Acts 22:3 - Meaning and Application

Paul gives this account of himself to show two things. First, he was not the Egyptian the Roman officer had mistaken him for. Second, he was not the enemy of the Jewish people, their law, or their temple, as they supposed. He also wanted them to see that his preaching of Christ, especially to the Gentiles, came from a divine commission, a direct calling from God.

He begins by explaining his background and education. He was a Jew by birth, from the stock of Israel and the seed of Abraham, a Hebrew among Hebrews. He was not from some unknown family, nor was he an outsider who had turned against his own people. In other words, he was truly one of them, and they should not treat him like a foreigner or a beast.

Paul was also born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, and he was a free citizen there from birth. He was not born into slavery, as some Jews of the Dispersion likely were. This was not a great thing to boast about, but it mattered at that moment, because people were looking down on him and treating him as if he were worthless, like the sons of fools and base men (Job 30:8).

He also had a learned education. He was brought up in Jerusalem, the main center of Jewish learning, and studied at the feet of Gamaliel, a well-known teacher of the Jewish law. That meant he could not be accused of ignoring the law because he did not understand it. His parents had brought him to Jerusalem when he was young, intending him for the life of a Pharisee. Some think the phrase at the feet of Gamaliel means he was not just a student, but one who attended carefully and faithfully, eager to learn from him.

In his early life, Paul was deeply devoted to the Jewish religion. His studies and his whole training were aimed in that direction. He was not raised with any dislike for Jewish customs. In fact, no young man among them was more devoted to those things, stricter in obeying them, or more eager to press them on others.

He was also an intelligent follower of that religion, with a clear mind. He had learned according to the exact manner of the law of the fathers, meaning the traditions handed down through earlier generations. Any change he later made was not because he misunderstood the law. He understood it very well, with great precision. He had not been trained among loose thinkers. He belonged to the strictest group, and he valued old traditions and the authority of the church as highly as anyone could.

He was also a zealous follower, with a warm and active heart. He says, “I was zealous toward God, as you all are today.” Many people know religion well in theory but leave practice to others. Paul was not like that. He was eager against everything the law forbade and for everything it required, because he truly thought he was serving God’s honor and interests. He speaks kindly to his hearers here, saying they too were zealous for God, though their zeal was not based on true knowledge (Romans 10:2). Even while they were acting wrongly against him, they were still saying, “Let the Lord be glorified” (Isaiah 66:5). That did not excuse their rage, but it did show that they were acting in ignorance, which makes room for prayer for forgiveness.

Paul then turns to his former life as a violent persecutor of the Christian faith, as in Acts 22:4-5. He mentions this to make it clear that his conversion was the work of God alone. He had no natural leaning toward Christianity, no friendly thoughts about it, and no quiet interest in it. Right before the change came, he hated it deeply and was filled with rage against it. He may also be reminding them that, however unjust their treatment of him was, God was still righteous in allowing it, since there was a time when Paul himself was a persecutor. And he may be hoping to encourage them to repent, because he had once been a blasphemer and persecutor, and yet he received mercy.

Paul says he persecuted “this way unto the death,” meaning he tried, if possible, to bring death on those who followed Christ. He breathed out threats and murder against them (Acts 9:1), and when believers were put to death, he cast his vote against them (Acts 26:10). He was not only against the people who followed this way, but against the way itself, the Christian faith, which was dismissed as a mere sect. He wanted to wipe it out completely. He even would have been willing to die himself in opposition to Christianity, if that had served the defense of the laws and traditions of his fathers.

He also did all he could to frighten people away from this way by arresting and imprisoning both men and women. He filled the prisons with Christians.

Now that Paul himself was bound, he puts special weight on this part of his own guilt, that he had bound Christians and carried them to prison. He also looks back on it with deep regret that he had imprisoned not only men, but women too, the weaker sex, who should be treated with special tenderness and mercy.

He says that the great Sanhedrin, the high priest, and the whole body of elders used him as their agent in crushing this new group of believers. By that time he had already made himself known for his fierce zeal against them (Acts 22:5). The high priest could testify that Paul was ready to serve in any work against Christians. When they heard that many Jews in Damascus had accepted the Christian faith, they decided to act with the harshest severity, to scare others from doing the same.

So they could think of no better man for the task than Paul. They sent him with letters to the Jews at Damascus, here called the brothers, because they shared one family line and, in a sense, one religious family as well. The letters told them to help Paul seize anyone among them who had become a Christian, and to bring those prisoners to Jerusalem so they could be punished as people who had deserted the faith and worship of the God of Israel. The hope was to force them to take back their faith, or else put them to death as a warning to others.

