In Acts 7, God pronounced Israel “uncircumcised” (vs. 51) which
is another way of saying “cut off ”. (Gen 17:13,14) Stephen saw Jesus
standing in heaven, (vs. 55,56) which in prophecy means He was coming
to “judge and make war“. (Is 2:19,21; 3:13; Ps 7:6; 9:19; 94:1,2; Rev
19:11)
Acts 8 shows that Samaria and the Gentiles (pictured by the Ethiopian),
were ready to receive Jesus at this critical time, but Jerusalem wasn’t .
Problem: How can blessings flow to the world through Jerusalem as prophesied
(Is 2:1-4; 60:1-4; Zech 8:20-23) when Jerusalem is in unbelief?? God will
solve this problem by purging Israel so that only believers are left alive.
(Is 4:2-4; Zech 13:8,9; Mat 3:10; 13:37-43) That blood-bath is called the
tribulation (Mat 24:21) or the 70th week of Daniel. (Dan 9:24-27)
But instead of doing that, God in mercy delayed His wrath, and did
something completely unexpected and unprophecied. Now for chapter 9! God
calls and commissions a brand-new apostle with a new and different message,
and sends him to the world, apart from Israel.
Acts 9:1-9
Read Acts 9:1-9. Saul, later called Paul, was the leader (chief,
I Tim 1:15) of the rebellion against God. He was a very busy man. He had
systematically cleaned all the believers (over 8000 of them, Acts
2:41&4:4&5:14) out of Jerusalem by having them arrested in their homes.
(Acts 8:1-3) However the 12 apostles were from Galilee and didn’t have homes
in Jerusalem.
Paul had probably met Jesus. All Jerusalem knew about Him and His
miracles. (Mat 4:24,25; Acts 4:16) Paul may have been one of the Pharisees
who questioned and tried to trick Jesus. (Mt 16:1; 19:3; 22:15,34,35) Paul
fought hard not to believe that Jesus was the Christ. It was hard to kick
against all that evidence. (Acts 9:5) When Paul said “Who art thou, Lord?”,
he probably had already realized, and expected to be struck dead for what
he’d done. Ananias and Sapphira died for doing far less. (Acts 5)
But what a change! Instead of coming to earth to judge and make war,
Jesus came and saved the chief of the rebellion, and sent him to a world on
the brink of judgment with the message of grace and peace - just the
opposite of judge and make war. (Notice that Paul writes “grace and peace”
in the salutation of each of his epistles.)
Why did God save Paul when He already had 12 very faithful
apostles? In ITim 1:16 Paul says, “Howbeit for this cause I
obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all
longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe
on him to life everlasting.” Paul is the first man in that new
church called the “body of Christ”. (Eph 1:22,23&2:11-16&3:1-6) He is our
pattern and the apostle to us Gentiles. (Rom 11:13) We cannot
follow Jesus today because we are not Jews under the law like He was, and
Israel’s law has now been abolished. (Eph 2:15; Rom 6:14) But Paul
says, “Be ye followers of me….” (I Cor 4:16; 11:1) That all
starts right here in Acts 9. From here on in Acts we will see Paul rise
in importance, and Israel with the 12 apostles diminish. (Rom 11:12)
In I Timothy 1:13, Paul was a blasphemer. Therefore, according
to Mathew 12:31,32, there was no forgiveness for him in Israel’s program. So
we know that God postponed Israel’s program before Acts 9 when He
forgives and saves Paul.
Let’s go to Acts 26:13-18 where Paul gives more details of his
conversion. In Acts 26:16, 17 Jesus said to Paul, “But rise, and stand
upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to
make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which
thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear
unto thee; Delivering thee from the people,(Israel) and from the
Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, …”
Jesus didn’t appear to Paul just to save him. Verse 16 says His
purpose was to make Paul a minister and a witness of His
resurrection and of the things that He would later reveal to Paul.
An important point to note is that Paul was sent to the Gentiles
right from the start of his ministry. (vs. 17) A central issue of the
mystery revealed through Paul, is that Gentiles no longer need to come to
God through the Jews (Eph 2:12,13,19; 3:1-6). The “middle wall of partition”
(Eph 2:11-15) that God had set up between Jews and Gentiles back in Genesis
12:1-3 & 17:9-14, doesn’t exist in Acts 9. So when did God take down
that dividing wall and cast Israel away? (Rom 11:15) It had to be after
He concluded Israel in unbelief in chapter 7, and before He sent Paul
to the Gentiles in Chapter 9.
Paul got an “abundance of revelations” from God (II Cor 12:7).
So although he did not get a complete understanding of the mystery at his
conversion here in Acts 9 (I Cor 13:9-12), he did know that God was
dealing directly with the Gentiles now, and not through Israel and her
promises.
Jesus told His disciples to go to the Gentiles too, but not until He
returns, (Mat 10:5-7, 23; 28:18,19) and then only under the
terms of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 12:3), as God’s royal nation of priests
(Ex 19:5,6; Is 2:1-4&61:6; I Peter 2:9) Here, Paul is sent to the Gentiles
with no distinction between them and the Jews. (Rom 10:12&11:32; Gal 3:28)
This is great news for the Gentiles, and the rest of Acts records how
the Jews responded. Even though the introduction of this new message saved
those Jews from experiencing the tribulation, many of them refused God’s
mercy and persecuted Paul endlessly.
Paul was blind for 3 days. (vs. 9) What a lot of thinking (and praying,
verse 11) he must have done! His whole life’s passion and ambition was
suddenly reversed. That’s real repentance!
According to I Cor 15:3-9, Paul was the last man to see
Jesus on earth after He rose from the dead. “And last of all he
was seen of me also, as one born out of due time.” Jesus appeared to
Paul several more times, and nobody, not Joseph Smith or Mohammed or
anybody else, has seen Him since.