Acts 9:20-32
Paul immediately became a part of the body of disciples and believers in Damascus. He did not wait to begin to preach the gospel, and he did so at the very synagogues where he had originally intended to arrest Christian believers.
He preached boldly that Jesus was the Messiah and Savior, as well as the Son of God. This was the first time in Acts that the phrase “Son of God” was used to describe the Lord.
He used the Old Testament to make his preaching points, as well as preaching the fact that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Romans 1:4 certifies this factor.
Those in the synagogues were astonished that this one who had so strongly persecuted those in “the way” now brought his zeal to preaching that same message they believed. Now Paul was worshiping the One he had hated.
Paul was filled with more and more supernatural power, and he confounded the Jews living in Damascus, proving from scripture that this Jesus was indeed the Christ, the anointed One.
Many were upset by his preaching and his scripture proofs from the Old Covenant angered them even more, exactly as the preaching of Stephen had done in Jerusalem.
Believers were encouraged and were strengthened by what they saw and heard, and they realized they were seeing proof of the power of the gospel.
The unbelieving Jews now began a plot to kill Paul.
Paul later told the Galatians that he had left Damascus and went to Arabia.
The death plot became known to him and the Jews were watching the gates to capture him and put him to death. The believers put Paul into a woven basket and let him down over the city walls so he would not have to leave through the city gates.
Paul went south to Jerusalem and tried to join in with the disciples there who feared him and wanted nothing to do with him, for his reputation was known to them.
They were justifiably extra cautious.
It was hard to believe that the one who was most furious was now a follower of Christ. In time, they did learn that the gospel has the power to save even the worst enemies of the Lord.
Barnabus was sympathetic toward Paul, living up to the literal meaning of his name, which was “son of encouragement”. He investigated Paul and the change in him, and came to feel Paul was truly converted and, therefore, brought Paul to the apostles and vouched for Paul.
Galatians 1:18-24 tells us that Paul stayed only 15 days on this visit.
Barnabus explained how Paul had seen the risen Lord and how he was now speaking freely and boldly in the name of Jesus in Damascus.
When the believers in Jerusalem found out about the plan to kill Paul by the Jews, they took him to Ceasarea and then sent him onward to Tarsus.
Acts 22:17-21 teaches us that Jesus himself appeared to Paul and told him to leave the area. His move to Tarsus allowed him to move and preach openly, as it was his original home city.
Acts makes no further mention of Paul until 11:30 and Luke began a sequence of writings to explain the movement of the gospel directly to Gentiles, with Peter called by the Lord to preach and witness to the Roman centurion Cornelius, who was converted and was actually seen by Peter to receive the same Holy Spirit that had been gifted to the disciples at Pentecost.
Short of death, Paul likely suffered more for Christ than any other messenger.
His suffering was painfully physical for many years but those sufferings never deterred or delayed Paul from the duties given him by Christ.
Several ancient writers were forcefully writing of his work.
Jerome wrote: “He is the vessel of election, the trumpet of the gospel, the roaring of our lion, the thunder of our nations, the river of Christian eloquence.”
Eusebius wrote: “Paul was the athlete of Christ, taught by Him, anointed by Him, crucified in spirit with Him, glorious in him, a man who lawfully maintains a great conflict in the theater of his world in which he became a spectacle for angels and man. Him, I say, we joyfully behold with the eyes of faith as he presses onward to the prize of his high calling.”
Paul’s work brought to all believers of his time, and to all Christians since. a profoundly new understanding of man’s relationship with God and God’s will implemented among His creation through mankind.
Paul’s experience of the resurrected Jesus led him to reframe the message of God’s reign as the Lordship of Christ, God’s Son and Messiah, and of the life of the believer IN HIM!
According to Paul, the Gospel is an account of the planned and executed intervention of God into the history of Israel, and further to the Gentiles, in order to set right the ways of the world gone wrong.
God’s gift of His own Son demonstrates for Paul that God is both faithful to the covenant and righteous, finding a way to deal with the matter of human rebellion and sin (Romans 3:21-26), even when we were enemies of God (Romans 5:6-10).
In Paul’s eyes, this work of God was amazing grace and amazing love.
In terms of Paul’s teaching on Christ’s death on the cross, Paul taught that:
“In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself.” (2nd Cor 5:9)
“His death was God’s act of love.” (Romans 5:8)
“God did not withhold His own Son, but gave Him up for all of us.” (Romans 8:32)
“God put Christ forward as a sacrifice of atonement by His blood.” (Romans 3:25)
Paul’s work can be summarized as the fact that the believer actually participates in Christ’s death and rising, and thereby are:
Justified, or restored, to a right covenant relation with God and others.
Incorporated into a particular manifestation of Christ’s body on earth, which is the true church.
Infused both individually and together by the Spirit of God’s Son, gifted to all who believe in faith, so that they may lead lives focused upon His first coming, and look ahead to His second coming based upon:
Cross shaped faith
Hope toward God
Love toward both neighbors and enemies
Paul taught that this event was the conclusion of the human story of Jesus, a life story of self-emptying, self-giving obedience, and of self-giving love. Paul viewed the work of Christ as utter abandonment of self in service to God, called in the Greek word “kenosis”, which is the noun form of “to empty”.
For Paul, the cross is an act of God’s love, being God’s loving sacrificial gift and Christ’s sacrificial loving obedience, all planned from the foundation of the world.
Paul was certainly the foremost teacher of the subject of justification by faith. It is on this teaching that almost all Bible preachers and teachers have rested in the 2,000 years since Paul.
Paul’s most powerful teaching is that God’s grace means that those who have become His through this gift are restored to Him and will be eternally spared, from conversion onward, from His coming wrath. (Romans 5:1-11 & 8:1)
Paul clearly believed that all believers will be transformed from a mortal existence into one of immortality. This transformation will occur at the time of the removing from the earth both the dead in Christ and those still living in Christ, which is known as The Rapture, a preview of the second coming.
“Listen, and I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” (1st Cor 15 & 1st Thess 4)
Paul says that the person who says “YES” to the Gospel, and is justified into co-crucifixion with Christ in the experience of faith and baptism, makes a spiritual move from being outside Christ, and the covenant peoples of God. to being inside Christ and God’s people.
To be in Christ is to have Christ within.
“It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20)
Justification and participation in the life of Jesus Christ are to Paul the opposite sides of the same coin, the coin of relationship to God in Christ and the believer.
