Acts 9: Intro - The Radical Salvation of Paul

As we consider the radical salvation of Paul, we must begin with the understanding that Paul is the 2nd abortionist of the New Testament. His sole purpose before his radical salvation was to kill the Christian church in its infancy before it could become fully formed and birthed.

The 1st abortionist of the New Testament was King Herod, who ordered the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem with the same intent.

What better displays God’s glory to man than the choices God makes to implement His will in His creation? In this study we will consider this thought as revealed in His choosing when He spoke two words as revealed in His choice of Paul, which are “… chosen vessel …”.

John’s gospel sets our stage as Jesus says in John 15:16:

“You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.”

This matter of choosing harkens us all the way back to Deuteronomy 7 where God told the Hebrews that He had chosen and redeemed them before He required their obedience.

We must consider divine choosing before we consider the radical salvation of Paul.

An interesting component of this radical salvation moment, a most powerful and almost violent moment, is how the event bears witness to the Christian concept of free will.

We are taught consistently by our Baptist preachers that we are created as free moral agents and our free will is a crucial part of both our creation and our spiritual walk. We are well advised by holy scripture that the free will of Paul at the time of his conversion was to do all in his power to gather believers and to harm them by physical punishment, even unto death.

There is no scripture which leads us to know Paul ever considered Jesus Christ as his personal savior before the trip along the Damascus road. We have no scripture that allows us to know that Paul ever entertained such thoughts.

We find strikingly similar episodes with other patriarchs.

We have no scripture that Abram, who was raised in a land and family of pagan idol worship had ever once sought Yahweh. (Joshua 24:2)

Abram gave us no scripture that he was unhappy in the worship of false gods and his complete free will was in doing so until Yahweh chose him and spoke to him that he should leave his land and kindred and go to a land God would later show him. He obeyed.

Scripture is clear that he was not chosen because he believed or with his own free will chose the true and living God. Abram believed because he was chosen. He was not chosen because he believed. (chosen in Genesis 12/believed in Genesis 15)

Moses by scripture showed no unhappiness living in the Midian desert tending the flocks of Jethro, marrying Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro. He remained there 40 years and used his free will to stay there and continue that life.

A burning bush gave Moses a new command for his life and his free will choice of being a shepherd instantly became secondary to the will of God, who chose him.

Job was introduced to us by God as the greatest man in the east, displaying a sincere life of sacrifice to God, even extra sacrificing for his ten children. He was wealthy and even Satan was aware of his status as protected by God.

We have no scripture that teaches us that his free will included poverty, disease, or the terrible loss of all ten of his children. Not one verse tells us that he chose those things of his own free will.

God’s will for this man by turning over Job’s entire existence to the evil one  instantly overcame Job’s will, and Job’s will was no longer free for the last 40 chapters of his book.

Job’s free will devotion became secondary to the contest of Satan’s will versus the will of God. 

His free will efforts became subordinate to Satan’s allowance from the Lord to kill all of Job’s children, and to destroy his wealth and his health in spiritual warfare to test the faith of Job. 

While Job passed the test and never cursed God, he also was never told why he had been so cruelly cursed. During all these matters, Job still professed his faith that he himself would one day see his redeemer, but his will was forever changed. Job 42:11 reveals who wrought the evil upon Job and it was not Satan, who disappeared after chapter two.

The point of this consideration of radical salvation is that we are all created by God as free moral agents and we can live in our own free will until we cannot.

It is the sovereign will of God that rules our lives and has since the first man was created. His disobedience made us all sinners and God promised in Genesis 3:15 that a redeemer would arrive and He did in Jesus Christ, incarnated not in human flesh but in the likeness of it (Romans 8:3), thereby inheriting no original sin.

God further showed us in Revelation 13:8 that this redeemer was slain from the foundation of the world. The plan of God’s will to rule all things was arranged from the beginning of all things.

We are free of will until we are not by God’s command.

What was Paul’s free will leading him to do before the great light appeared? How free was his will from that moment onward? From the moment of the light, Paul’s will reflected God’s will only and his will became secondary to God’s will until his martyrdom.

We end this portion of our study by reminding ourselves that no man has ever and no man will ever be able to choose heaven of his own free will.

Our created free will allows us on our own to choose hell if we wish, but only God chooses us for heaven.

John 6:44 is very clear on this matter:

“No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him …”

The first step of eternal salvation is not ours. It is His.

Did Paul seek the Lord or did the Lord seek him? Acts 9:15 is our answer and Jesus makes very clear that the choosing was His decision and did not belong to Paul, as Jesus says Paul is “… a chosen vessel…”

Our final scriptural proof of the proper understanding of the priority of the will of God over the will of man is given us in John 1:13 which reveals how we become sons of God:

“… which were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.”

Let us now discuss Paul.

Paul created about ¼ of the New Testament plus another 1/12 of its pages when his life is discussed in Acts.

He was born between 1 & 5 A.D. into an Israelite family descended from the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5), and we know he had at least one sister (Acts 23:16).

His birth in the city of Tarsus in Cilicia gave him both Israeli and Roman citizenship, as Rome had designated Tarsus as a “free city” (Acts 22”25).

He studied in Jerusalem at the school of Rabbis under the teacher Gamiliel, and his study there led him to become a Pharisee (Acts 23:6). The wisdom of Gamiliel is displayed for us in Acts 5.

He claimed himself to be a “Hebrew among Hebrews”, (Phil 3), showing his standing among the Jews, later bragging he was a “Pharisee and a son of a Pharisee”. (Acts 23:6)

He participates in the early persecution of those “in the way” which was the early name for believers in Christ (Acts 7), and he was present at the stoning of Stephen and consented to it.

He bragged of persecuting, capturing, binding, and delivering believers, both men and women, unto death. (Acts 22:4)

He was holding written documents of indictment from the high priest against all believers he may encounter when he went on the road to Damascus. He intended to seek and capture any who may have faith in Jesus Christ, and to assure their punishment for abandoning the Jewish faith, considering any believer to be a spiritual rebel deserving death.

His salvation by Jesus was a majestic move of genius. 

No man could out Pharisee Paul, and his education prepared him to be able to answer all Jews as to their disdain of Christ and what Christ meant as the Messiah sent by God to the Jewish people.

There was likely no better choice by the Lord to take the mantle of Apostle to the Gentiles and defender of the Christian faith against the constant Judiazers.

We are now ready to consider his radical salvation.