Acts 9:10 - Meaning and Application

God’s work is always complete. If he begins it, he will finish it. A good work had begun in Saul when he was brought to Christ’s feet and said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” Christ never leaves anyone whom he has brought to that point. Saul was deeply humbled when he lay blind for three days, but he was not abandoned. Christ takes care of the work of his own hands. He who wounds will heal. He who strikes will bind up. He who convicts will also comfort.

Ananias is then told to go and help Saul, because the one who causes grief will also show mercy. The man chosen is Ananias, a disciple in Damascus. He was not one of the believers forced there from Jerusalem, but a native of Damascus. Acts 22:12 says he had a good reputation among the Jews who lived there, and he was known as a devout man under the law. He had recently accepted the gospel and given himself to Christ. It seems he also served as a minister on this occasion, though he was not apostolically ordained, that is, formally appointed by an apostle.

Why were not some of the apostles sent from Jerusalem for this important work? Why not Philip the evangelist, who had recently baptized the Ethiopian eunuch? Surely Christ wanted to use different people in great tasks, so honor would not be gathered by only a few. He also wanted to put work into the hands of ordinary, obscure believers, and so give them honor. In this way, he teaches us to value the ministers where God has placed us, if they are faithful, even if they are not the most famous.

Ananias is told to go and ask for Saul of Tarsus at a certain house, likely an inn. Christ calls to him by name in a vision, Acts 9:10. It is likely this was not the first time Ananias had heard God’s voice or seen a vision. Without fear or confusion, he answers, “Here I am, Lord, ready to go wherever you send me and do whatever you command.” Christ then tells him to go into Straight Street and ask at Judas’s house, where strangers stayed, for Saul of Tarsus. Christ knows very well how to find his own people in their trouble. When their relatives do not know what has become of them, they have a Friend in heaven who knows their street, their house, and even their inner condition. He knows their souls in distress.

Two reasons are given for why Ananias must go and help this stranger. First, Saul is praying, and Ananias’s visit will answer that prayer. This is one reason Ananias need not be afraid of him, as he was in fact afraid later, Acts 9:13-14. Christ says, in effect, that Saul is truly converted, because, “Behold, he is praying.” The word “behold” shows certainty, “Be sure of it, go and see.” Christ was so pleased to find Paul praying that he wanted others to notice it, like the shepherd who says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.” The word also shows how surprising it was, that the man who had recently breathed threats and murder now breathed prayer.

Was it really surprising that Saul prayed? He had been a Pharisee. But now he prayed in a new way. Before, he had only said prayers. Now he truly prayed. New life from God always leads people to pray. You can just as soon find a living person without breath as a living Christian without prayer. If there is no breath, there is no life. If there is no prayer, there is no grace.

This is also why Ananias must go quickly. It is no time to delay when a child is crying. Saul, like Ephraim, is mourning over himself as a young ox untrained for the yoke and resisting the goad. God is saying, “Go to him quickly, and tell him he is a dear son, a pleasant child, and though I spoke against him because he persecuted me, I still remember him with deep concern” (Jeremiah 31:18-20). Saul was under conviction of sin, trembling and amazed. When our sin is set before us clearly, it should drive us to prayer. He was also physically afflicted, blind and weak, and the Bible says, “Is anyone suffering? Let him pray.” Christ had promised that Saul would later be told what he must do (Acts 9:6), and now Saul prays for someone to be sent to teach him. What God promises, we must pray for. He wants to be asked, especially for his teaching and guidance.

Second, Saul has already seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming to restore his sight. So Ananias’s visit will match Saul’s dream, and this too is from God (Acts 9:12). Saul saw a man named Ananias, a man just like the one who was actually coming, arriving at the right time to help him and laying his hands on him so he could see again. This vision may be seen in two ways. It was an immediate answer to Saul’s prayer and showed that God was already keeping fellowship with him through prayer. Saul had told God of his misery, and God immediately showed him the kind purpose of his grace. It is a great comfort to know God’s thoughts toward us.

The vision also prepared Saul to welcome Ananias. He would easily receive him as a messenger from God when he learned ahead of time that a man with that name would come. It is a great blessing when God brings a spiritual doctor and his patient together. Here, two visions worked together for that purpose. When God does this through his providence without visions, bringing a messenger to an afflicted soul, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show a person what is right, we should give thanks and praise him.

Ananias then objects to going, and the Lord answers him. See how kindly the Lord allows his servant to reason with him. Ananias says that Saul was a well-known persecutor of Christ’s disciples, Acts 9:13-14.

