The Gospel to the Pharisee

So we are in a series on the book of Acts and this morning we are in Acts chapter 9

Acts 9 · chapter mention

and this is the story of Saul's conversion and Saul's conversion is

probably the most famous conversion experience in all of history. He converts

as a Pharisee to Christianity. It's so famous that Christian and non-Christian

alike know this story as the Damascus Road experience, right? And basically that

little phrase means a sudden change, a sudden change in who you are and what

you believe and it's a very famous conversion worldwide. Modern people,

especially contemporary people in the West, a lot of times don't like the idea

of conversion of this change to a different belief system. They don't

like it, they see it oftentimes as primitive, as asking people to believe

in just one truth or something like that, but the Bible is really clear about

this and Christians throughout all the centuries have been really clear about

this idea of conversion, about a deep change from within. Jesus was really

clear about it. Matthew 18.3, he said this, unless you are converted and become

like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. And then in John chapter

John 3 · chapter mention

3, unless someone is born again from the dead, they cannot enter the kingdom of

God, right? It's the same idea as conversion. So the question often arises

with this passage is should every single person that is a Christian, that

is a believer in Christ, should they be converted or have a conversion

experience like this one that we read about in Acts chapter 9? And the answer

Acts 9 · chapter mention

that's been really consistent throughout history is no. That there are tons of

other conversions, the ways people come to believe in Jesus in the Bible that

aren't as dramatic as this one, that aren't exactly like Saul's experience on

the Damascus Road. But in 1 Timothy 1, 15 to 16, Paul, Saul, who is also Paul, and

I'll probably use those names completely interchangeably the whole time without

thinking about it. So I'm talking about the same person, Saul also called Paul.

He says that his conversion, his story, was given to the people of God, anybody

that would come to believe in later generations as an encouragement. So

that's one way to look at it. But another way to look at it is that in

Christian theologians throughout all of history have been doing this, that they

talk about there's a difference in circumstances of conversion and the

elements of conversion. Circumstances, circumstances are individual, circumstances

just an experience. There's no universal circumstance for a conversion

experience. But what you can do with this passage is you can look through Paul's

circumstances, Saul's circumstances on the Damascus Road and derive some of the

elements of conversion. Some of the elements that are true, that are

universal no matter whose experience it is. And so I think there are four

elements that we can pull from this passage this morning. The first is

conversion is for dead people. Secondly, conversion is a crash encounter with the

light. Thirdly, conversion is plunging into darkness. And finally, conversion is a

transformation that includes an embrace. Okay, so first conversion is for dead

people. If you look at verse one of this passage it starts off with a

contrast, but Saul. But Saul was breathing threats and murders against the

disciples. And the reason there's a contrast there is because in the previous

couple of chapters the gospel had been preached and many people were getting

converted, but then Saul along with the other Pharisees in Jerusalem persecuted

the Christians. You remember the stoning of Stephen in Acts chapter 7. And what

Acts 7 · chapter mention

happened is that the gospel then left Jerusalem and went all the way as far as

Damascus, which is outside the geographical bounds of Jerusalem. So the

gospel spread, it's fruitful, and it's left Jerusalem. The Christians have gone

to a different land. They're not even in Israel. They're in Damascus. That's in

Syria. But Saul, nevertheless, Saul, he's still breathing threats and the

literal word there is breathing slaughter against the Christians no

matter where they've gone. So much so that he goes and gets permission to hunt

them down. Now this guy Saul, we were introduced to him in Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

He's a Pharisee and he's very zealous for the works of the law. He's very well

educated. He knew classic rhetoric. He knew Greek. He was extremely well

educated, but he's incredibly hungry. He's on the hunt here to basically destroy

what was called the Way, the early Christian movement. And it makes sense

because the way he views religion is that religion is basically Old Testament

or Torah, Genesis to Deuteronomy, law observance. And these Christians were

going around and preaching a gospel saying a man was crucified on a tree and

at his resurrection he declared that nobody has to is under the obligations of

the Old Covenant of the Torah anymore, Genesis to Deuteronomy. And this was

totally antithetical to the way Paul viewed religion, which is completely

about Torah observance, obeying the law of God. So you can understand that he

thinks these people are the enemies of God. And so he's on the hunt. This little

word for breathing threats here and the little word underneath the verb

breathing, the Greek word, it's typically reserved for animals in classical

Greek. It's reserved to describe an animal that's like a rabid dog. That's

what John Calvin, when he's looking at this passage, he describes Saul as a

rabid wolf. Maybe you've had an experience like this, probably most of you

haven't, if you're from the city, but you've at least seen one on TV probably

where somebody goes into an alleyway or into the woods or something and all of

a sudden there it is, a wolf, a dog, a bear, whatever, picture, wild animal. And

it stops and you stop and you're face to face, right? And what do you think,

you're wondering what's it gonna do, right? And all of a sudden it hunches its

shoulders up, its ears perk, the lip lowers, the teeth become exposed, and

slobber foams start to come out of the mouth, right? And what do you know? And

that moment, what do you know? You know that that rabid wolf is getting ready,

preparing to attack you. A slow walk begins to ensue towards you, right? That

verb breathing threats, that's the way the word is typically used in Greek, okay?

