A failure, and the mercy that met it
Saul the Persecutor, Made an Apostle
Saul of Tarsus was on his way to arrest Christians when the risen Christ struck him blind on the road to Damascus. The man who had hunted the church became its greatest missionary, and he never got over the mercy that made him.
“But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:”Acts 9:15
The failure or loss
The failure or loss. Saul was not a passive opponent but a violent one. He had stood consenting to the stoning of Stephen, keeping the coats of those who killed him (Acts 7:58; 8:1). Then "Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," went to the high priest for letters authorizing arrests, "that if he found any of this way... he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem" (Acts 9:1-2). He "made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison" (Acts 8:3). By his own later confession he was "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious" (1 Timothy 1:13), and he called himself "the chief" of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). He believed he was serving God while imprisoning and helping to kill the people of God. This was no small sin softened by ignorance into innocence; it was real harm to real families, and Paul never treated it lightly. To the end he called himself the least of the apostles, "because I persecuted the church of God" (1 Corinthians 15:9). The loss he had caused was written into his memory forever.
The second chance
The second chance. On the Damascus road a light from heaven flashed, and Saul fell to the ground and heard, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?... I am Jesus whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9:4-5). Blinded, he was led into the city, and the Lord sent a reluctant disciple named Ananias to him, saying, "he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel" (Acts 9:15). Scales fell from Saul's eyes, he was baptized, and "straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20). The persecutor became the preacher. God did not merely forgive Saul and set him aside; he commissioned him as the apostle to the Gentiles, entrusting the man who had jailed Christians with carrying the gospel across the known world. The very zeal he had spent tearing down the church was turned to building it. Saul the hunter became Paul, whose letters would fill much of the New Testament and shape the faith for all time.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. Paul understood his own conversion as a living exhibit of grace: "for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting" (1 Timothy 1:16). If Christ could save the chief of sinners, no one is beyond his reach. The words "why persecutest thou me" reveal how united Christ is to his people; to wound them is to wound him, and yet he came in mercy to the one who wounded them. This is the heart of the gospel Paul would preach, that God "commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The bruised reed he does not break (Matthew 12:20), and the raging persecutor he does not destroy but transforms. In Christ the worst enemy of the church can become its servant, made new, given a new name and a new life (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Questions people ask
Why does Jesus say "why persecutest thou me" when Saul was arresting Christians?
Christ so identifies with his people that their suffering is his own. In persecuting the church, Saul was persecuting the Lord himself. The words reveal both the union of Christ with believers and the mercy of a Savior who came in love to the very man harming them.
Did Paul ever excuse or forget his past?
No. He repeatedly called himself the chief of sinners, a blasphemer and persecutor, and the least of the apostles because he had persecuted the church. He carried the memory not as despair but as a testimony to the greatness of the grace that had saved him.
What does Paul's conversion teach about God's mercy?
Paul saw himself as a pattern, proof that if Christ could save the chief of sinners, he can save anyone who believes. His story assures every person who feels too guilty or too far gone that no one is beyond the reach of God's longsuffering mercy.