Acts 9:1-31 - Homiletics

The Ethiopian changes his skin.

Of all the remarkable events in the history of human psychology, probably the most remarkable is the conversion of St. Paul, the memory of which is continually celebrated in the Church on the 25th of January. It may be viewed—

I. AS AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY . St. Paul lived. He preached the gospel with astonishing vigor and success. Numerous Churches were founded by him in Asia and Europe. These are facts as certain as facts can be. He wrote Epistles also to different communities of Christians, and these writings are extant at the present day. By these writings we can form an accurate judgment of St. Paul's intellectual faculties, of the force of his character, of the extent of his knowledge. By these writings we can form an estimate of his moral qualities. We can judge for ourselves whether, on the one hand, he was a fanatic, an impostor, or a knave; and, on the other, whether he was one of the noblest, sincerest, and most high-minded men with whom we have ever come in contact. These writings, besides exhibiting an unquenchable zeal for the Christian faith, lasting through years of toil and suffering, tell us also distinctly, though incidentally, of a time when the writer was as vehemently opposed to the Christian faith as he afterwards became attached to it. They contain, too, clear evidences of that education in the Jews' religion, and that impregnation with Jewish doctrine and tradition, which were likely to have had the same influence upon his mind which the same causes had upon the minds of so many of his ablest and most learned fellow-countrymen. They also display those qualities of disinterestedness, courage, and decision, which make it to the highest degree improbable that he should have changed his mind lightly or without conviction or due cause for doing so. But he did change from a vehement and fierce persecutor to a preacher of unrivalled zeal and power, and a daily martyr of unsurpassed patience and constancy. But these same Epistles also tell us, still incidentally but also still distinctly, the cause of this change. It was nothing less than the visible appearing and the audible voice of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, of him whom he knew to have been crucified, but whom he now saw and heard in his effulgent glory, living and potent in ineffable majesty. It was that sight, too bright for mortal eyes, and that voice of exquisite tenderness in its complaint, which had in an instant overborne his unbelief and melted his obdurate heart, even as his body was swayed in terror to the ground. Did St. Paul know, or did he not know, the cause of his conversion? Did he invent a lie, or did he speak the truth, when he wove this history, or allusions to it, into his Epistles to the Galatians, the Corinthians, the Philippians, and Timothy? But even if it were possible to doubt the man whom we know as we know St. Paul, we have his account corroborated and developed by a contemporary writer of unimpeached and unimpeachable accuracy and truth. He gives us in this chapter his own account of this wonderful conversion, and he reports to us two several accounts of it given by St. Paul himself—when on his defense before the people at Jerusalem, and again when on his trial before King Agrippa at Caesarea. Did St. Luke write a lie when he reported these utterances of his noble and saintly friend? or did he speak the truth which he had such abundant opportunities of accurately knowing? There is no fact in history more certain than St. Paul's conversion, and there is no more unanswerable evidence of the truth of Christ's gospel than this same conversion grounded upon the revelation in the way to Damascus.

II. WE MAY SEE IN ST . PAUL 'S CONVERSION VIVIDLY PORTRAYED THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH . What was it which arrested the persecutor in his furious course, which turned back the whole current of his thoughts, which wrought in him that noble inconsistency, that holy apostasy from his previous convictions, which have placed him at the head of Christian teachers and confessors? It was the clear knowledge conveyed to him by his own senses of sight and hearing that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was risen, was alive, was glorified. He knew that he had been tried at the bar of Pilate, condemned, crucified, buried. He had thought that sentence a just one. He had thought that that life, closed in ignominy and shame, was closed for ever, and that his own Jews' religion had thereby triumphed and been confirmed. Now he knew that God had reversed that sentence, and had raised Jesus from the dead, and declared him in so doing to be his own eternal Son, both Lord and Christ. His previous convictions were thus refuted by the fact of the life and glory and Godhead of the Lord Jesus. The truth of the mission of Jesus Christ was thus in an instant established by irrefragable proof. Henceforth Jesus Christ was his Lord, his Guide, his Teacher, his Master, his almighty Savior. Henceforth his own body and soul, his life, and all his powers, his whole capacity of doing and suffering, were Christ's, wholly and only Christ's. Here then we see, as in a glass, what our own religion must be. It must consist in a full assurance of faith that Jesus Christ is risen and lives for ever in the power of his Godhead, and in the consecration of ourselves to his service in the power of a personal love, devotion, and attachment—those of a person to a Person—to last while life lasts, and to be perfected in the life

III. CONVERSION OF ST . PAUL GIVES US ALSO A VIVID PORTRAITURE OF THE MIND AND CHARACTER OF GOD , AS THEY SHINE IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST . This is St. Paul's own view of it: "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting" ( 1 Timothy 1:16 ). We have here a pattern of the infinite, eternal mercy of God. The threatening and slaughter of the persecutor are met and overcome by love. The ignorance and unbelief which caused the blasphemies and injuries are taken note of, and these are weighed in the scales of mercy and are forgiven. The electing grace, the predestinating love, brushes aside these obstacles, and the blaspheming tongue is made eloquent with adoration and praise, and the breath which was once all threatening and slaughter now breathes nothing but the word of peace and salvation. Such is the mercy and wondrous grace of God our Savior.

IV. WE HAVE HERE A STUDY IN PSYCHOLOGY . Ignorance may be real. Prejudices, blinding prejudices, may be real, and unbelief may have some excuse, or at least some palliation. It is not, indeed, blameless—it never can be, because the single eye of a pure heart ought always to discern the true light from Heaven wheresoever it shines. Still, it may be that, with real conscientiousness, and under a mistaken view of duty, and with a blinding devotion to certain tenets of philosophy or religion which have been received without due care, and concurrently with a zeal for God and for supposed truth, a man may reject and even hate the truth. He may mistake his own opinions for Divine truth, and so be bitterly opposed to whatever opposes them. And he may misconceive of the truth and ignorantly believe that it sanctions this or that error inconsistent with the fundamental principles of righteousness and godliness. Had St. Paul from the first really known Jesus Christ, and had he known the worthlessness of Levitical or Pharisaic righteousness, he would never have been found in the ranks of the enemies of Christ. But he acted in ignorance and in unbelief. When the scales fell off the eyes of his understanding, the rebound of his spirit toward his Lord was instantaneous. From this we learn a lesson of caution in judging even the unbeliever. There may be some cause of his unbelief which we know not of, but which God knows, and will perhaps some day remove. Then the skeptic will come with a bruised and humble spirit to Christ, and the Ethiopian will change his skin.