Acts 26: Paul's 180 degree turn - a reprise
In Acts 26 we read how Paul stands before the Roman Governor Festus and the Jewish King Agrippa. This is what he says:
‘The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee. And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today. This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me. Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?‘I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.
‘On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
‘Then I asked, “Who are you, Lord?”
‘“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” the Lord replied. “Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
‘So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds. That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. But God has helped me to this very day; so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen – that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles.’
(Acts 26:4-23)
We have heard it before, and we hear it once again - the amazing story of the 180 degree turn in Paul's life. Paul starts as a very religious man, his religion leads him to believe that followers of Jesus should be persecuted. Such is his zeal that he becomes a missionary - travelling to other cities beyond his own in order to carry out his mission to stop the message of Jesus Christ. But then comes the pivotal moment - that experience on Damascus road when he meets Jesus. Paul now has a new devotion and a new mission: one that sends him away to foreign cities and lands not to try to stop the message of Jesus, but to spread it, preach it and plant it. Why?
The first answer to that question, is that God took the initiative and broke in, appointing Paul to take the message to all who were listening. He says I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.
Another angle is that when confronted with the experience of the Lord Jesus, Paul could not carry on as if he were not God. I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven, he says. One cannot be confronted with the living God and remain the same. Not all have 'Damascus road experiences' - God comes in different ways: sometimes it is the realisation of the historical proof of the resurrection of Jesus, for others the witnessing of miraculous answer to prayer, and for others the realisation that the teaching of the Bible has the power to change their life. Whatever it is that causes people to say this is true! leaves us all with a decision: do we ignore it, or allow ourselves and our lives to be changed?
A third angle of this change is what Paul came to realise about himself and about God. Paul had given his life to a religious community (the Pharisees) that was devoted to getting right with God, leaving no stone unturned when it came to applying the scriptures to create strict rules for every area of life, from how far one could walk on the Sabbath, to specific washing rituals. But one can only follow such a way of life if one believes that salvation through one's own actions is somehow attainable, and we know from Jesus' condemnations of the Pharisees (e.g. Luke 11:40-52), as well as our own knowledge human nature, we know that this leads to arrogance and judgement of others. Jesus threatened all the things the Pharisees valued: their own status as those who kept the laws the best, and the confidence they had in their own external actions, when he taught that the way to God was through faith in him, and that the flesh is no help at all (John 6:29,63).
But when faced with the Lord Jesus, for all his religious credentials and outward actions, Paul finds himself unworthy to be called righteous on his own merits, and at the same time realises that being right with God is so much more than just the actions we perform, but a matter of the heart - knowing God and being found in him. As he later writes to the church in Philippi:
But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)
And so, for all these reasons, the persecutor becomes the persecuted, because anything is worth knowing Christ and having the hope of eternity that he was won for us. And yet, as Paul points out to King Agrippa in our passage today, this has always always been what has been promised in the Scriptures (Acts 26:6-8.22). Paul has gone from rejecting God's son because he wanted to trust in his own righteousness, to accepting what God has always asked since the beginning - repentance and redemption. The one who went out to other cities in order to stop the gospel of Jesus Christ, is now on a mission to spread it, whatever the cost.
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