That's the picture that we're being given. Saul is a rabid wolf prone to attack on

the Damascus road. I mean, he's going down the road as a general, going to

war against the enemies of God. That's the picture that's being painted here.

In chapter 8 verse 3 it said that he had already begun to destroy the church,

literally rip its foundations out from underneath it. These are strong verbs,

okay, in other words. These are really strong verbs. He has a deep hatred for

these people. He has a very deep, deep-seated hatred for the way, the

Christian movement. And what that means is that Saul appears to be the most

unlikely convert that has ever lived in human history. And you know the rest of

the story. He changes. He is changed. And what that means is that no human being,

no matter how much they hate God, no matter what they have done, is without

the hope of the radically free grace of Jesus Christ. No human being, no matter

what they've done. And that means that there is no such thing as a likely or

an unlikely convert to Christianity. There's no such thing as people who are

likely or unlikely. It's a category mistake. That's not what that... You can see

this in... As Paul is writing the rest, most of the books of the New Testament,

and he's reflecting on what happened to him, you can see this actually come out

in his own theology. Just listen to what he says about who he was and who

people are. All have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God. No one

is good, no one is righteous, no one seeks after God, everyone follows their own

way. God has revealed himself to every single human being and all suppress the

truth and unrighteousness. Every single person seeks after idols. Every single

person suppresses the truth by exchanging the image of the Creator for

the image of a creature. All human beings are dead in their trespasses and sins.

So that's his reflection on who he was. And that's why in John 644, Jesus

puts it like this, no one can come to the Father unless the Father calls. Or in

John 15-16, Jesus says, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and

appointed you to go and bear fruit for me. And so John started when he's looking

at this passage, he puts it like this, one thing is certain in Paul's conversion,

human beings do not initially seek after God unless God first comes to us and

seeks after us. The Bible says that in our natural state no one seeks after God

and that this is categorical. In other words, Paul's conversion means that

nobody is too far gone to receive the grace of Christ. And what that means is

that the first element in conversion experience is that conversion is for

dead people. Conversion is for people who are dead. Conversion is always

counter to our human will, our human hearts. So that's the first

element, conversion is for dead people. Now there are three more elements and I'm

just going to give them to you right now in one sentence. Okay, and then we'll

break each down briefly. Alright, so here's the sentence. Conversion is a crash

encounter with the light that plunges you into darkness and ends in

transformation. Okay, so the first aspect is that conversion is a crash

encounter with the light. Now in verse 3 you'll see that Saul encounters the

light or actually the light encounters Saul, the little Greek word verb there

is actually that the light in circles Saul and we learn in another passage

that that light was brighter than the midday sun and what happens to him? It

says that it knocks him down and a man of his elite stature in society he's

probably riding a horse and so it probably knocks him off of his horse

onto the ground. Why? Well in one sense it's the physical power of the light

itself. He probably is thinking about this when he writes 1st Timothy 616, God

dwells in inapproachable light. He had to be reflecting on this experience, but I

don't think it's mainly a physical aspect here that the light knocks him to

the ground physically. I think what's happening here is that he's having an

encounter with the truth. He's having an encounter with the truth. In other words

what's happening to him physically manifest a spiritual reality, an

invisible reality that's happening underneath. In other words conversion is

when you encounter a God that you never expected. When you encounter a God who is

beyond anything that you could have possibly constructed, no mere idol. You

see typically if you go out in a city like Edinburgh or London or New York or

something like that and you ask your average person, modern people in the

West, if you ask them what they don't like about Christianity they're not

typically going to say that they don't like Christianity because it preaches a

message that says God radically forgives people completely contrary to what

they've done. The aspect of Christianity that says God is God of love, God

radically forgives people in the West like that. Everybody on the streets

likes that about Christianity. Nobody has a problem with that. What do people in

the modern West typically not like about the Christian message? That's

at the very same time as the Christians preach a God of love, a God who will

forgive radically even despite what you've done. We also preach a God who has

divine justice and will send people to hell and punish and that's precisely

what modern Westerners don't like. Now if you go to eastern parts of the world

and this is not true of everyone but typically if you go to eastern parts of

the world and you ask the average person what is it that you don't like about

Christianity, you'll get something actually completely opposite. They have

no problem typically with a God who inflicts wrath or sends people to hell

or punishes. No problem with the idea of divine justice because it makes sense.

