When God spoke, and a person answered
God and Saul of Tarsus
On the road to Damascus, a man breathing threats against the church is stopped by a light and a voice from heaven. This conversation is the hinge of the whole cluster, for here the God who speaks names Himself plainly: I am Jesus.
“And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”Acts 9:4
The conversation
The conversation. Saul, "yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," is nearing Damascus with letters to arrest believers. Suddenly "there shined round about him a light from heaven," and he falls to the earth and hears a voice: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" He asks, "Who art thou, Lord?" And the answer changes everything: "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Trembling and astonished, Saul says, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" He is told to rise and go into the city, where it will be shown him what he must do. He gets up blind and is led by the hand into Damascus, three days without sight, eating and drinking nothing. Meanwhile the Lord speaks in a vision to a disciple named Ananias, who is afraid of Saul, and tells him, "he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." Ananias goes, lays hands on him, "and immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales," and Saul is filled with the Holy Ghost and baptized.
What God was doing
What God was doing. God was arresting a persecutor at the height of his rage, not waiting for Saul to seek Him but seeking Saul on the road to do his worst. He was revealing a stunning union; "why persecutest thou me," for to strike the church is to strike Christ Himself, so bound is the Lord to His people. He was converting an enemy into an apostle, choosing the least likely man, a Pharisee zealous against the gospel, to carry that gospel to the nations. He was humbling Saul to raise him, blinding the man who thought he saw so clearly, that he might truly see. And He was working through the trembling obedience of Ananias, showing that even the mightiest conversion is folded into the ordinary courage of a fearful disciple. This reveals a God who pursues His enemies with saving love, who identifies fully with His suffering people, and who can turn the fiercest opponent into the boldest servant.
How it leads to Christ
How it leads to Christ. Here every earlier conversation comes to its point. The voice that spoke to Adam, Moses, Isaiah, and Jonah now says outright, "I am Jesus." The One walking in the garden, calling from the bush, enthroned in Isaiah's temple, is the risen Christ, and now He says His own name from heaven. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son" (Heb 1:1-2); the whole long conversation of God with humanity resolves in the living voice of Jesus. The Word who "was made flesh" (John 1:14), crucified and risen, is not silent behind history but speaks, and He is so joined to His people that to touch them is to touch Him. To hear God now is to hear this voice: I am Jesus.
Questions people ask
Who was speaking to Saul from heaven?
The risen Jesus, explicitly. When Saul asked, "Who art thou, Lord?" the answer was, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." This is the clearest statement in the cluster that the God who speaks from heaven is Christ Himself.
Why did Jesus say "why persecutest thou me" when Saul was persecuting the church?
Because Christ is so united to His people that harming them is harming Him. It reveals the deep bond between Jesus and believers, a truth Paul would later teach when he called the church the body of Christ.
How does Saul's conversion tie together the other conversations of God?
Throughout the Bible God spoke to people while His full identity stayed veiled. On the Damascus road the voice from heaven names itself, "I am Jesus," showing that the speaking God of every earlier conversation is the risen Christ, in whom God has now spoken finally.