It was very soon plainly seen that Christianity could keep no truce, and proposed to keep no truce, which called in question or denied the supremacy of Christ.
The Cruelty of the Persecutor.—To a man of Paul's temperament and zeal there could be no half way measures in a case like this. He could not be content to bide his time. Either the claims of Christ were true or false. If false, then they were doing harm and His doctrine and teaching must be eradicated at any cost. All the aggressive forces of the Jews found a champion in this Saul of Tarsus. Drastic measures were at once inaugurated. There was to be no more temporizing. The cruelty and thoroughness of the persecutor, in his work, are shown in his instituting a house to house canvass seeking for the Christians and sparing neither age nor sex (Acts 8:1, 3).
In the first persecutions the Jews had been content to arrest and imprison those who publicly preached Christ, but now the policy was changed and Christianity was to be exterminated root and branch. All believers in Christ were to be hunted out.
The character of Saul, the arch persecutor, is shown in the characterization of him by Luke, when he represented him as breathing out, "threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1).
CONVERSION
Cause.—The book of the Acts, opened at one place, shows a fierce hater and persecutor of the Christians (8:3), opened at another place it shows this same persecutor as an ardent and enthusiastic preacher of the faith in Jesus Christ (13:16-39) We seek for the cause of this remarkable change. Luke tells us that Saul was on his way to Damascus, seeking victims for his persecuting zeal, when Jesus suddenly appeared to him and Saul was changed from a persecutor to a believer in Christ (Acts 9:3-7). The account is very brief. For an event which has had such tremendous results, the narrator is very reticent; a light from heaven, a voice speaking, and a person declaring that He is Jesus. Paul gives us two accounts of his conversion and how it took place (Acts 22:6-15; 26:12-18). The men who were with Paul saw a light and heard a voice, but not what was said. It is impossible to describe or exaggerate what took place in Paul's mind in those brief moments while Jesus talked to him; but his beliefs, and his whole life plan were radically changed. It had been well if no explanation of this conversion had been attempted and the great fact had been left to stand as it does in the Acts. Attempts, however, have been made to minimize the power of this conversion and the marvelous and sudden change it wrought in the character and life of Paul. Some critics seeking a natural, rather than a supernatural, cause have attributed to Paul certain compunctions of conscience and misgivings about his persecution of the Christians, together with a hot day and a certain temperament, which led him to have a subjective experience, which he thought was real. But there is no recorded evidence forthcoming that Paul ever had any compunctions of conscience about persecuting the Christians. Paul was an honest man to the very core of his being; in the two accounts he gives us of this conversion, and in incidental references to it, he never even hints at any such state of mind. The expression used by Jesus, "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9-5), of which so much has been made, means no more than that Saul's opposition and hard work against the Christians (Acts 8:3; 9:1), would be of no avail. In doing what he did Paul thought he was doing God's service. Again the language which Paul uses and the references which he makes to this appearance of Christ forbid us to think that it was only a mere vision of Christ which he saw. "He ranks it as the last of the appearances of the risen Savior to His disciples and places it on the same level as the appearances to Peter, to James, to the eleven, and to the five hundred" (1 Cor. 15:1-8). In these appearances Jesus had eaten with his disciples and been touched by them (John 20:24-31; Luke 24:36-43), appearing as a real being, according to the narrative.
"It was the appearance to Paul of the risen Lord, which made him a Christian, gave him a gospel to preach, and sent him forth as the apostle of the Gentiles."
The time of Paul's conversion was about 36 A.D.
Effects.—There is no question as to the very marked results which followed the appearance of the risen Lord to Saul on the way to Damascus.
1. Physical. He was smitten with blindness (Acts 9:8), and was without food for three days (Acts 9:9). His sight was restored by Ananias at the command of the Lord (Acts 9:15-18).