The biblical record of the conversion of Saul to Paul in Acts 9 is demonstrative evidence of the glory of God’s sovereign grace in the salvation of sinners. The description of the conversion of Paul is that of grace from beginning to end. True enough it was a bright light from heaven flashing around, but the glory of God’s grace in saving Paul is the brightest light in this passage. It is certain that Paul was there when Stephen was stoned (Acts 7:58 in its context) and so had heard something of the Gospel. But other than that, we don’t have any real evidence of human activity in this conversion. We have God choosing to save a man and make him a choice servant of His. We have God taking a man who was actually causing a lot of suffering to the Church with the intent of causing much more and changing this man’s heart so that he was now willing to himself suffer for the cause of the Gospel. This is the display of the self-sufficient grace of God purchased by Christ toward Saul who became a new creature known as Paul. Read the text of Saul’s conversion to Paul with an eye toward the glory of the grace of God in action.
“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6 but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” 7 The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. 10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” and he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” 17 So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized.” (Acts 9:1-18).
Saul was a man who was greatly learned in the Old Testament. He had heard the Gospel from the preaching of Stephen (and possibly others) who set out the Old Testament in a prominent way in his preaching before he was stoned to death (Acts 7). Saul heard the Gospel set out in its Old Testament setting and surely this provoked something in his thinking. He was not ignorant of the things that had occurred in Jerusalem concerning Jesus a relatively short time before. The ones who were stoning Stephen laid their coats at the feet of Saul showing that he was a leader in this. Acts 8:1 tells us that “Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.” At least part of the great persecution of the Church was instigated and propagated by Saul (Acts 8:1-3 and 9:1ff). He was on his way to Damascus to carry out his hatred against the Church, but then something happened that changed Saul completely.
What is going on with the heart of Saul? He hated Jesus Christ and he hated the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Though he was very religious and a very devout Pharisee, he hated God. If a person would have walked up and “shared the Gospel” with him, that person would have been put in prison and perhaps stoned. His heart was hard and he was set on stomping out this wild fire of false religion. He was not ready to pray a prayer and he was not ready to walk an aisle. He was not ready to read any literature and most likely would not have debated with anyone on the issue. Saul was not likely to have been considered a good choice for a second visit on some evangelism profile. He was openly hostile to the Gospel. While Paul was not a good candidate for modern evangelism, God has His own ways.
What we see here is God’s way of bringing a man to humility and brokenness before Himself. While Saul would not go hear the Gospel of his own accord, God brought him to hear it from Stephen while Stephen was being tried and then stoned. If we could ask Stephen if it was worth being stoned so that Saul would hear the Gospel, without doubt he would say that it was. God’s method of evangelism to Saul was to send a servant who would die preaching the Gospel. Stephen’s evangelistic method was to stand firm for the Gospel and die a painful death. He did not practice any form of evangelism other than his love for God was greater than a fear of man and his message was the truth of the Gospel. But know that it is the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16). It is the Gospel that God uses to change hearts that hate Him and make them into lovers of God. It does not take methods or pleas to the will of man to be saved, but instead it takes the Gospel in the hands of the living God and applied by Him to the heart.
It is the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah and the Gospel of the glory of God that must be preached. It is not the Gospel of say a prayer or the Gospel of make a choice, it is the Gospel of God. The method of the Gospel is to preach the glory and character of God, it is not to try to talk and manipulate human beings into making choices. The method of the Gospel is against trying to manipulate men to make choices since the Gospel looks to the grace of God alone in saving sinners. The sinner must not look to his own will to make a choice since it is that very will that must be changed. The sinner must not look to his own ability since it is the ability of Christ alone that will save. That is what the conversion of Saul to Paul teaches us. Preach the Gospel and look to God to do the work of changing hearts. Sinners cannot change their own hearts and that includes those who evangelize. In our day, however, and has been this way for a long time, we have changed to look to men in evangelism. This is true in Reformed circles as well.
“There is another variety of postredemptionism, however…This variety, which became dominant among the New England Congregationalist churches about the second third of the nineteenth century e.g. N.W. Taylor, d. 1858; C.G. Finney, d. 1875…), attempted, much are the manner of the “Congruists” of the Church of Rome, to unite a Pelagian doctrine of the will with the Calvinistic doctrine of absolute predestination. The result was, of course, to destroy the Calvinistic doctrine of “irresistible grace,” and as the Calvinistic doctrine of the “satisfaction of Christ” was also set aside in favor of the Grotian or governmental theory of atonement, little was left of Calvinism except the bare doctrine of predestination. Perhaps it is not strange, therefore, that this “improved Calvinism” has crumbled away and given place to newer and explicitly anti-Calvinistic constructions of doctrine” (B. B. Warfield).
As we look at the conversion of Saul who became Paul, we see irresistible grace at work. As we look on the modern scene of evangelism, however, we see human beings at work doing their preaching and evangelism in ways that certainly appear to be apart from a reliance on irresistible grace though some lip service may be given to it. Indeed the conversion of Saul to Paul was a remarkable case, but then again every true conversion is just as remarkable if we could but see what goes on. Sure there was a physical light that blinded Saul so that he fell to the ground and an audible voice that struck those with him speechless, but in any Gospel applied by God there is an inner light that shines as well. Any true conversion is a supernatural work of God in shining the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:6). When our methods of evangelism take on man-centered ways and methods, we may have nothing more than the bare doctrine of predestination and call ourselves orthodox. We may have high numbers of those making professions of faith, but when we leave the truth of the power of the Gospel and take it into our own hands by man’s ways and man’s methods, there is no power of God and the Gospel attending our preaching.
The contrast between the conversion of Saul to Paul and our modern day methods are striking. The reason for that is that Saul was converted by the Gospel as worked into the heart of Saul by God alone. The external bright light that flashed around did not convert him though it certainly obtained his attention. It was the inward light of the glory of God that converted him and it is that same inward light that converts souls today. When men, whether professing Calvinists or not, try to manipulate and use the methods of men to extricate a prayer or a choice out of men, the light of the Gospel is not there. When men, even if they do profess to believe in election, use means that deny irresistible grace, the light of the Gospel is not there. R.C. Sproul has said that we “are in the Pelagian captivity of the Church.” Many professing Reformed in doctrine have capitulated to Finney in the practice of evangelism. In doing so the light of the glory of the Gospel has virtually been extinguished in our day. God will not give His glory to another in the Gospel, yet in evangelism that is what we have done. A Gospel of grace alone is of His glory alone in irresistible grace. Is that the Gospel that you preach? Do you look to man’s will to choose or to God’s to convert?
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