If you've done something wrong and you appear before a courtroom you deserve to

be punished. I mean that's normal to that culture and so they don't have a

problem with it. What they do have a problem with oftentimes is a God who

would radically forgive when you don't deserve it. When you haven't done anything

to earn it. It's completely opposite picture you see of problems from the

East and the West. You know what that means. That means because of our cultural

situation, because of us as individuals in specific cultures, we are prone to

construct a God that fits our own personal desires of who we want God to be.

We're prone to make a God that looks exactly like us. Here's conversion.

It's encountering a God you could not have possibly created. In other words it's

being knocked off your horse by a God that is no mere idol that you couldn't

have constructed. You see God has to be something that is greater than who you

are, greater than your heart and if the God that you concoct in your head just

looks exactly like what you want God to look like then he wouldn't be greater

than you. He wouldn't be beyond your heart, greater than your heart and a God

that's not greater than your heart can't be a God that's greater than you.

The first thing here about conversion is that we need a God who we

don't expect and that means that when we come to the Bible we need to see a God

in the Bible actually that tells us things that we don't like about

ourselves and maybe even sometimes tells us things that we don't like to hear

about God. One of the marks then of conversion of being a person who's been

changed by God is that you're willing to come to the Bible, the place that God

has revealed himself and let the word actually confront you instead of you

confronting and judging it. You see that's one of the ways that you know that

you're encountering a real God, a God that's truly revealed himself as he is

because that's the second element. The third element, third of four, not only

is conversion a crash encounter with the light, the truth, it's entering into

darkness. It's being plunged into darkness. Now there are two aspects here to

that idea and the first is this, he's encountered by the light, Saul is, and

then all of a sudden out of the light there's a voice, the light speaks, right,

and the light says, Saul why are you persecuting me? And this question is

exactly the question that Saul did not expect in any way, shape or form. This is

the total opposite of what he thought he was going to hear from God. It's the

exact opposite because when he hears this God say, Saul why are you

persecuting me? What that means is that God is identifying so much with the

people that Saul had been attacking that the total opposite of what was

happening is the case in Saul's mind. In other words, Saul thought that he was on

the hunt to destroy the enemies of God, you see, and when he's approached by the

divine light and the divine light says to him, why are you persecuting me? He

realizes that God is so identified with the people he's been trying to slaughter

that he's actually the enemy of God. You see, it's complete reversal. He's, in

other words, in that moment he's plunging into darkness and that darkness is that

he's wrestling, he's having, he's being told, you thought you were a good person,

you thought you were doing the work of the Lord and actually you are the enemy

of God. You're the sinner, you're the one that said enmity with God, you're the one

that's in deep rebellion. In other words, he's realizing I am the guy who

slaughters the people that God has declared to be good. I'm an enemy of God.

So this is the first way that you plunge into darkness in conversion, but the

second, there's a second aspect and it's not simply that Saul crashes into the

light and it plunges him into the darkness of who he is as a sinner, as

an enemy of God. It's that it not only envelopes the spiritual darkness, but

that the light literally makes him blind. Okay, so you see that in verse 8, the

light literally causes him to be blind and it doesn't just cause him to be

blind, but it says in verse 8 and 9 that he did not take food or water for three

days. He fasted, in other words. Now a lot of people will look at this passage

and they'll say that when Saul goes into this three-day fast, this is him

responding to God. He's been encountered by the divine light and now he's

responding to the divine light out of reverence. He would have fasted thousands

of times in Judaism. They fasted every single week, in fact, and he's just

responding faithfully to the God that's revealed himself. Actually though, I think

that that's a bit of a thin way of looking at what's happening here. You see,

the accent in the passage is completely on the passive. It's not at all about

what Saul does. It's completely about everything that's happening to Saul. He

was blinded. He was encountered by the light. In other words, he's being

forced. He's being forced into a fast. He's being forced into a situation where

he can't eat or drink, into a situation of lifelessness. In verse 8,

after he's made blind, after he can't see anything, the text says that the only

way that he could get to Damascus was by somebody holding his hand. In other words,

just remember what Jesus said in Matthew 18, if you want to be a

citizen of the kingdom of God, you must be converted and you must become like a

helpless child. The only way that Saul could possibly get to Damascus was to

have his hand held, like a little child. He had to be led down the road to

Damascus. He had to be treated like a child. So, I think a

thicker way of looking at what's happening to him is this. Saul's view of

the Messiah was that the Messiah was going to be strong. The Messiah that had

been promised in the Old Testament was going to be a conqueror, was going to be

somebody who came into Jerusalem, conquered the Roman Empire, and re-established

Israel as the true people of God, the center of the nations in the Promised

Land. And the people that were going to be vindicated and pronounced just in

that moment when the strong Messiah came were the people that observed the law,

that obeyed the Torah, Genesis Deuteronomy, that followed every aspect of

the law, every jot and tittle. That's his view of the Messiah. And so, when Jesus