In this way Saul was making a wreck of the church, and if he had gone on much longer, he might have destroyed it altogether. Paul is saying, in effect, “I was once exactly what you are now. I know the heart of a persecutor, so I pity you, and I pray that you may come to know the heart of a convert, as God soon made me do. And who was I to resist God?”

He then explains how he was converted and made what he now was. It was not because of anything natural or outward. He did not change his religion because he loved novelty, since he was then as devoted to old traditions as ever. It was not because he was disappointed in his hopes of advancement, for he was then, more than ever, in the path of promotion in the Jewish church. It was much less because of greed, ambition, or any hope of bettering his life in the world by becoming a Christian, since that choice brought disgrace and suffering. Nor had he talked with the apostles or any other Christians, so no one could say he had been talked into it by clever argument or pressure.

No, this was the Lord’s doing. The way it happened was enough to defend him, if a person believes in supernatural power. No one can fairly condemn him for it without also calling God’s own power into question. He tells the story in detail here, as he did before (chapter 9), to show that it was entirely God’s work.

Just before Christ stopped him, he was fully committed to persecuting Christians. He was on his way and had almost reached Damascus (Acts 22:6). He had no thought except to carry out the cruel mission he had been sent to do. He did not feel even the smallest pity for those poor Christians, but still thought of them as false teachers, rebels, and dangerous enemies of both church and state.

Then a light from heaven first startled him, a great light that flashed suddenly around him. The Jews knew that God is light, and that his angels are angels of light. A light like this, shining at noon and brighter than the sun, had to come from God. If it had appeared in some private room, people might have suspected trickery. But it shone on him in the open road, in broad daylight, and with such force that it threw him to the ground (Acts 22:7), along with those who were with him (Acts 26:14). They could not deny that the Lord was surely in that light.

Then a voice from heaven first turned his thoughts toward Jesus Christ, when before he had only hateful, hostile thoughts about him. The voice called him by name, to set him apart from the others on the road: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” When he asked, “Who are you, Lord?” the answer came, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 22:8). This showed that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they were then attacking, was speaking from heaven. They knew it was dangerous to resist one who spoke from there (Hebrews 12:25).

Paul also answers the possible objection, “How did this light and voice change him, but not the others who were with him?” Though it is very likely the event did affect them too, and that some of them later became Christians, he says that his companions did see the light and were afraid that fire from heaven might destroy them. Their own consciences may have been warning them that they were on a bad path, like Balaam when he was going to curse Israel. They may have expected to meet an angel with a flaming sword. But while the light frightened them, they did not hear the voice that spoke to Paul, meaning they did not clearly understand the words.

Faith comes by hearing, and so that change was worked in Paul at once, because he heard the words and knew they were directed to him. That was not the case for those who only saw the light. Still, it may be that the same grace later worked in them as well.

He also says that, when he was startled, he gave himself fully to divine guidance. He did not at once say, “I will be a Christian.” Instead, he said, “What shall I do, Lord?” He asked the same voice from heaven that had stopped him on the wrong road to guide him into the right one (Acts 22:10). “Lord,” he meant, “tell me what I should do, and I will do it.”

At once he was told to go to Damascus, where he would hear more from the One who was speaking to him. Heaven did not need to say more. There, through a man like himself, he would be told in the Lord’s name all that he was appointed to do. The special ways of revelation, through visions, voices, and angels, were meant in both the Old Testament and the New to begin and confirm the regular way of Scripture and a settled ministry. Once those were established, the extraordinary ways were usually set aside. The angel did not preach to Cornelius himself, but told him to send for Peter. In the same way, the voice here does not tell Paul everything, but tells him to go to Damascus, where it will be explained.

As proof of how powerful that light was, Paul tells them what it did to his eyesight (Acts 22:11): “I could not see because of the glory of that light.” For the time being, it struck him blind. Its brightness overwhelmed his sight.

People who are condemned in sin are struck blind by the power of darkness, as happened to the people of Sodom and to the Egyptians. That blindness lasts, like the blindness of unbelieving Jews. But convinced sinners are struck blind, as Paul was here, not by darkness but by light. For a time, they are brought to a place where they cannot make sense of themselves, but this is so they may be brought into light later. It is like the clay placed on the blind man’s eyes, which was the very means of his healing.

