsistent with the order established in the kingdom of Christ. The reply to all inquirers, if Christ should now speak, would be, as it was then, Go to Damascus, and it shall be told you; Go to the apostles and evangelists of the New Covenant, and the answer will now be given you by Peter, Philip, Ananias, in the same words, and by the same authority, that it was then.