How Saul Became Paul

[HKHaugan]

How Saul Became Paul

Paul discovered he had an identity crisis when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was born with an identity that had God's imprimatur. He was a representative of the perfect Law, a chosen people and a coming Messiah. However, Israel had lost the 'coming Messiah' part. He was recognized historically and liturgically but emphasis on obedience to the Law and political survival had replaced their ability to look forward and recognize Him. Their focus was so localized on legalistic interpretation, that is, how the Law can best be interpreted and served, that when He appeared He was greeted with suspicion, skepticism and hostility. Intellect had replaced heart and spirit. The nation was divided and its leadership, the Sanhedrin, a mix of Pharisee (the Scriptural purists) and Sadducee (the cultural compromisers) controlled the populace. The priesthood had influence on both but were more politically motivated than spiritually directed. This has got to sound familiar even if we are just remotely tuned in to what's happening in our Western world at this time. Paul's identity was locked into all that.

What was basically lost in Judea was the sense of the personal presence of God. There were obviously many who revered God as we can tell from Jesus' encounters in the Gospels but, for the most part, there was an atmosphere where God was felt to be distant and even uninvolved. It is that kind of attitudinal feel you get when Jesus, in those same relational encounters, makes His appeal through parables. Some get it. Some don't. His appeal as a Messiah defied the human expectation of what the Messiah would be like, a political hero with enormous power who would overthrow all Israel's enemies. He was not a military, political or religious figure. Just the opposite. He was personal, relational and spiritual. Jesus was a man of the heart.

It was His attitude, the inner drive and the manner in which He moved among people that created such a stir. That stir was fear in a leadership preserving their power and status. It was fear that He exposed. Social fear, political fear, economic fear, cultural fear, religious fear, basically the dominant spirit of fear that racked humanity in general. What we see in the New Testament is the contagion of sin spread through fear and pride. Israel was a microcosm of the dynamics that the whole of the world was suffering from. The One God was lost in man's memory and Jesus came to restore His reality and our individual, personal reality.

This is what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus. His entire inner focus was persecution. His inner being was consumed with what he believed was his function. He was bent on destruction, totally obsessed with destroying whatever remnants of Jesus believers he could find.

My personal read of Paul is that his expertise in Scripture, the words full of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus, of the Father, built a reservoir of spiritual force in him that his sin could no longer fight. When he was on that Damascus highway at the height of his emotional fury, it was the fuse the Lord lit to grab hold of him. The personal, the relational, the spiritual volcano within him exploded. His world, his identity, his attitude, his function, collapsed in disarray. He was blinded by the light of the personal, relational and spiritual Messiah the Word had burned into him. His worldly identity had spiritually blinded him. He had to see from within who he really was in the eyes of God, a sinner but a loved sinner, a religious zealot with a worldly cause that had to be exposed within. Then He heard the words of Jesus asking him why the persecution, why he was kicking against the goads. 'Goads' is an interesting word. In Ecclesiastes 12:11 'goads' are the words of God “given by One Shepherd.” Paul must have remembered how the Lord told Isaiah that when rain is sent to water seed “so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it (Is.55:11).”

Later Paul's physical eyes would be opened when he was led to believers who would pray with him and teach him. This is true of everyone who is spiritually blind. When world identities and their function cease there is hope in Jesus for an eternal identity that functions in our every next moment. Spiritual blindness is replaced with spiritual sight. For Paul his physical sight was returned as well. For Paul his his true identity was recovered, his Scriptural knowledge empowered by the Spirit, his intellect refocused to serve the Lord. Everything he once was now could serve the Lord. Talk about redemption. Paul is the poster child for redemption by Jesus.

Here's how Paul puts it: “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the Law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider a loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ...(Php.3:4-9).”

If you look carefully at this passage you can put everything you use for identity in Paul's categories. Think community, ethnicity, religion, job, bloodline, lineage, social class, morality and whatever else like skills, clubs and emotionality that define you in this world. Paul, like Jesus, had a profession. But now with his new identity profession was what supported his spiritual identity and function. The same is true for us as well. Our profession becomes a vehicle to practice our identity which is our real work being a witness, an image and child of God.

As an aside, the quality with which we approach our jobs changes. We want them to reflect our belief in God. Think of what it would have been like to have furniture built by Jesus that later would be treasured by a family living in a tent made by Paul. Both would have been extraordinary in quality, lasting in use and in reminding them of their salvation. As when the Lord Jesus and Paul the Apostle lived for the Father, it's when we too are spiritually focused that our functions in the world are detailed in quality for the glory of God.

But Paul doesn't stop there. “I want to know Christ and the power of His Resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead (vs.10).” “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me...Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (vs.13-14).”

What Paul has so stunningly exposed is our cultural slavery, the social, ethnic and economic identities and rituals that prevail. We are to look forward to how we can see our selves as God sees us and be aware, ready and available to act in faith in every next moment. Each moment we live is a precious moment to serve the Lord. We are His image, child and witness. The Holy Spirit is our life and our function is to let Him work through us. That is our new identity and function, an everlasting identity and function, a relational identity with God and others through Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit. That means every next moment is the spiritual adventure He has in store for us.