Before he became a follower of Jesus Christ, Saul of Tarsus stopped at nothing to viciously persecute God’s people. In this sermon, R.C. Sproul walks us through Saul’s life-changing encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus, marveling at God’s grace in transforming one of the church’s fiercest enemies into one of its greatest Apostles.

Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

And he said, “Who are You, Lord?”

Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”

Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear it.

Our Father and our God, as we look at this magnificent text in which the narrative is given to us by that same Spirit You poured out upon the church at Pentecost, we learn of the remarkable transformation of an enemy of the church into one of its greatest heroes of all time. We pray that You would touch us by this narrative. Instruct us through it that it might bring us even more deeply to Jesus. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

Saul’s Fierce Hostility

When we looked at the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, Saul of Tarsus was briefly introduced as the one who gave consent to that horrible act and stood by holding the garments of those who murdered Stephen. Then, briefly, Saul passes from sight and interest as Luke gives us the narratives of Philip’s ministry among the Samaritans and to the Ethiopian eunuch.

Luke now returns to his narrative regarding Saul of Tarsus. He begins Acts 9 by telling us this: “Then Saul, still breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord”—let me comment on that first clause. Saul is described as “breathing out fire,” as some other translations render it, providing us with an image of a dragon who goes around seeking whom he may devour. More technically, if we examine the word Luke uses in the original language, the verb used for “breathing” does not refer to breathing out but to breathing in. It may sound strange that somebody could breathe in threats of murder and destruction, but the idea is that Paul is so passionately determined to carry on his persecution against the nascent Christian community that he is like a wild beast who snorts before it attacks. You might think of a bull in a bullring who paws the earth and then snorts. If you want to try to imitate a wild animal snorting, you will find that you must breathe in to get that sound rather than breathe out. That is the image Luke gives us to describe the intensity of Saul’s fierce hostility as he made his way towards Damascus.

Before Saul left, he went to the high priest to seek authorization to carry out the persecution he had already initiated in Jerusalem to those who might be in the northern regions in Damascus, which is one of the oldest cities in the world—it was known even to Abraham in antiquity. We know there was a large settlement of Jews in Damascus because Nero killed ten thousand Jews assembled in Damascus during his reign.

Saul, suspecting that some of the Jews in Damascus had already been seduced by the proclamation of the Christians about Jesus, went and got the necessary papers to carry with him to Damascus. He could go to each of the synagogues in that area with the legal authority and justification from the theocratic leader of Israel, the high priest, to find Christians, place them under arrest, and then bring them back to Jerusalem for further punishment, perhaps even execution. That is the picture we have as Saul is journeying.

An Apostolic Apology

This text in Acts 9 is only one of several accounts of the conversion of Saul that we find in the book of Acts, and there is a reason for that. One of the most serious questions the early churched faced had to do with the legitimacy of Paul’s Apostleship. All the other Apostles had been members of the original Twelve. They had been eyewitnesses of the resurrection. Their authorization as Apostles was tied to the direct and immediate call of Jesus. This was completely in line with biblical history.

In the Old Testament, there was specific requirement to be a prophet. One did not just go to school, get a degree in prophecy, and become ordained by the Jewish community. To be a prophet in Israel required that you received your call directly from God. That is why people like Jeremiah, Amos, and Isaiah were careful to give the circumstances of their call when God set them apart and made them prophets. Likewise, in the New Testament, to be qualified to be an Apostle, one must have been called directly by Christ. Since Paul was not of the Twelve and not an eyewitness of the resurrection in the same way as the others, this occurrence on the road to Damascus became of supreme importance to validating his authority in the early church.

We can imagine how little the first Christians trusted Paul when he came back and assumed the role of leadership in the church. His reputation preceded him; this was like Osama bin Laden asking to be a model of patriotism in the United States.

In this text, we have Saul getting his chief credential, being called directly and immediately from Christ, so that call is repeated a couple of more times in the book. It is said that one of the reasons Luke wrote Acts was not simply to tell us of the marvelous activity of the Holy Ghost, but also to provide an apologia, an apology for the credentials of this man Saul of Tarsus, who from now on we will refer to as Paul.

The Blinding Light of Heaven

“As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.” Paul was almost to Damascus. He was on the trans-Jordan road, the desert road, and if we fill in gaps with some of the other records in the book of Acts, we can say it was about noontime, when the sun is at its apogee, shining at its very brightest. A light appeared from heaven that was so blazing and bright that it virtually obscured the light of the sun, as we read later (Acts 26:13).