The men with Paul did not have the light shining directly into their faces as Paul did, so they were not blinded like he was. Yet, looking at how things turned out, who would not have chosen Paul’s lot over theirs? They could still see, and they led Paul by the hand into the city. Paul, as a Pharisee, had been proud of his own spiritual sight. The Pharisees once said, “Are we blind too?” (John 9:40). They were sure they themselves were guides for the blind and lights for those in darkness (Romans 2:19). Now Paul was struck with bodily blindness to make him feel his spiritual blindness, and to correct his mistake about himself when he thought he was alive without the law (Romans 7:9).

IV. How Paul was confirmed in the change he had made, and further directed about what he should do, by Ananias, who lived in Damascus. Notice, first, the character given here of Ananias. He was not at all against the Jewish nation or religion, but was himself a devout man according to the law. If he was not born a Jew, he had become a Jewish convert, and so was called devout. From there he had gone on to faith in Christ. He behaved so well that all the Jews who lived in Damascus spoke well of him. This was the first Christian Paul had friendly contact with, and it was not likely that Ananias would put into Paul any ideas that would harm the law or this holy place.

Second, notice the healing he immediately brought to Paul’s eyes. This miracle was meant to confirm Ananias’s mission to Paul and make all that he would later say more certain. He came to him (Acts 22:13), and to assure Paul that he came from Christ, the same one who had struck him and would heal him, who had wounded but would bind him up, who had taken away his sight but would restore it with help, Ananias stood beside him and said, “Brother Saul, receive your sight.” Power went with that word. At once, Paul got his sight back and looked up at him, ready to receive the instructions sent through him.

Third, notice the message Ananias gave him about the special favor the Lord Jesus intended for him above others. In the present showing of himself to Paul, he said, “The God of our fathers has chosen you” (Acts 22:14). This powerful call came from a special choice. By calling God the God of our fathers, Ananias shows that he himself was a Jew by birth, one who kept the law of the fathers and lived on the promise made to the fathers. He also gives the reason he called Paul “Brother Saul.” This God of our fathers had chosen Paul for this purpose: first, that he should know God’s will, both the will of God’s command, what Paul must do, and the will of God’s providence, what would happen to him. God chose him to know this in a special way, not from man or through man, but directly by Christ’s revelation (Galatians 1:1, Galatians 1:12). Those God chooses, he chooses so they may know his will and do it.

He also chose Paul so that he should see that Just One and hear the voice from his mouth, and so know God’s will straight from him. This was a special honor given to Paul above others, that he should see Christ on earth after Christ had gone up into heaven. Stephen saw him standing at the right hand of God, but Paul saw him standing at his right hand. No one else had that honor. Stephen saw him, but we do not read that he heard the voice from his mouth as Paul did. Paul says Christ was last seen by him, as by one born too early (1 Corinthians 15:8). Christ is called that Just One here, because he is Jesus Christ the righteous, who suffered wrongfully. Those whom God chooses to know his will must keep their eyes on Christ, must see him, and must hear his voice. Through Christ, God has made his will known, his good will toward us, and he has said, “Listen to him.”

Fourth, notice the later work Christ would do through Paul for others (Acts 22:15). “You will be his witness,” Ananias says, not only a living sign of his grace, like a pillar, but a witness by word of mouth. Paul was to publish Christ’s gospel as one who had felt its power and had been shaped by it. He was to be his witness to all people, Gentiles as well as Jews, of what he had seen and heard, right from the beginning. Since Paul often told this story in his defense here and in chapter 26, it is reasonable to think he often used the same account in preaching to lead others to faith. He told people what God had done for his soul, to encourage them to hope that God would do something for theirs too.

Fourth, notice the counsel and encouragement Ananias gave him to join himself to the Lord Jesus by baptism (Acts 22:16). “Get up and be baptized.” Paul had been given to God in circumcision, but now he must give himself to God in Christ through baptism. He must embrace the Christian faith and its blessings, while also submitting to its commands. This had to be done right away after his conversion, and so it was added to his circumcision. For the children of believers, baptism now takes the place of circumcision. As circumcision was to Abraham and his believing children, so baptism is a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith.

The great gospel blessing sealed to us in baptism is the forgiveness of sins: “Be baptized and wash away your sins.” That means, receive the comfort of your sins being pardoned through Jesus Christ, and hold fast to his righteousness for that purpose. It also means receive power against sin, so your corrupt nature may be put to death. Our washing includes both being made right with God and being made holy (1 Corinthians 6:11). So be baptized, but do not rest in the sign. Make sure you have the thing it points to, the washing away of sin’s filth.

