6. Saul asks who this is that speaks to him (22:8). The answer comes with ruthless gentleness (22:15): "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting!" We can only imagine the turmoil within the heart of this Pharisee. Now he knows! What he might have been unsure of before, what he branded as untrue before, what he had sincerely opposed as heresy he now knew was true! He has now discovered the words of his famous teacher are true of him (Acts 5:39), he had been fighting against God! What can a man of integrity do when he discovers he has been wrong?
7. Humbly, Saul asks what Christ wants him to do (22:10). He is told to go into the city to a certain house where he would be told what he must do (9:6). His companions led him like a child, by the hand, blind and helpless to a house on Straight Street where he spent three days and nights wanting nothing to eat or drink. All he wanted to do was pray (9:9,11). What a different kind of entrance to the city than the one he had planned. What a different attitude he now has compared with days that were gone.
TAKING ON THE NAME OF JESUS
8. Then came a devout Jewish believer called Ananias to tell him what God had in mind for him in the future (22:14-15). He was to spread the word about Christ to the Gentile world, before kings and governors as well as to fellow-Jews. He would suffer many things for the name of the Christ whom he had so persecuted (9:15-16). Now, with his sight restored, Ananias urges him: "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name." (22:16) He got up and he was baptized, taking on him the name of Jesus Christ (9:18 and see Acts 2:38; 8:16;10:48;19:5;) with Matt 28:19. Then he broke his three-day fast. (Isn't this a remarkable and wonderful story?) Now Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the preacher (see Acts 13:9).
THE MASTER'S MAN
9. Surely no one ever changed more radically than Saul. Once he understood what God was doing and had done in Christ Jesus, he was as valiant for God as he had been valiant against him. In Damascus he immediately begins to preach salvation in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (9:20-22). Now he became the hunted as maddened unbelievers sought to silence him (9:23-25). Later he would preach in Jerusalem the very faith he once sought to destroy. There aren't many sights more inspiring than a man who has the heart, the courage, to embrace new truth, to confess he was wrong, to devote himself as unselfishly to a noble cause as he had devoted himself to some other. Read 2 Cor 11:21-29 and get a brief picture of how this man spent the rest of his life. When friendly hands would try to slow him up, he would kindly but firmly shrug them off saying something like: "I can't help living this way. The love of Christ drives me." (See 2 Cor 5:14) He now knows Christ gave himself for him (Gal 1:3) and he cannot keep the loving gratitude from showing.