Acts 9:5

"And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said,. am Jesus whom thou persecutest"Who art thou, Lord?" At this point the word Lord probably means "sir", because Jesus has not yet fully revealed Himself. "Paul seems to be saying, 'Whose voice do. hear?' 'Who is speaking to me?'" (Reese p. 353). "I am Jesus" Imagine the flood of thoughts that now pour into Saul's mind. "Up to this moment he had held Jesus to be an impostor cursed of God and man, and His followers blasphemers worthy of death. But now there stands Jesus, with the light of heaven and the glory of God around Him. Stephen was right then, and. have shed innocent blood" (McGarvey p. 171). "At once Saul must have grasped, from the extraordinary way in which Jesus identified with His followers, so that to persecute them was to persecute Him, that Jesus was alive and His claims were true" (Stott p. 170). This appearance of Jesus to Saul, will form the basis of Paul's apostolic qualifications (Acts 22:14; Acts 26:16; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8).