Christ comes to the world, when Jesus Christ comes in the world, he literally

is the total opposite of what Saul thought the Messiah was going to look

like. I mean, he doesn't look anything like what Saul thinks a Messiah should

look like. He's not strong at all. He manifests himself in total weakness. And

even more than that, Saul, knowing his Torah, Genesis to Deuteronomy really

well, he would have constantly reflected on Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 13. And

Deuteronomy 21:13

Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 13, it says that anybody who hangs on a tree is a

Deuteronomy 21:13

man that is cursed. Anybody who hangs on a tree is a man that's cursed. In other

words, Saul's picture of the Messiah or the claim of the way that Jesus would

have been the Messiah would be, no way, this man has been cursed. And nobody

that claims to be the Messiah would be cursed by God. That's a weakness. That's

not strength. That's not who the Messiah could possibly be. But then, on the road

to Damascus, the light encounters him. My podium's falling. And the light says, I

am Jesus, the one who you're persecuting. And when the light encounters him, it

leaves him in utter darkness, completely blinded. Not only does the

light leave him in utter darkness, it throws him into a condition of

lifelessness. He cannot eat. He cannot drink. And for how long did you catch it?

How long? Three days, you see? Three days. Three days of blindness. Three days of

being plunged into the darkness. Three days of lifelessness with no food, with

no water. In other words, Saul encounters the light that is Jesus Christ. And what

happens? Jesus throws him into a three-day-long grave. It's completely

passive. He can't help it. He can't eat. He can't drink. He's lifeless. He's

helpless. He's blind. He's in darkness. And it's Jesus that threw him into that

grave. Why? Why? Why is it that Christ does this to him? Why does Jesus do this to

him? And I think it's this. So Saul could look at his body. He could look at his own

physical condition in that three-day grave. And he could see that his identity

was now completely wrapped up into the man that went into the grave for three

days for him. You see, he doesn't need to go any farther but to look at his own

physical condition to realize that the man that went into the grave for three

days, the man he put in the grave that he helped send to the grave in

Jerusalem, is identifying with him. And he with Jesus, he's reliving Christ's

experience in order to show him that he is now one with the man that he

crucified. You see, in other words, Saul had always thought that by the work of the

law he would be justified before God. And as soon as God encounters him in the

light, the only thing that Saul's good works got him was death, was being thrown

down into the pit, into the grave, into the condition of lifelessness. And you

know, you can only imagine that in those three days he's blind, he can't eat, he

can't drink anything, he would have had an immense amount of time simply to think.

To think about what his body was like and what the man on the cross in the

grave was like. You know, he knew the Old Testament backwards and

forwards. He would have gone back to the Old Testament in his mind and thought

about Isaiah's suffering servant songs, about the man that was crushed, about the

promise of the one who would be bruised and broken for our iniquities. He would

have gone back to Leviticus and thought about the sacrificial system and

realized the blood of bulls and goats can't possibly save us. Right? He would

have gone back in his mind and reread the entire Old Testament because he had

heard it preached that way by Stephen and woken up to one idea. It wasn't

simply that this Messiah was cursed and put on a tree because he was weak. The

Messiah was put, was cursed and put on a tree because he chose to be. And

substitution. You see, this is the moment where Saul is awakening to the idea of

substitution. In other words, he would have said something like this, Jesus chose

to die for me not because he's a weak Messiah, but because of a radical

substitutionary love. The meeting of divine justice and divine mercy, the

great exchange, him for me, me for him. And his own physical body in a three-day

grave would have pointed him nowhere else. You see? In other words, the third

element, conversion. Conversion is where God says to you, your identity is

completely wrapped up in Jesus' identity. What's true of him has now become true of

you. That's what's happening to you in conversion. In other words, the outward

change is something like this. You know that a mark of conversion, you don't

simply say, Jesus died on the cross, I believe that. You say something more like,

I crucified him. It's when it becomes personal. I crucified him. He was for me,

and I was with him. So that's the third element. Now, fourthly and finally, and

very briefly, not only is conversion a crash encounter with the light, not only

is it plunging down into the depths of darkness, but it's a transformation.