It is hard for us to imagine how anything could be brighter than the sun itself. The word used when it says that this light from heaven “shone” on Paul is the same word used in the Greek language to describe the light that comes with a bolt of lightning.

Central Florida is the lightning capital of the United States. You can be out in the dark night and have a bolt of lightning flash and, if you can imagine the brightness of that flash, it only lasts a second. But in Paul’s case, the intensity of the light endured for several moments, and it was clearly something of a supernatural origin, and Paul was thrown to the ground.

“Saul, Saul”

Immediately after the blinding, refulgent light of the glory of God threw him to the ground, Paul heard these words in Hebrew: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Some time ago, I preached a sermon on what I call the “double knocks,” the fifteen or so times in all of sacred Scripture when someone is addressed by the repetition of their name.

Think back to the days of Abraham, when he went to Mount Moriah with Isaac, and he raised the knife to plunge it into the chest of his son. At the last possible moment, God called to him, saying: “Abraham, Abraham! . . . Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God” (Gen. 22:11–12).

The same message was given when Moses was called in the Midianite wilderness. Out of the burning bush God spoke to him, saying: “Moses, Moses! . . . Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground” (Ex. 3:4–5). We see it again when God called Samuel when he was under the tutelage of Eli in the midnight call: “Samuel, Samuel!” (1 Sam. 3:10). We see it when David gave his lament with the news of the death of his son, the rebel Absalom. David beat his breast and cried out: “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Sam. 19:4). We see it with Elisha, when he saw his tutor Elijah being carried into heaven, he cried out, “My father, my father,” to the chariots of God carrying Elijah (2 Kings 2:12).

This double address continues throughout the Old Testament into the New Testament. Jesus spoke tenderly to Martha when he rebuked her, “Martha, Martha” (Luke 10:41). When He wept over Jerusalem He said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . How often I wanted gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37). Even on the cross our Lord cried, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani? . . . My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34).

The fifteen or so times that we see this repetition of a name in Scripture indicates an intensely personal form of address, underscoring the warning Jesus gave to His hearers when He reached the climax of the Sermon on the Mount. He said many would come on that day saying, “Lord, Lord . . . And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:22–23). He was indicating that people will claim not only to know Him by name, but by the repetition, “Lord, Lord,” they will be claiming to know Him personally and intimately.

It is amazing to me that when Christ decided to give the special grace of election in the providence of God, where He poured out His personal and intimate love, He chose not Pilate, not Caiaphas, but Saul of Tarsus, and addressed him in these terms of personal intimacy. It staggers the imagination that Jesus could have any love whatsoever for Saul in light of his singular passion to destroy anything and everything that had to do with Christ.

“Why Are You Persecuting Me?”

Paul heard his name, in Hebrew, called from heaven, with a question: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Jesus had already ascended to heaven. His persecution had been completed, but now He said to Saul, “Why are you persecuting Me?”

Jesus so identifies with His church, so identifies with His people, that anyone in Christ Jesus who is persecuted for Christ’s sake is at the same time identified with Jesus. Jesus was saying, “If you persecute My people, you persecute Me.”

The saints right now around the world who are daily under attack and being killed at the hands of hostile and violent unbelievers are being persecuted for Christ’s sake, and those who are persecuting them are persecuting Jesus. We could look at different places in the world and in church history where the attacks against the people of God were in fact an attack against Jesus.

We are not involved in being persecuted to that extent, but we can bring it down to a much smaller but nevertheless real degree. Recently I read that on any given Sunday morning, 75 percent of the people who belong to a given congregation are in church, while, on average, 25 percent are missing. They may be missing because they are out of town, they are providentially hindered, or they are too ill to be there, but that will never explain the full 25 percent.

Some people come every Sunday. No matter what, they will be there. Some people come once a month, others twice a month, and some three times a month. When it all averages out, on a given Sunday, you can figure that 25 percent of the sheep will be missing, even though our Lord has told us never to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb. 10:25).

Why, then, do some of us do that? Sometimes, we would rather be doing something else. We would rather be playing golf, going to the beach, or sleeping in on Sunday morning than to be in the presence of God, bringing honor to Christ. There is not one person in this room who has not done that at one time or another. I know there are lots of times I want to sleep in.

I will never forget an experience I heard from a man who had been a vicar at a church in Australia, and he served with the bishop of his area. One morning, the young vicar came into the church, and he was not shaved. The bishop looked at him and asked, “What did you do, forget to shave this morning?”

