Paul's Conversion to Spiritual Reality

[HKHaugan]

Paul’s Conversion to Spiritual Reality

Has anyone ever said to you, “I really don’t understand what anyone sees in you,” or some other similar statement? I remember a chemistry professor in high school who told me “Haugan, if you had more brains and less blond hair…” and just looked at me and went on with his talk. I don’t know what prompted his remark. I wasn’t doing or saying anything that was disruptive. I must have given a wrong answer. I just never forgot that and being in the high-powered public prep school that it was, I assumed he thought I was intellectually incapable and shouldn’t have been there. I did graduate and then got my BA and Masters eventually, but after that always secretly felt I had a lack of ‘smarts.’   It’s interesting how the words we say can have the impact they do.

Imagine for a moment, in obvious contrast, the impact of Jesus’ appearance to Saul. It was Jesus’ words and their accompanying sight that impacted Saul. Not only did a supernatural light from Heaven surround him and his companions, it was the Lord’s words that got to him. Jesus confronts him saying his name twice, “Saul, Saul,”---then a question, “Why do you persecute me?”---after which came the stabbing words, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Three things to see here. First, how personal and direct Jesus is. Second, how relational He is by exposing and forgiving our motivation. Third, how He spiritually challenges what we really are inside and loves us forward.

Being the expert in Scripture as Saul was Jesus must have really penetrated. Saul, the legalist, the ethnic purist, the religious zealot, the angry persecutor, the intellectual superior, was being challenged deep within. And by goads, no less. Goads? What are goads anyway? Anyone then would have known. They were a common sight among shepherds; the sharp pointed staffs they used to prod sheep to move. There is no doubt Saul knew the Scripture. Now check this verse from Ecclesiastes, “The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd (Eccl.12:11).”

If the scholars are right in their timing of Paul’s letters and Acts, Paul was a contemporary of Jesus. They were born about the same time. Speculation by biblical experts based on timing in Scripture, shows he may have been born between 4BC and 5AD. Though Paul, then Saul, was born in Tarsus he grew up in Jerusalem and was tutored by Gamaliel, the biblical conservative. Jerusalem was not a big town and ethnically Jewish. The towns nearby were small and Palestine under Roman control. The roads through it were well traveled being a go-through between Egypt and what we now know as Turkey. In a place like that the word about people and events gets around. It would be near impossible for Saul not to have heard of Jesus. Even given the existence of others having claimed to be a messiah, the fact of the disturbance and large crowds that surrounded Jesus, these would certainly not be unknown to him.

With this background in mind, take into consideration Saul’s Scriptural expertise. He would be aware of the Wisdom Scripture Eccl.12:11. Had Saul heard at some point Jesus being known as the Good Shepherd or the Light of the World or even more specifically the Law’s first words “Let there be light and there was light?  And most assuredly the experience of Moses and the burning bush. Of course Daniel’s ‘Son of Man’ with legs shining as of burnished bronze (Dan.7:13f. and 10:5f.

Remember Jesus’ words in John, “The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63).” Jesus was prodding Saul with the goads of His words. It was a direct spiritual confrontation of Saul’s expertise and Saul knew he’d met His Master. This was beyond his intellect, his reasoning power, his education and experience.

But there’s more. Saul then asks, “Who are you, Lord?” Jesus repeats, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” The Jesus he had heard about, the one whom many followed. The stories of the healings, then the crucifixion and Resurrection, the conversion of local priests---yes, that Jesus. How could he have not been aware? No wonder that that Jesus speaking to him was the same.

This brings up the whole question as to how we read Scripture. Is it the literal word of God or is it just symbolism? The question is not should we take the Bible literally, symbolically, philosophically, allegorically or metaphorically like the parables. As we have already indicated, Jesus has said that His words are spiritual and alive. Therefore, are we taking Scriptures and reading them spiritually for the real life that is in them? When Jesus says we should ask, seek and knock, are we asking, seeking, knocking spiritually to find the life in the process? That means the whole of Scripture is to be taken spiritually from one end to the other, Genesis to Revelation. They are goads to move us from what we think to what God thinks, thus into the spirituality of God. God is Spirit; therefore, we have to relate to Him spiritually (John 4:24). Scripture and especially the Gospel of John, is the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of the Spirit that allows us to understand and relate to God, live to serve Him and help others to find Him. Jesus is the only bridge we have to cross over from self and the world to the God and His Kingdom. He is the ‘Cross-over.’ His Cross is our cross.