And this one's really simple. Down in verse 18, it says that his scales fall off

of his eyes physically. He regains life. He takes food. He drinks water. He's

baptized. In other words, the image that we're being given is he's coming back

from the dead. You see? He went into a three-day grave, and now he's regaining

life again. And in verse 20, which is one verse beyond what we read this morning,

it says that he goes into the synagogue, and he only says one thing. Jesus Christ

is the Son of God. Now, this is a radical transformation. John Calvin puts it like

this, the rabid wolf has now become the great sheep. The rabid wolf has now

become the great sheep. This is the transformation. You see, it's a

resurrection. His physical body has come back to life, but the point is that

inwardly his spirit has been completely resurrected in Christ by sharing with

Christ. In other words, one of the marks of conversion, you change your mind

about Jesus, and Jesus changes your heart about Jesus. You love him.

It's that simple, really. You love him. And not only is it an outward

transformation, but it includes an embrace. So we haven't really looked at this

section of the passage, but Ananias, Ananias in verse 13, he's in Damascus, and

he's called by God. And God basically says, I want you to go see Saul. He's

going to be my apostle to the Gentiles. And his basic response is, whoa, whoa,

wait a minute. This guy is the guy that's come to kill me. There's no way I can go

to him and do what you're asking. He's come to kill me, but he goes anyway. And

when he goes, the thing that he says to Saul, one word, he says, brother, brother.

And the reason he says this is because in that little word that he utters, what

Ananias says of Paul, he calls him brother, it's true because it means

that God has embraced him as a son. And that means the community of the church

has embraced him as a brother, that he is now the brother of many brothers and

sisters, that he's the brother of Christ, that he's the son. Why? Because the gospel

says that no matter what you've done, no matter what you've done in the past, when

Jesus becomes your Messiah, when Christ changes you, you're adopted into the

family. And so here's conversion. Here's the elements of conversion from this

passage. You crash into the true God. You plunge into the darkness of your own

sin. You enter into the darkness of Christ's death for you and you come out

transformed, resurrected from the inside out. Those are the elements of

conversion. And so just to close, there's no citizen of the kingdom of God, Jesus

says, that is not converted. That has not changed from the inside out. There's not

a single person that is a citizen of the kingdom of God that is not converted,

Matthew 18.3. So that means the question is obvious. Are you converted? Are you a

citizen of the kingdom of God? And if God does the work, how can you be? If it's

God that's truly the agent, the actor. And just a brief couple things here.

First, there are clear marks in the Bible that give you ways to know

assurances that you are a child of God. This has happened to you and here's a

couple of them. Do you have intimacy at all with God the Father? Do you

have any intimacy with God at all? Do you desire God at all? And even when you feel

like Jesus is absent from you, does that make you sad? Do you want him back? These

are marks that this has happened to you, that you've been converted by God.

But there are also actions with conversion, outward actions. You say,

how can I be converted? If you're saying that it's God that does all the work,

Peter puts it this way in a sermon in Acts 2, you crucified Jesus Christ

because of your sin. Now repent and believe. And here's the promise, if you

repent, if you confess Jesus Christ as Lord, you will be saved. That's the

promise. At the very same time as it's completely true that you cannot be saved

unless God does the work on you at the, at simultaneously, he says, but repent and

believe on Christ and you will be saved. You see? And both are true at the very

same time. Repentance, repentance is when you acknowledge that you don't have the

resources within yourself to be justified by God, to be righteous before

him, that you don't have those resources. And so it's simply turning to something

outside yourself, the cross. It's like a weary traveler coming to the end of their

journey and they're so tired that they simply fling their arms over someone

else saying, just hold me up. That's the image of faith. It's entering into rest.

And that's what you're called to. That's conversion. So conversion to the light,

the true light, that's what human beings need because it addresses the biggest

problem in all of our lives. And we'll just close with this. In 1962, there was

only been two theologians in all of history that have made the cover of Time

Magazine. The first one was in 1962 and it was a guy named Karl Bart. He's a bit

of a controversial German theologian, but on the cover of Time Magazine, they

printed one of his quotes and this is what he said, the goal of humanity is

not death but resurrection. That's simple. The goal of humanity is not death but

resurrection. Every human being's ultimate problem is death and it's a death that

they deserve because of their sin. And the greatest need above all else in life

is resurrection. You need resurrection more than you need anything else in this

world. And it has been offered and it has been purchased and there is a way and

it can be yours. Repent and believe. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you did

not leave us to ourselves but that you gave us a way to be changed and so we

ask that you would break our hearts and show us repentance and faith. And we

ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.