He had been like this in Jerusalem. “Lord, I have heard many people speak about this man,” Ananias says, “and all of them say how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.” Saul was the fiercest enemy of the gospel there. He had caused great damage to the church, and people feared him more than anyone else, even the high priest. At this moment, Saul has come to Damascus with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on Christ’s name and treat them like criminals.

Ananias does not raise this objection because he thinks Saul does not deserve kindness. Christ has already taught us to repay evil with good and to pray for those who persecute us. His concern is different. If Saul is truly such a dangerous enemy of Christians, will it be safe for Ananias to go to him? Would he be walking like a lamb into a lion’s mouth? And if he gets himself into danger that way, people may say he was careless. He also wonders whether it would do any good. Can a hard heart like Saul’s ever change? Can such a man really be transformed?

Christ answers the objection at once. “Do not keep telling me how bad he has been. I know it well. Go quickly and give him all the help you can, because he is a chosen vessel for me.” That means Christ has chosen him as an instrument for his service. God chooses the vessel he will use, and he has the right to choose the people he appoints for his work (John 15:16). Saul is a vessel of honor, and he is not to be ignored in his broken and helpless state, as if he were useless or beyond hope.

Christ has two great purposes for him. First, Saul is to do great work. He is to carry Christ’s name before the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations. He will become the apostle to the Gentiles and take the gospel to the nations. Christ’s name is the banner under which souls are gathered, and Saul will be one who carries that banner. He must bear witness to Christ before kings too, including King Agrippa and Caesar himself. He will also testify before the children of Israel, even though many others are already working among them.

Second, Saul is to suffer greatly for Christ’s sake. “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” The one who has persecuted others will himself be persecuted. Christ’s words may mean either that he will bring Saul into these trials, as in (Psalm 60:3), or that he is warning him ahead of time so the suffering will not surprise him. Those who bear Christ’s name must expect to bear the cross for that name. And often those who do the most for Christ suffer the most for him. Saul must suffer many things, but this is not meant to discourage him. It is like telling a brave soldier, once he enlists, that he will soon go into battle. Saul’s sufferings will bring honor to Christ, help the church, and be balanced by spiritual comfort and eternal glory.

So Ananias goes at once to Saul, and the mission succeeds. He had raised an objection, but when Christ answered it, he dropped it. When the difficulty is removed, there is nothing more to do but go forward and do the work.

Ananias gives Saul his message. He likely finds him in bed and speaks to him like a patient in need of care. He lays his hands on him. This fits the sign that believers would lay hands on the sick and they would recover (Mark 16:18). Saul had come to lay violent hands on the disciples in Damascus, but now a disciple lays a helping, healing hand on him. “The bloodthirsty hate the upright, but the righteous seek his life.”

Ananias calls him brother. Saul has become a partaker in God’s grace, even before baptism. By welcoming him as a brother, Ananias shows that God is ready to welcome him as a son, even though Saul had been a blasphemer and a persecutor of God’s children. He also tells Saul that the same Jesus who met him on the road has sent him now to bring comfort. The same hand that wounded him now heals him. Christ’s light struck Saul blind, but only so that he might see in a new way. The one who put clay on his eyes has now sent Ananias to wash them and restore them.

Ananias could also be speaking to Saul in the words of the prophet Hosea: “Come, let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, and he will heal us; he has struck us, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him” (Hosea 6:1-2). Now the medicine is gentle, not harsh.

He also tells Saul that he will not only get his sight back, but will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Saul is to be an apostle himself, and he must not fall behind the chief apostles in spiritual gifts. So he receives the Holy Spirit at once, not later through the apostles as others did. Ananias’s laying on of hands before baptism was the means by which this gift was given.

Ananias sees the result of his mission in Christ’s kindness to Saul. At Ananias’s word, Saul is released from his confinement by having his sight restored. This matches Christ’s mission to open the prison for those who are bound (Isaiah 61:1), explained by the giving of sight to the blind (Luke 4:18; Isaiah 42:7). Christ’s work is to open blind eyes and bring prisoners out of prison. Saul is freed from the spirit of bondage when his sight returns, shown by the scales falling from his eyes. It happens at once, showing that the cure is miraculous. This recovery marked his rescue from the darkness of his unconverted life.

When Saul persecuted the church of God and lived like a Pharisee, he was blind. He did not understand the meaning of either the law or the gospel, as Paul later says in Romans 7:9. Christ often told the Pharisees that they were blind, but they would not admit it. They said, “We see” (John 9:41). Saul was rescued from that Pharisaic blindness when God made him aware of it.

