The first thing when it comes to a
discussion of the life of Paul that a student of the Bible needs to consider is
that when Saul was confronted by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Road to Damascus
is that he was totally captivated and dramatically changed
by the experience. It was such a dramatic experience for him, that he also
changed his name. The Damascus Road experience changed Paul forever,
both in character and personality and the direction of his life. His
name was changed in order to reflect the change that happened in his heart
toward God, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul says that “this was that” for
which he was apprehended by the Lord. The “this” for “that” for which he was
‘arrested’ by the Risen Christ was in order that he ‘might know Him and the fellowship
of His sufferings and the power if His resurrection.’ When Ananias came to
Paul, the Lord told him he should tell Paul of the “many things” that he would
suffer in His Name. Paul was later to suffer shipwrecks, beatings and stonings
for naming the name of Christ.
Names in the Bible are very
important. Your name reveals your character and your personality. We see this
with Abram, who became Abraham. We see this with Isaac, who became Israel. We
see this with Simon, who became Peter. We see this with Saul who became Paul.
Saul’s change of name to Paul reflected the change of heart he underwent
after meeting Jesus.
When Paul was confronted by Jesus
on the Damascus Road, he was literally and dramatically stopped in his
tracks. At the time he was in hot pursuit of anyone belonging to or
associated with ‘The Way’. He was a ‘firebreather’, breathing out death threats
to anyone who named the name of Jesus the Nazarene. He was armed with letters
from the High Priest, and had authority to capture and/or put to death anyone
following what was considered a blasphemous sect, and an insult to the Jewish God
of the Pharisees and Saducees.
Saul, as he was then, truly and
honestly thought that he was doing God and Judaism a favor by rooting out ‘the
blasphemers’. He considered himself to be righteous before God because he was a
Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, and as regarding the Law, complete
and in right standing with God in obedience to the Law of Moses.
Saul was zealous for the Law and
saw himself as being able to live according to the Law, and as having done so.
But it was his experience with meeting the risen Christ that literally ‘opened’
his eyes, and he was able to ‘make a 180 degree turn’ (which is the definition
or repentance!). Paul even says that ‘no good thing abided in his flesh’ or
earthly nature. It was the encounter with Christ that made him see his earthly
nature for what it was. He says that he was ‘the greatest of sinners.’
When he became Paul, he chose to
know nothing more or less than ‘Christ crucified and risen from the dead.’
Jesus became to him an all-consuming passion. In fact, this became the basis of
his ‘Magnificent Obsession’ – “Christ in you, and You in Christ” made possible
by the death and resurrection of Christ. This is Paul’s Gospel or good news –
that we are ‘in Christ’ – baptized into his name and character, as well as into
his sufferings and his victory over Death. Paul also states ‘Christ in us’ and
all that Christ won on the Cross of Calvary is ours, because ‘if we suffer with
Him, we shall also reign with Him.’ This is the ‘glorious mystery’ spoken of
down the ages, which angels wanted to look into and for which he was appointed
an Apostle to reveal.
When Paul met Christ on the
Damascus Road, and later spent time alone with Him in the Arabian Desert, he
realized that ‘right standing’ with God came through Jesus Christ, and Him
alone. Paul realized that he had no righteousness of his own, but that
righteousness was imparted by God through Jesus Christ and His redeeming work
on Calvary.
Paul states that ‘God was in Christ
reconciling Himself to the world.’
“It was as if Christ Himself were
appealing to you through us,” he writes.
This was Paul’s passion in every
church he planted – he was “jealous to see Christ formed in each of you, until
every man is made complete in Him.”
This is why Paul was so angry at
the Galatian Church when they went astray after listening to the Judaizers–
“Who has bewitched you?” he asks them.
Paul also says that if anyone – even
an angel from Heaven -- were to preach “another gospel,” they were to be
accursed. He was passionate that new believers understand this mystery of the
Gospel. They were “God’s letter written
on human hearts.”
We, too, are God’s ‘human love
letter’ to the world. If we are arrested, apprehended and ‘caught’ by God, as
was Paul, we become New Creations (2 Cor.5:17). This is, in fact, was God was
doing in Christ all along. He was making ‘one new man’, and there are “now
therefore no Jew, nor Gentile, nor male or female, nor circumcised nor uncircumcised
“for we all are one in Christ.”
Paul also writes about being
“adopted” by God into his family. This is a huge theme for him, and he says
that by being adopted, we have the rights, privileges, and authority of the One
who adopted us. We become a legitimate child of God.
The Apostle Paul underwent a
‘radical transformation’, and this is only possible in our own lives when we
surrender to the atoning and redeeming work of Christ on Calvary as King of
Kings and Lord of Lords.
Paul says, “ I am crucified with
Christ, and I no longer lie, but the life I now live in the flesh, I live by
faith in the Son of God,” Gal.2:20. The totality of the work of Christ on the
Cross, and the power and presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, gives us the
ability to live transformed (changed) lives.
If we die with Christ, which we did
on Calvary’s Cross 2,000 years ago, we shall also live and reign with Him.
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