THRICE in the course of the brief Acts of the Apostles is this most important revelation of our Lord described; as if to warn our ignorance not too swiftly to dispatch it, and not too hastily to assume its right interpretation attained. But, instead of taking this hint, the fond ignorance of too many has occupied itself with detecting contradictions in the threefold narrative, and with drawing its own foolish conclusions from those contradictions. As if St Luke did not himself best know, with his "perfect understanding of all things from the very first," that which he recorded in different parts of his book, with a designed variation. In ch. ix. he himself relates the occurrence as a historian, but obviously with the same regard to brevity of delineation, seizing only and giving prominence to the critical points, which the necessity of his work imposed upon him throughout; and, moreover, with the intention in reserve to add further particulars in due course. For, he has further to give two leading examples, in chs. xxii. and xxvi., of the manner in which the Apostle himself, never weary of the repetition, was wont to relate this experience, as the ground, again and again to be made valid, of his whole announcement from his Master. That there exists some variety in the relation and expression is perfectly natural :—is it reasonable to require that the Apostle should have everywhere given the same stereotyped account? Of the external transaction we shall speak hereafter; we confine ourselves now to a preliminary view of the words of our Lord, which, in their measured exactness, were thus word for word spoken, but the literal repetition of which St Luke appropriately leaves to the relating Apostle. Before the exasperated

Jewish people, he gives prominence, for instance, to the expression by which the Lord described Himself, and which wa peculiarly appropriate to these scorners and persecutors—I am Jesus of Nazareth! Further, He makes the command express, -"Go into Damascus," instead of "into the city." But who needs to know which of these two was actually spoken? He proceeds, "it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do,” instead of "what thou shalt do." Again afterwards before the Roman Governor, and the last so-called King of the Jews, the Apostle makes it significantly emphatic that the Lord spake in the Hebrew tongue. On the former occasion, on the stairs of the castle, the Apostle himself had spoken in the Hebrew; but now, speaking Greek, he naturally mentions this circumstance. The word concerning "kicking against the pricks" (which in the first narrative is a false reading, interpolated from ch. xxvi.), had primary reference only to the Apostle's own person and conscience; it might, therefore, be omitted, as unnecessary, when speaking to the mass of the people. But, addressed to Agrippa, pierced in conscience, perplexed, and wavering, as he was (comp. ch. xxvi. 28), it had a peculiarly appropriate force. Finally, we shall see that St Paul, in his rapid narrative, ch. xxvi. 16, connects with the Lord's last word outside Damascus a compendious statement of a subsequent appearance and commission.

After having thus, for the sake of those to whom it is necessary, paused so long at the threshold, let us now enter the sanctuary of the first word of Jesus from heaven! The first word it assuredly is. Stephen, before he fell under the stones of the murderers of the Just One, had seen heaven opened and Jesus at the right hand of God (standing, too, as if rising to greet and receive him); but His words the Lord had reserved for Saul. This, well considered, leads to some important reflections. The appeal of Jesus to His persecutor is, as the first word from heaven, so characteristically significant, and so full of symbolical meaning, that we cannot bring ourselves to think of it as other than the first. It may, indeed, be suggested that our Lord's voice had probably been heard in the answers to His people's prayers. It has been even inferred from the “familiar manner in which Ananias, as one not unaccustomed to receive communications from his Lord," makes objection to

the evil reputation of Saul, that that disciple must have spoken with Jesus before this occasion. But this is only a specious argument; the familiarity of prayer would have begotten this confidence, and we must remember the "vision," in which man approaches nearer and less reservedly to God. Suffice, that we may justly regard this as the Lord's first opening His mouth in audible words since His ascension.

1

The narrative thrice begins with "light shining round about from heaven"; in ch. xxii. it is a "great light"; and in ch. xxvi., still more emphatically, "above the brightness of the sun". If the face of Jesus shone as the sun upon the Mount of Transfiguration, must not the first beaming forth of His heavenly glory be still more dazzling? This in broad noon-day was something more than the glory which shone round the shepherds on the holy night of the Incarnation; it was a shining forth, though still bedimmed for mortal eye, of that light in which God dwelleth, and in which the God-man now dwelleth also.

