Paul’s Transformation
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2016 · 3 July 2016
Acts 9:10-18
People talk a lot about transformation, becoming better than you are now, improving yourself. And what they really mean are some superficial options for transformation like new clothes, or cosmetic surgery, or diets, or relocation, or new friends, or cultivating a better self-image. But none of that is really capable of creating a new transformation. Only Christianity can result in a complete transformation.
Look at 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God
Christianity is about transformation, but people cannot change themselves. Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?” Jeremiah 2:22, “For though you wash yourself and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before Me,” says the Lord God.” Or Jeremiah 9:4-5, “Everyone does not trust any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant. And every neighbor will walk with slanderers. 5 Everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth.”
We cannot change our sinful nature. We don’t even have the ability on our own to respond to divine force, divine discipline or divine punishment. Proverbs 27:22 says, “Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him.” Nothing from this world that can change man.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” Isaiah 1:5-6 says, “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it.” Only God can totally transform a person on the inside and on the outside through the gospel. So let us look again at Acts 9.
The story of Saul should eliminate all questions about the sovereignty of God in salvation. Here is a classic illustration that God is the initiator of salvation, that God is the seeker, since no man seeks after God. Here is a man who lived for one purpose, and that was to uphold a false religion; and secondly to hurt, imprison and even kill people whom he saw as a threat to that religion.
Let us read his story in Acts 9:10-19, “Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 So the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. 12 And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.”
“13 Then Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in 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 vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
“17 And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. 18 Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized. 19 So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus
This event is absolutely full of miracles. Not only was the appearance of Jesus on the Road to Damascus
This man, from that day forward, is completely transformed. This Christ-hating killer is totally changed. Acts 9 gives us a picture of that transformation, and we see parallels here to our own experience of conversion. And while we don’t have a miraculous conversion with the Lord appearing in light from heaven and visions, it is still initiated by God. Your conversion, your salvation, was initiated by God from heaven.
Do you remember what Nicodemus says to Jesus in John 3:4-5, “How can a man be born when he is old?” 5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” If you have been born again from above, that is a sovereign work of God. What happened to Paul after that work began also is an illustration of what happens in the life of every believer, without the outward miracles.
Saul knew what Christians preached, he knew the gospel. But he rejected it, until the Damascus Road expereince. Saul who had been persecuting the Lord Jesus, fell on his face before the Lord Jesus and said, “You are Lord.” He made a confession that Christ was everything that he had heard from these Christians and Stephen. He acknowledged Jesus as Lord; and as Lord, Jesus gave him a command. And that is exactly what he does; he obeys the command.
This is where the transformation of any life begins. It begins with an understanding of the gospel and a confession of Jesus as Lord. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation,” says 2 Corinthians 5:17. So if you are looking for a changed life from the inside out, a totally transformed life, there is only one place: you can look to Christ. In Christ only there is transformation.
The New Testament spells it out like this: The one who is dead in sins becomes alive to righteousness. The one who is ignorant of divine truth becomes wise in divine truth. The one who is insensitive to divine presence now tastes and sees that the Lord is good. The one who belonged to the kingdom of Satan now belongs to the kingdom of God
Let us follow Paul’s response in verse 10, “There was a disciple at Damascus Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ And he said, ‘Here I am, Lord.’” He says essentially what Paul said. Here the Lord gives to Ananias a vision of Paul, and gives to Paul a vision of Ananias. God miraculously is creating a basis in which these two men can meet. Remember, Saul is now still blind in the house of someone named Judas.
The second thing that happens when someone is transformed, is that they immediately enter into dependence and communion with God. Who is this Ananias? Well, he is a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. He actually might be one of the main targets of Saul’s persecution campaign. In Acts 22:12 Paul says this about Ananias, “A man who was devout by the standard of the law, and well-spoken of by all the Jews who lived there.”
The Lord says in verse 11-12, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying.12 And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.” This street in Damascus runs from the eastern gate to the western gate right through the middle of the city, and it’s about three miles long.
Do you know that praying is the first response to conversion? When a baby is born, a baby immediately breaths in air to live automatically. And prayer is like spiritual breathing. The first thing that happens when Saul meets the Lord Jesus Christ is that he now lives in the presence of God, and he learns to pray. Now he prays in blind, helpless dependency. The transformed life is the life that cries out to God.
Everything in his life has changed. Everything he once hoped in, everything he put his trust in, everything he worked for, all religious attainments, all spiritual accolades were useless now. He says in Philippians 3:8, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”
And prayer is not a one-sided conversation, and Paul learns that fast, because Ananias is given a corresponding vision, and Paul is told that. 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. So Ananias knows to go see Paul. Paul knows Ananias is coming, even though Paul is blind. This is an indication that God is in absolute and total control of the thoughts and minds of a man.
And then there is a third reality in salvation that has to do with the service that we are called to give. Look at verse 13-14, “Then Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem. 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” The idea of finding Saul seems crazy to Ananias because he has no idea about the Damascus Road encounter.
So God encourages Ananias with the fact that Saul is praying. And then the Lord says in verse 15, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.” First, you have nothing to fear because he is praying. Secondly, you have nothing to fear because I’m commanding you to go. Thirdly, you have nothing to fear because Paul is a chosen vessel of Mine to become a preacher of the very gospel he had persecuted.
Paul is chosen to preach the gospel before the Gentiles, and before kings and also to the children of Israel. He preached to Israel first, but he ended up as a missionary to the nations. And then finally he preached to kings. So Ananias do not be afraid, God says in verse 16, “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Paul is not going to be the one persecuting others, instead he is going to be the one suffering. And Paul suffered a lot.
Look at 2 Corinthians 11:24-27, “From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness.” And he ended his life as a martyr.
In Acts 22:14-16 where Paul is giving his testimony, Ananias said, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Righteous One, and hear the voice of His mouth. 15 For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16 And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” So Ananias tells him exactly what God has in store for him.
This is Saul’s commission for ministry. The transformed life is a transformed vocation, as well as a transformed communion, as well as a transformed relationship. Service now becomes the priority of life, it becomes the reason we live. And we are empowered for that service by the Holy Spirit. And so that leads to the very next element in the conversion of Paul, which is also parallel to us.
Verse 17-18, “And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. 18 Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.”
There is now a new Lord, there is a new life, there is a new mission, there is a new power, and there is a new fellowship. Go back to verse 17 and look what Ananias said to Saul, “Ananias after laying his hands on him said, ‘Brother Saul.” Transformation creates a change in relationships. Ephesians 2:19, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s family.”
You have a new relationships with all other believers. 1 John 1:6-7 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” We are one body, one family and one fellowship.
What does baptism symbolize? Our burial and the death of Christ, and our resurrection to newness of life in Christ. But also, it symbolizes our union with all other believers. And they showed that by taking care of him, feeding him so he was strengthened. And Ananias baptized him. What an amazing thing. Paul now has a new family. Let’s bow in prayer.