So, awakening to being healed from blindness and seeing the ‘Shepherd (Eccl.12:11)’ is exactly what happened to Saul when he saw a light blazing around him and fell to the ground. A voice came to him in the language of the Shepherd (Aramaic), ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’

If Saul in fact already knew about Jesus, think of the impact this would have had on him. Carrying off Jesus’ followers to punishment, prison and death, the guilt and the shame, the memory of his supporting Stephen’s stoning, the inner collision with living truth, spiritual reality, now the Person of Jesus Himself. Saul had actually been persecuting the long-awaited Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus! Who could bear such an inner collapse of identity, religion and self-righteous assumption and anger?

Saul experienced grace at its deepest level. He is the one who should have been crucified and died yet he was forgiven, healed and blessed with a new life, a new meaning and a new purpose. He was not only a new creation, he was a new man with a new name, Paul (little, humble) and a new mission. The basic theme in all of Paul’s writing is that those who believe in Jesus have been saved by grace through faith (Rom.3:25, Eph.2:8).

Paul gets to this point immediately when he writes his first letter to the Corinthian believers (2:6-16). There he speaks grandly of the way, work and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

But let’s not forget the goads. A goad was a spiked stick used to drive sheep. It’s meaning when applied to the words Jesus spoke are to encourage, inspire, urge because a goad was used to move sheep forward not back.

So, when we read about Paul’s vision and his thorn how do we read that spiritually? Most commentators I have read say his thorn was malaria based on his many travels and hardships. But what if you read it spiritually and the thorn was a spiritual one? Look at what Scripture says, “There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Weakness is spiritual. Grace is spiritual. Spiritual sufficiency is found in God alone. So, what is his weakness? If it came from the devil’s warehouse; it was an evil spirit. Look back at Romans 7. In his explanation of the difference between the purpose of the Law and the Spirit he says this, “Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the Law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the Law had not said, ‘Do not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire (Rom.7:7-8).” Aha! There is the devil’s messenger, the spirit of covetousness.

Don’t we see the same kind of wrestling in Jacob when he struggled with the Lord on his way to meet his brother Esau?”

As we have pointed out, Jesus said that His words are Spirit and they are life (Jn.6:63) that means what Paul discovered was his guilt. But what is guilt really but the realization that we not only have betrayed God but ourselves as well? Paul knew that he was an image of God, a likeness of God and that when he was persecuting Jesus’ followers, he was persecuting Jesus, the Messiah. But what he really discovered that in betraying God he was betraying himself as an image and likeness of God. He was a spiritual being not just a Jew or a Pharisee or an intellect or an official or however he identified himself in the world. He was betraying himself, a creation of Almighty God and being his personal God. Guilt then is really denying who we really are, an image and likeness of God. We are little ‘I am’s’.

So, when Jesus says His words are Spirit and life, He is telling us the truth about ourselves, the way we can find life and the fact that we are spiritual beings created to live spiritually. Paul’s blindness was his guilt that he didn’t realize until Jesus told him that he was kicking against the goads, the very words of God that he thought he was following but was doing it sinfully and not in the Spirit. His guilt made him angry. He was angry with himself. He couldn’t live up to the Law He was defending. So, he took it out on Jesus’ disciples, thus Jesus. He was fighting the life that he was given. His physical blindness was his spiritual blindness. When Paul received his sight back it was not just his physical sight it was his new sight, insight into who Jesus really was and who he was as a result. In the past he had become the devil’s partner in crime but thought he was doing God’s work. Now he was Paul, the new man with a new name and a new mission.

When we slam doors, kick the dog, get mad at drivers who cut us off, scream at ourselves, blame others for the things we are inside but can’t understand, go find some project to help others to feel good and look good to justify ourselves, be activists, make ourselves part of some political movement and demonstration, we are being Saul all over again. Again, we look at Paul and discover his weakness he had to face. He was a coveter, violating the Law and he couldn’t handle it, so he became an activist, part of a movement against this new way that was sweeping across his culture. He was fighting the very Spirit, the very Lord, the God he thought he was protecting as though he could protect God. He had to face himself, his spiritual being, he was guilty of misusing his being an image and likeness of God. Until we face the fact that we are images and likenesses of God we will be angry, try to compensate by doing good things without God’s inspiration and climb the ladder of success which we think is the top but is really the bottom of a pit where we end up alone. Self-abuse is really God abuse whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual.

Paul discovered the moment the Lord spoke to him it was from a spiritual source. He heard the voice, saw the light, went blind. Reading that spiritually, the Lord’s voice was clearly personal, specifically spiritual and overwhelmingly relational. “Who are you, Lord?” he asked. That’s personal. “Why do you persecute me?” That’s relational. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

That’s spiritual. Jesus added a command with a purpose, “Now get up, go into the city and you will be told what to do.” Now we can do what Paul did, face ourselves, receive His grace and be a part of His mission. The key for us who are believers? Be that new man. Don’t let the old man in!