Conversion grace, God’s saving power that changes a person’s heart, opens the eyes of the soul and causes the scales to fall away (Acts 26:18). It opens people’s eyes and turns them from darkness to light. This was what Saul was sent to do among the Gentiles by preaching the gospel, so he had to experience it in his own life first. He also came out of the darkness of his present terror, as he felt guilt on his conscience and feared God’s wrath. For three days he sat in darkness like Jonah in the belly of the fish, but now the scales fell from his eyes. The cloud lifted, and the Sun of righteousness rose on his soul with healing in its wings.

Saul’s baptism showed his submission to Christ. By being baptized, he placed himself under Christ’s rule and cast himself on Christ’s grace. In this way, he entered Christ’s school, became part of his household, enlisted under his banner, and committed himself to him in every circumstance. The matter was settled. Saul was now Christ’s disciple. He no longer opposed Christ, but gave himself fully to Christ’s service and honor.

The good work that began in Saul was carried forward in a remarkable way. This new-born Christian, though he seemed like one born too early, quickly came to maturity. First, he regained his bodily strength in Acts 9:19. He had gone three days without food, and the heavy burden on his spirit had made him weak. But after he ate, he was strengthened. The Lord cares for the body, so we should keep it in good condition. Then it can serve the soul in God’s work, and Christ can be honored in it (Philippians 1:20).

Next, Saul joined with the disciples in Damascus. He associated with them, talked with them, attended their gatherings, and shared in their fellowship. He had recently been breathing threats and murder against them, but now he breathed love and affection toward them. The wolf now lives with the lamb, and the leopard lies down with the young goat (Isaiah 11:6). Those who take God as their God also take his people as their people. Saul joined the disciples because he now saw their goodness and worth, because he loved them, and because he grew in knowledge and grace by being with them. By joining them openly, he also publicly showed that he was a disciple of Christ.

Then he preached Christ in the synagogues in Acts 9:20. He had an extraordinary calling to this work, and God gave him extraordinary gifts for it, since God had directly revealed his Son to him and in him, so that he might preach him (Galatians 1:15-16). He was so full of Christ himself that the Spirit within him urged him to preach Christ to others, like Elihu, who had to speak in order to feel relieved (Job 32:20). He preached in the Jewish synagogues because the Jews were to be offered the gospel first. Those synagogues were their gathering places, and there they often preached against Christ and punished his disciples. Paul himself had done this often in every synagogue (Acts 26:11). So he faced Christ’s enemies where they were most bold, and he openly confessed Christianity where he had once opposed it most strongly.

What did he preach? He preached Christ. From the beginning of his ministry, he held to this one rule, and he kept it to the end: “We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.” He preached nothing but Christ and him crucified. He taught that Christ is the Son of God, God’s beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, and that we are accepted only in him and not apart from him.

The effect on the hearers was amazement (Acts 9:21). They said, “Is not this the man who destroyed those who called on this name in Jerusalem? And now does he call on this name himself, and persuade others to do the same?” What a change! Saul among the prophets? Had he not come there to seize every Christian he could find and bring them bound to the chief priests? Yes, he had. Who would have thought that he would ever preach Christ in this way? Many must have seen this as a strong proof of Christianity’s truth. A man who had been such a notorious enemy of the faith now became such an able, forceful, and thoughtful preacher of it. This change in his mind was a greater miracle than healing people’s bodies, and giving a man a new heart was greater than giving him other tongues.

Saul also confounded those who opposed Christ’s teaching in Acts 9:22. He stood out not only in the pulpit, but also in public discussion. God gave him power not only to preach the truth, but also to defend it after he had preached it. He grew stronger in understanding the gospel, and his holy desires became stronger too. He also grew bolder, more daring, and more firm in defending the gospel. He increased even more because of the criticism thrown at him in Acts 9:21. His new friends blamed him for once being a persecutor, and his old friends blamed him for turning against them. But instead of being discouraged by all this, Saul became more bold, because he found enough in himself to answer their worst accusations.

He also put his opponents to silence and shame, especially the Jews who lived in Damascus. He answered their objections in a way that satisfied fair-minded hearers and pressed them with arguments they could not answer. In all his arguments with the Jews, he kept proving that this Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one of God, the true Messiah promised to the fathers. He kept proving it, persuading them and confirming the truth with careful teaching. We have reason to think that many were brought to faith in Christ through his work, and that he helped build up the church in Damascus, the very church he had come to destroy. So out of the eater came food, and out of the strong came sweetness.