Acts 26:18:—“To open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me.”
We are given in the Book of Acts three accounts of Paul’s conversion—one by Luke in the course of his history of the advance of the church, and two from the lips of the Apostle himself in addresses reported by the historian in the course of his narrative. The account in the apology which the Apostle in chains made before King Agrippa is the fullest account of the three, and especially in the report it makes of the words spoken by Jesus to Paul. We may be especially grateful for this. For these words are simply marvellous in the compressed fullness of their content and the richness of their teaching to us, even after the passage of so many ages.
The superior completeness here of the narrative of what passed between the Lord in heaven and him whom He would make a chosen vessel for the conveyance of His precious Gospel to the world, is already apparent in certain preliminaries to the main declaration—comparatively unimportant no doubt, but not without their significance. Here only we are told that the ascended Christ addressed the future Apostle in the Hebrew dialect,—the sacred tongue in which all the prophets had spoken and Moses, when they foretold His sufferings and how first out of the resurrection of the dead He should proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles. Here only also are we told that to the sad inquiry, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” was added that proverbial saying, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks”—intimating that like the harnessed ox he was in the hands of a master who would direct his path whither He would, and it was useless for him to strive against the performance of the duties which were appointed him. Better accept the commission given you and perform the work of the Lord assigned to you, with joy that you are chosen to serve the Lord, than to seek hopelessly to go your own way. But it is not until we reach the words by which Saul was commissioned to be the Lord’s Apostle that the full richness of this report breaks upon us. “Arise and stand upon thy feet”—so the record of the words runs—“for it is for this that I have appeared to thee; to ordain thee as a servant and a witness both of those things because of which thou hast seen me and of those things because of which I shall appear to thee, delivering thee from the people and from the nations, unto whom I send thee.” Here is Paul’s appointment to the apostleship. Was ever man appointed to an office in a manner so authoritative or with words so decisive? Christ comes from heaven itself to make the appointment. The appointment is to the work of a servant, a servant of Himself. The nature of the service required is that of witness-bearing; “a servant and a witness,” that is, a servant whose service is witnessing. The matter to be witnessed to is provided by the appointer: “a witness of that with respect to which I shall appear unto thee.” The witness is to add nothing of himself but to testify only what he has heard, what he has seen with his eyes, what he beheld and his hands have handled. And as the scope of the testimony is thus set him so also is its sphere; it is to be borne to the “people and the peoples”—to Jew and Gentile,—unto whom, says the voice, “I send you”—with majestic emphasis on the “I.”
Truly it is to the office of a servant that Paul is called, a servant with a specific work to do and with specific instructions how to perform it. Thus he was made an “apostle,” an apostle by the same call to the same work which all the apostles had received. It is even odd how perfectly Paul’s commission accords with the very terms given to his fellows: “Go, and make disciples of all the nations … and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” “The people and the Gentiles unto whom I send thee”—here is the universal commission; he is to go to Jew and Gentile alike, to all the world. “Delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee”—here is the accompanying promise of “Lo, I am with thee.” And note the nature of the apostolic promise. It is not that Paul shall suffer no harm from Jew and Gentile, that he shall not be hard-bested, baffled and persecuted. How could Paul the prisoner have repeated such a promise as that? It was that he should not be balked in his witness-bearing to them; that through divine intervention he should be successful in performing his duty as a servant and witness. Here, says Calvin, we see the Divine hand instilling courage into His servant for his task by assuring him of Divinely given success and at the same time forewarning him of the cross he was to bear. He shall need deliverance; but he shall have it.
What then is the task laid upon this servant? We have it already adumbrated in the call. He is called to serve as a witness. Witness-bearing is his one function. But in the wonderful words which are more particularly before us to-day, we have it opened out to us in all its richness. I send thee to all peoples, says the heavenly King, in imposing upon him His mission: I send thee to all peoples, “to open their eyes.” There we have in the briefest compass possible, the whole apostolic mission. The apostles are sent into a world, blinded by sin, sunk in the darkness of soul that comes from sin, “to open men’s eyes.” Witness-bearers as they are, their duty corresponds with their equipment: they have received of the Lord, let them impart of what they have received to others. They have only to “open men’s eyes,” to open them to a clear vision of their state, of their danger and destiny, and of the love of God in Christ which has provided a reprieve from the danger.