But this light shines only that it may call light out of the darkness of a rebellious sinner's heart; in order to the revelation of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face, that is, in the person of Jesus Christ. And who is it that first encounters this light, with its sudden and marvellous conviction? The man who had been marked out to that end by God's good pleasure from his mother's womb, the chosen Paul! This single name sets before us the whole man, the elect instrument, the great Apostle of the Gentiles (although Samaria and the Ethiopian eunuch had already heard the Word, and Peter in the house of Cornelius will make the first evident beginning)—the mighty champion and labourer, who laboured more than they all. We cannot agree with the view-pushed to its extreme by Baumgartenwhich sets the Gentile Apostolate, thus introduced, over against the Israelite Twelve. For this we find no sure foundation in Scripture; but it was undoubtedly a great and new thing, that such a blasphemer and persecutor should be made a witness for the Lord. He was not, however, a thirteenth Apostle of a new and distinct order for the Church of the Gentiles; the Twelve were themselves sent forth into all the world, and unto all the nations; and even the New Jerusalem, Rev. xxi. 14, knows 1 In the Greek, ixavóv, an expression familiar to St Luke.

only the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb (not of Israel). But he was that other, already prophesied of in Ps. cix. 8, whom the Lord Himself—in opposition to the premature, uncommanded, and therefore invalid human choice (Gal. i. 1) of Matthiasreserved to be appointed in place of the traitor Judas. The latter was a representative and forerunner of the Jewish people, which rejected Jesus; the former was a type and first-fruit of the Jews who were to be converted, and many of whom were converted even in his missionary labours among the Gentiles. What a man, and what a position in the kingdom of God assigned to him-condescended to, and won, and prepared in so wonderful a manner! First, he receives this revelation as the representative of all the Jews of that time who, under all their disguise of enmity, were yet susceptible of grace. Then, as the witness to all men (Acts xxii. 15; Col. i. 18), who should, with that same useful human learning which in itself he knew how to despise and reject, abase the lofty ones of this world before the knowledge of God in Christ (2 Cor. x. 5); who should be a founder of systematic doctrine in the Church, so far as the Church would need such system-thus standing between the practical Peter, and the mystical, consummating John. Finally, as one whose immediate call from above should vindicate, for all futurity, the Lord's supreme right to establish new beginnings of regimen; to raise up a reforming Apostolate without succession, to be renewed at His own good pleasure when circumstances may require.

But the first point which here offers itself to our attention is this, that it is an enemy and a persecutor who receives the first condescending word from the merciful High Priest in heaven. Not only will He not cast out any that come to Him —but He Himself seeks and finds, in all ages, His lost and wandering sheep. Thus He transforms the enemy into a witness and follower, whose personality, beyond that of any other, sets before us the idea and the reality of the discipleship of Christ (1 Cor. xi. 1). Millions have felt and are feeling that, especially through the life of this Paul, so copiously unfolded in Scripture, life in Christ and Christ Himself are most blessedly and mightily brought home to them. The Lord prepared him for Himself and His purposes, out of a Saul 'breathing out threatenings and slaughters against His saints!' Thus

His first personal speaking manifestation gives us. a pledge of that ruling in which the King's sharp arrows pierce the hearts of His enemies (as the original of Ps. xlv. runs), and in which He takes the strong for His own prey. And it is a warning against that premature judgment of unbelievers and the condemned, into which our harshness or our despondency may mislead us. There were many Judases in Israel; but only upon one did Jesus pronounce the definitive sentence. So there were many Sauls converted, although their conversion has not been revealed to us. The Lord reminds us here of Thomas, but a greater than Thomas is here. It is thus that the great Apostle understands the significance of his own person and life, when he says at the end, "Therefore I obtained mercy, that in me first of all, Jesus Christ might shew forth all patience, for an example to those who should believe on Him unto eternal life;" 1 Tim. i. 16.

66

But when we refer the words to our Lord Himself, something much higher and deeper than anything we have yet said rises out of them. He has testified from heaven the identity of His glorified person with the "Jesus of Nazareth," just as the risen Lord had testified on earth, "It is I myself!" But that is the lesser testimony; and before He utters the exalted "I am Jesus", He has said, "Why persecutest thou Me"? that is, "Me in my followers, in my Church". Thus does He, even in His glory, identify Himself with His persecuted Church, with His scorned and outraged brethren; sitting already upon the throne as King, He as it were repeats, confirms, enlarges, and consummates the word spoken in His final prophecy of the judgment, concerning what is done to His brethren, Matt. xxv. 40-45; sealing, even for His saints in persecution, the close of His great prayer, which He uttered while yet in the flesh—“I in them"! John xvii. 26. That is the first word from heaven ; and it is itself like a flash of lightning into the midst of the world's sin and confusion, dividing asunder, in the most effectual manner, the persecutor and the persecuted.

Suddenly-so we read in two accounts. Here falls the corner-stone from heaven into the persecutor's path, but crushes him not. Saul is struck and held back in the mad course of his zeal. Armed with the authority of the high council, he would push the persecution of the Christians, already begun, into