401 Again

An encounter with Christ struck Paul blind. When he couldn’t see anything else, Paul finally saw Jesus for who He really is. Today, Stephen Nichols revisits the year 401, when Augustine delivered a marvelous sermon on Paul’s conversion.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. Last week we were in 401, and this week we are in 401 again, and, again, we are visiting with our friend Augustine. I told you that he was in Carthage for the Synod of Carthage, and on June 23, 401, Augustine preached a sermon in Carthage called “On the Apostle Paul.” We think of Augustine the theologian, Augustine the writer, but I want to introduce you to Augustine the historian. And as an historian, he loved to preach sermons on historical figures. He would preach sermons on the martyrs. He preached sermons on the Sicilian martyrs, on Castus and Emilius; He preached a number of sermons on Perpetua and Felicitas; but he also preached sermons on the historical figures in the Bible: sermons on John the Baptist, on John the Apostle, on Peter, and on Paul. And here he is in Carthage with a sermon on Paul.

He is recalling Paul's conversion on the Damascus road, and he says, “Jesus did not say to Paul [or Saul, at this point], why are you persecuting my servants? But he said, instead, why are you persecuting me?” This might be the first time Paul learned the wonderful doctrine of union with Christ, as persecuting the servants is persecuting the Christ. And I will let you in on a little piece of information: it was Derek Thomas that I first learned that from a sermon by him on Acts.

But let me read to you what Augustine writes about Paul's conversion: “Paul is now preparing himself to obey, where previously he had worked himself up to destroy. Already the preacher is being fashioned out of the persecutor, the sheep out of the wolf, the loyal soldier out of the enemy. He heard what he must do. Yes, certainly he was struck blind for his heart to shine with an inner light. The outer light was for a time snatched away from him. It was withdrawn from the persecutor to be restored in due course to the preacher. And yet during the period when he couldn't see anything else, he was seeing Jesus. Thus, even in his very blindness, the mystery of what it is to be a believer was taking shape. Since those who believe in Christ ought to fix their gaze on Him, ought to reckon everything else as scarcely even real, so that the creature becomes cheap in their eyes while the Creator grows all the dearer in their hearts.”

Well, that is a powerful paragraph from Augustine's sermon. It reminded me though of another biography of Paul written by an unlikely person, Johnny Cash. That's right. The inimitable musician wrote a biography of Paul, and he entitled it The Man in White, because just like Augustine, Cash knew that in order to understand Paul, we must see him through Christ.

This is how Cash ends his biography. Now he's a songwriter, he's going to get a little speculative here, so we'll cut him some slack. Cash writes, “But now Paul had finished the fight, run the race, kept the faith. The apostle was taken outside the city walls to be beheaded. With a Stephen-like expression on his face, he closed his eyes and turned his neck to the executioner. The dark outline of the Man in White suddenly appeared behind his eyelids. And just as he was dying, the image became as white, as dazzling, as glorified, as the one that struck him on that day on the Damascus Road. This time, however, the vision did not stop, and a truly brilliant light streamed from a countenance whose piercing eyes of love beckoned the Apostle Paul.”

Well, there we have it, a sermon by Augustine on the Apostle Paul from 401, and we'll even throw in a little Johnny Cash from the 1980s. And I'm Steve Nichols and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.