One thing had always made it impossible for him to believe that Jesus was divine, that He was sent by God or that He was the long-looked for Messiah: He had suffered and died on the cross. Saul felt sure that, if God had sent Him and He had been divine, He would not have had to suffer, but He would have come in glory and power. But as he rode along in silence and in deep thought, he remembered that he had heard these followers of Jesus say in their meetings that the Old Testament was full of prophecies which said that Christ must suffer. He began to think more carefully about these passages—especially the one in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah: “He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.” “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.” “As a lamb that is led to the slaughter and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb; yea he opened not his mouth.” “For the transgression of my people was he smitten.” “He poured out his soul unto death and was counted with the transgressors, yet he bore the sins of many.”
This might mean that God’s great servant would not be glorious and full of power when He came but a sufferer. It might be that He would come and suffer for the sins of others, and that He would do for men what they could not do for themselves. He might be the perfect one and He might through His suffering and death bring them a new power to live by. If he was only sure that God had raised Him from the dead and had brought Him triumphantly through His sufferings and His crucifixion, then he could believe that this Galilean was the Saviour and the divine Deliverer for whom they had been waiting.
Stephen had cried out in his dying moments, “I see Jesus there, at the right hand of God.” Saul had heard how others claimed that they had seen Him alive and glorified. He would be likely to say to himself as he rode along: “If I could only see Him as these others say they have done, I would believe as they do. I would stop this miserable work I am doing and I would follow Him forever and I would make everybody believe in Him.”
Then in the stillness there suddenly broke in upon this young man a light which seemed brighter than the mid-day sun in the sky and he saw Jesus and heard Him speak and call him and his whole life was forever changed by this wonderful thing that happened on the road to Damascus.
X
IN ARABIA
Though dazed and blinded by the light, which seemed to come from another world beyond this world, Saul nevertheless felt perfectly sure that he saw Jesus glorified. Through all the rest of his life, he always said that he had seen Christ—he had seen Him as Stephen saw Him. He had seen Him as Peter and James and John saw Him and he never had any doubt any more that He was alive and victorious over death. He had heard Him speak, too, in that wonderful meeting outside the gate of the city. He had heard Him say: “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” “Why persecutest thou me?”
All the rest of the way into Damascus, he walked in darkness. His outer eyes were still blind from the light, but in the city his sight came back again and he could see once more. He knew that a mighty change had come within himself, but he did not know at once all that it meant. He wanted to go far away from all the old scenes of his life, far away from everybody he knew, far away from the noisy, busy world, and think out what had happened. Even before talking with Peter and the other disciples of Jesus, he wished to meditate alone and find his bearing in the new experience which had so suddenly come to him.
The greatest leaders of Saul’s race had found out the meaning of life, alone with God, in the wilderness, or in the mountains, or on the edge of the desert. Moses had come face to face with God on Mount Sinai. Elijah had heard the still small voice speaking to him, far away from the rush and din of the world. John the Baptist got his preparation for his mission in the solitary wilderness undisturbed by people. Jesus had discovered in the desert how to come forth victorious over temptation and here he had realised that His kingdom was not to rest on force and worldly power. So, too, Saul now felt that he must go away from the city and live for a time in the heart of nature and open his soul to God.
He decided to go to Arabia for his period of quiet and of meditation. Perhaps he went, as Moses had gone, to Sinai, or to some other region of this strange, mysterious land of wilderness, mountains and deserts. He has not told us a word about his life in Arabia and none of his friends has given us any reports of these months of solitude and meditation. To-day, if any man wished to prepare for a great career of ministry or missionary service, he would go to some college or university or seminary or training school and learn how to do the work which lay before him, and he would train his body with games of skill and athletic courses, so as to be at his very best in mind and heart and body. Saul had nothing of this sort open to him. He had finished his years of study but they only prepared him to be a Jewish Rabbi, a teacher of the law. Now he wanted to learn how to tell the world the full message, the good news, which Jesus had brought to men. There was no school where this was taught. There were no Christian colleges or universities or seminaries yet. There were only a few followers of Jesus. Most of them lived in Jerusalem, and they were ignorant people—fishermen, and tax-collectors—who had had no chance to study. The best thing Saul could do was, therefore, to go away alone and read and think and let God teach him.
At first he supposed that the good news which Jesus had brought was for his own people alone but as he meditated and studied and listened he began to see that God’s love reached everybody and that the great Galilean had come to bring new life to all people in the world. It was many years perhaps before Saul fully realised all that this meant, but I think he began to see it in Arabia. Another thing kept coming before him all the time. He was eager to find out why Jesus had died on the cross, why He had suffered, and what it all meant. That also took years of thought before he understood it, but here in the quiet of the mountains he began to see. How we wish he had written some letters from Arabia and told what he was doing and thinking! If he had only written to his mother once a week, or even once a month, and she had preserved the letters, how eagerly we would read them now! But there is not a word about it all. We only know that in the stillness his spirit was gathering power and his soul was growing richer.