One of the most surprising conversions that ever took place must have been that of Saul of Tarsus, a man described as “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). His hatred of Jesus of Nazareth was such that he would not only threaten to have the followers of Jesus killed but do all in his power to bring it about. He was very much doing the work of the evil one himself, whose enmity to the Most High had overflowed in heaven, at the beginning, and again in the Garden of Eden. Now it was showing itself again to a remarkable extent in the activity of this young Pharisee.
He was arrested by these words of the Saviour: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4) – words that were applied to his soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. Further, when Saul asked, “Who art Thou, Lord?” he was told: “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” (Acts 9:5). (Saul did so by his pursuit of Jesus’ people, who were united to Him by faith.) In Jesus’ words there was surely, besides a further reminder of his sin, a revelation of mercy in the name Jesus. Saul was in effect being told: I am the Saviour. It was as if He had said, I am He who “is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by” Me, making it clear that He was able to save Saul to the uttermost if he would come to God.
What were the initial evidences of Saul’s conversion? First there was his question, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Here was submission to Jesus as King, One who had complete authority over him. There was no resistance, but a readiness to do as he was directed. And that never left him until he was taken to the perfections of everlasting glory, where he will never relapse into rebellion. We find the second evidence of a change of heart in what was said to encourage Ananias: “Behold, he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). There had indeed been a change of heart in this rebel against God; Saul was now expressing the desires of a renewed heart to the God of heaven, to whom he had now been reconciled. He was expressing also, no doubt, desires for many more to be added to the followers of Jesus, and that he himself would know Jesus better and serve Him acceptably.
Jesus now sent Saul out as a preacher, particularly to the Gentiles, though not to them exclusively, “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me” (Acts 26:18). The power to turn sinners was not, of course, Saul’s own; it was the power of the Holy Spirit applying the truth that Saul would declare to those listening to him.
But Saul was not long in beginning the work of preaching. We are told that “straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20). Matthew Henry, in his commentary, stresses “what he preached: he preached Christ. When he began to be a preacher, he fixed this for his principle, which he stuck to ever after: ‘We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord’; nothing but Christ and Him crucified. He preached concerning Christ that He is the Son of God, His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased, and with us [believers] in Him, and not otherwise.”
In preaching to the Jews in the Damascus synagogues, Saul was beginning where the Jews were. They knew about the Messiah (or, the Christ, the Anointed One) from the Old Testament Scriptures and it was no doubt from these Scriptures that Saul presented evidence that Jesus was the Son of God. He may have referred to Isaiah 9:6,7, which speaks prophetically of the coming of Christ: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”, and goes on to describe Him as “The mighty God”. The child to be born points to His humanity; the son to be given points to His divinity, “for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (Jn 3:16). Here was Christ proclaiming Himself as the Son of God; the Father gave Him – He delivered Him up – to suffer and die in the place of sinners.
But in all His sufferings, even unto death, Christ was ruling over everything that happened. He was the Son of God; He was in absolute control of it all, with a firm purpose in His mind. And whatever was in the mind of the devil and of wicked men – soldiers, the chief priests and other Jewish people, and rulers such as Pilate and Herod – they could not thwart “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23) in relation to Christ’s sacrifice of Himself and to His resurrection. Nor could the devil and those doing his evil work interfere with the blessed results of Christ’s work, in particular the salvation of multitudes of Jews and Gentiles throughout the thousands of years that were to follow, until time will be no longer.
Proper preaching today must centre on the great fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; He is God the Son; He is the only Saviour. Peter expressed the matter like this: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”
(Acts 4:12). No one else has been revealed who is able to save; no one else can save. But there is salvation in this divine Person, who took human nature so that He could deliver sinners from the wrath to come. This ought to be the consistent message of the Christian Church, but sadly it is not. Indeed one wonders what large sections of the professing Church perceive their purpose in life to be when they do not accept the divinity of Christ, nor the fact that unforgiven sin must be punished eternally, nor that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.
The fact that Christ is the Son of God means that His calls have authority. We must not refuse Him when He says, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28), without adding to our guilt. This divine Person is calling us to come to Him, to believe on Him, to trust in Him – whether calling directly or through an ambassador such as Saul of Tarsus, or any contemporary preacher. Especially given Christ’s authority as the Son of God, unbelief is serious, tremendously serious.
Yet it is true that no sinner has the power to believe. With our limited understanding, we may think that the truth of our responsibility to believe is in conflict with the truth of our inability. In fact, both of these truths have been revealed in the Word of God. We should therefore accept them both and recognise that God can see that they are consistent with each other and we should be content with that.
Is Christ the Son of God? Then we should worship Him. Whatever difficulties Thomas had, immediately after the resurrection, he soon began to worship Christ, saying, “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). Matthew Poole speaks of Thomas as being the first – in the sense of being the first person recorded in Scripture – “that acknowledged Christ as God over all blessed for ever, the object of people’s faith and confidence, and his Lord, to whom he freely yielded up himself as a servant, to be guided and conducted by Him”.
Great emphasis is often laid on Thomas as doubting Thomas. Yes, he did doubt but, by God’s grace, he was made very much our example as one who “freely yielded up himself as a servant, to be guided and conducted by” the Lord Jesus Christ. We need the same grace. And we need grace to pray again and again, like Saul, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”
Throughout life’s journey, God’s people need to look to their divine Saviour for His care, protection and continuing saving work. As divine, He will provide these blessings. Indeed “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25). The Son of God, in our nature, continues to present, before His Father, His will for the saving benefits He procured on earth to be applied to each of His people. They will always be provided for.