The vicar answered: “No, sir. The Spirit didn’t lead me to shave this morning. Every morning, I get up and wait for the leading of the Spirit, and if the Spirit leads me to shave, I shave. If the Spirit doesn’t lead me to shave, I don’t shave, and this morning the Spirit didn’t lead me.”

The elderly bishop said: “Son, let me give you some advice. Why don’t you, from this day forward, as a matter of principle, shave your face before you go to work and make it a matter of principle, a matter of discipline. Quit bothering the Holy Spirit to determine the insignificant details of your life.”

What is the application? The application is this: do not wait for the Spirit to lead you to church on Sunday morning. Make it a matter of principle. Say, from now on, “I’m going to stand with my Lord, and I’m going to be present for His sake and honor Him whenever I possibly can be there for that occasion.”

Foolish Resistance

Paul heard these words and the question, “Why are you persecuting Me?” He knew that whoever was addressing him out of the blinding light and making the sound he was hearing was not some average person coming from Damascus. He knew that he was in touch with a supernatural person, but he was not sure of His identity.

Paul asked the question, “Who are You, Lord?” In other words, Paul was saying, “I don’t know who You are, but I know whoever You are, You’re Lord.” Paul was not using the term kyrios in the lower sense of simple polite address, but rather in the supreme, imperial sense. He knew that he was being addressed by the Sovereign One of heaven, but he did not know exactly why, and he asked, “Who are You, Lord?” The answer came to him: “I am Jesus.” That was the name Saul hated more than any name in the world.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” That obscure reference may not be meaningful to us, but in antiquity much produce was hauled on oxcarts, and sometimes the oxen, just like mules, could get stubborn, and they would have to whip them a bit to get them moving. Sometimes that would make the oxen even more stubborn, and they would kick against the oxcart and could even shatter it. So, people mounted goads or spikes in the front of the oxcart so that if you switched the ox and the ox kicked against the goad, that would get him moving. Sometimes the ox would be so stubborn, so angry, that when he would kick against the goad, and the goad would pierce his foot and cause him more pain, he would get angrier and kick it again. It is just like the person who bangs his head against the wall repeatedly. When you ask why he does that, he says, “Because it feels good when I stop.”

Jesus was saying: “Saul, do you have any idea how senseless you are? You’re like the ox who kicks against the oxgoad when you carry on your hostility towards Me.” It is not just sinful to resist the lordship of Christ; it is nonsensical. God has raised Him from the grave and placed Him at His right hand, given Him all authority on heaven and earth, and has called every person to bow their knee before Him. To resist Him is foolish.

Turned Upside Down

Saul, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” Is there any other response you can have when you are converted to Christ? Can you remember back to the days of your conversion? The first time you were on your knees before Christ, and you knew by experience that you had been forgiven, what did you say? Like Isaiah: “Here am I. Send me. What do You want me to do?”

Suddenly, the agenda changed dramatically. Paul had established his own agenda in his mission to seek out and destroy Christians. Now, Luke tells us:

So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”

Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. Then Saul arose from the ground.

All this time, Paul had kept his eyes closed tightly. He did not dare open his eyes in the brilliance of that light that came down from heaven, but as things abated, he got up and opened his eyes. But he did not see the bright light. All he saw was blackness. He had lost his vision. He was completely blind from the light from heaven.

Luke says: “When his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.” I cannot help but wonder if the Christian community had their spies alerted and word had already spread throughout Damascus: “That fire-breathing man, Saul, is on his way. He’s just outside the city.” A sense of terror and fear gripped the citizen Christians of Damascus, and then they saw Saul being led into the city by the hand, blind, a threat to no one.

“But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank”—three days in darkness, hunger, and thirst; three days for Saul of Tarsus to contemplate what had happened to him on the road to Damascus.

Saul’s life was turned upside down in that moment on the road to Damascus. Because his life was turned upside down by the power of God the Holy Spirit, so the world was turned upside down, and so we have been turned upside down through the testimony that God put on Paul’s lips and his pen that feeds the church even to this day. Let us pray.

Father, how grateful we are for gifting us with this one You brought to ruin that You might cause him to rise again to be Your Apostle. Forgive us, o God, when we fail to heed the authority You invested in him that he communicates to us even now through his epistles. Thank you, Lord, for this intervention. Thank you for this act of sovereign election by which You took a man who had no desire to be with You or for You, changed him, and made him Your child. We have realized, to a much lesser degree, but by no means a lesser power, that You have done that to each one of us who loves You and has seen the light of Christ. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.