The Persecutor

Three Days of Meditation

Saul received hospitality from Judas, who lived on the street called Straight. (Acts 9:11) The street-called the Dark al-Mustaqim in Arabic-is still a main thoroughfare in Damascus. Imagine what went through Saul's mind while he was in the home of Judas. The experience had left Saul blind and shocked. Now there was time to meditate on it implications.

The persecutor was confronted with what he had dismissed as absurd. The impaled Lord Jesus Christ-condemned by the highest Jewish authority and 'despised and avoided by men' -was alive. Why, he even stood approved at God's right hand in "unapproachable light"! Jesus was the Messiah. Stephen and others were right. (Isaiah 53:3; Acts 7:56; 1 Timothy 6:16) Saul had been utterly wrong, for Jesus identified himself with the very ones whom Saul was persecuting! In the face of the evidence, how could Saul keep "kicking against the goads"? Even a stubborn bull is eventually prodded in the direction its owner wants. By refusing to cooperate with Jesus' urgings, therefore, Saul would be hurting himself.

As the Messiah, Jesus could not have been condemned by God. Yet, Jehovah had allowed him to suffer the most ignominious of deaths and to fall under the Law's sentence: "Something accursed of God is the one hung up." (Deuteronomy 21:23) Jesus died while he hung on the torture stake. He was cursed , not for his own sins, since he had none, but for the sinfulness of mankind. Saul later explained: "All those who depend upon works of law are under a curse; for it is written: 'Cursed is every one that does not continue in all the things written in the scroll of the Law in order to do them.' Moreover, that by law no one is declared righteous with God is evident. . . Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: 'Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake.' " -Galatians 3:10-13.

Jesus' sacrifice had redemptive value. By accepting that sacrifice, Jehovah figuratively nailed the Law and its curse to the stake. On grasping that fact, Saul could esteem as "wisdom of God" the torture stake that was "to the Jews a cause for stumbling." ( 1Corinthians 1:18-25; Colossians 2:14) So, then, if salvation was not to be had by works of law but through God's exercise of undeserved kindness toward sinners like Saul himself, potentially it was open to those outside the Law. And it was to the Gentiles that Jesus was sending Saul. -Ephesians 3:3-7.

We cannot tell just how much of this Saul understood at the time of his conversion. Jesus was to speak to him again, perhaps more than once, about his mission to the nations. Moreover, several years passed before Saul set all of this down in writing under divine inspiration. (Acts 22:17-21; Galatians 1:15-18; 2:1, 2) However, mere days passed before Saul received further directions from his new Lord.

Next time: The Persecutor-A Visit From Ananias

Watchtower, 2000