The great gospel duty to which baptism binds us is calling on the name of the Lord, the Lord Jesus. We must acknowledge him as our Lord and God, and come to him accordingly. We must honor him and place all our requests in his hands. To call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, “Son of David, have mercy on us,” is a short way of describing a Christian (1 Corinthians 1:2). We must wash away our sins while calling on the name of the Lord. That is, we must seek forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name, depending on him and his righteousness. In prayer, we must no longer think only of God as the God of Abraham, but as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in him our Father. In every prayer, our eyes must be on Christ.

We need to act quickly. Why delay? Our covenant with God in Christ is necessary work, and it should not be put off. The matter is clear enough that there is no need to debate it, and the danger is great enough that waiting is foolish. Why should we not do now what must be done someday, or else we are lost?

Paul then explains how he was sent to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, that is, to non-Jews. This was the main reason his hearers were angry with him, so he needed to show a clear divine command. He says he received this command while he was praying, asking God to appoint his work and show him his path. He was praying in the temple, the place called a house of prayer for all people, a place where all people should pray and be prayed for. His prayer there showed, against their malicious claim, that he respected the temple, even if he did not treat it like an idol. God’s giving him this commission there also showed that sending him to the Gentiles would not harm the temple, unless the Jews’ unbelief made it so.

Paul later would draw strength from remembering that he received this command while he was at prayer. He got it in a vision. He fell into a trance, meaning his outward senses were shut down for a time, and he was in an ecstatic state, like when he was caught up to the third heaven (Acts 22:17). In that vision he saw Jesus Christ, not with bodily eyes as at his conversion, but with the eye of his mind (Acts 22:18). He says, “I saw him speaking to me.” When we receive God’s word, our eyes should be fixed on Christ. We should not only hear him speak, but also see, by faith, that he is speaking to us.

Before Christ gave Paul his mission to the Gentiles, he told him that trying to do good in Jerusalem would be pointless. So the blame for his ministry to the Gentiles could not be placed on him, but on those who rejected him. Paul had come to Jerusalem hoping, by God’s grace, to win to Christ some who had resisted the other apostles. He may even have prayed that, since he had been trained in Jerusalem and was well known there, he might gather more of Jerusalem’s children to Christ. But Christ overruled the plans he had made. “Leave Jerusalem quickly,” he told him, because though Paul thought he might have the best chance with them, he would find them more hostile to him than to anyone else. They would not accept his witness about Christ. God already knows who will receive the gospel and who will reject it.

Paul still asked to be used in Jerusalem, because those people knew better than anyone what he had been before his conversion. He reasoned that they would have to see the power of grace in such a change, and so they should pay close attention to his testimony. He told the Lord that they knew he had once shared their own views, that he had been one of the fiercest enemies of believers in Christ, that he had stirred up the civil authorities against them, put them in prison, and also used synagogue discipline against them. He added that they knew he had stood by when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned, and that he had approved of his death by guarding the clothes of the men who killed him. Paul thought that if he appeared among them preaching the same message Stephen preached and died for, they would surely listen. But Christ answered that they would not. In fact, they would be even more angry with him as a deserter from their former way of thinking than with others they saw as mere outsiders.

So Paul’s request to preach in Jerusalem was denied, and he was given a firm command to go to the Gentiles instead: “Depart, for I will send you far away, to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21). God often answers his people’s prayers, but not in the exact form they asked for. He gives something better. Abraham once prayed, “Oh, that Ishmael may live before you,” and God answered him with Isaac. Here Paul prayed that he might win souls in Jerusalem, but Christ told him he would serve among the Gentiles, and that more children would come from the “desolate woman” than from the married wife. It is God who appoints both the work and the place of his laborers, and they should accept his choice, even when it crosses their own desires.

Paul longed for Jerusalem. For him, preaching there was the peak of his ambition. But Christ had greater plans for him. He would not simply build on the work of other apostles, as some had done (John 4:38). He would break new ground and preach where Christ had not yet been named (Romans 15:20). Providence often plans better for us than we plan for ourselves, so we should trust its guidance. God chooses our inheritance for us. Paul also was not sent to the Gentiles on his own authority. Christ said, “I will send you.” And if Christ sends a man, his Spirit goes with him, supports him, carries him through, and lets him see the fruit of his labor. Paul should not fix his heart on Jerusalem, because he had another calling and a different kind of work. This also softened the offense to the Jews somewhat, because he was not setting up Gentile churches close by in their neighborhood. Others did work near them, but he was sent far away, to distant places, where what he did could not be seen as a direct threat to them.

If they had put all this together, they would have seen that they had no reason to be angry with Paul for preaching to the Gentiles. They also should not have treated it as if he meant harm to his own nation. He was driven to this work, against his own wishes, by a command from heaven that ruled over him.