กิจการ 9:9 วิจารณ์

In this chapter we have, I. The famous story of St. Paul's conversion from being an outrageous persecutor of the gospel of Christ to be an illustrious professor and preacher of it. I. How he was first awakened and wrought upon by an appearance of Christ himself to him as he was going upon an errand of persecution to Damascus: and what a condition he was in while he lay under the power of those convictions and terrors (Act 9:1-9). 2. How he was baptized by Ananias, by immediate directions from heaven (Act 9:10-19). 3. How he immediately commenced doctor, and preached the faith of Christ, and proved what he preached (Act 9:20-22). 4. How he was persecuted, and narrowly escaped with his life (Act 9:23-25). 5. How he was admitted among the brethren at Jerusalem: how he preached, and was persecuted there (Act 9:26-30). 6. The rest and quietness which the churches enjoyed for some time after this (Act 9:31). II. The cure wrought by Peter on Eneas, who had long been laid up with a palsy (Act 9:32-35). III. The raising of Tabitha from death to life, at the prayer of Peter (Act 9:36-43).

And Saul yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter,.... The historian having given an account of the dispersion of all the preachers of the Gospel at Jerusalem, excepting the apostles, and of their success in other parts, especially of Philip's, returns to the history of Saul; who, not satisfied with the murder of Stephen, and with the havoc he made of the church at Jerusalem, haling them out of their houses to prison, continued not only to threaten them with confiscation of goods and imprisonment, but with death itself. The phrase here used is an Hebraism; so in Psa 27:12 , "one that breathes out violence", or cruelty; and this shows the inward disposition of his mind, the rage, wrath, malice, envy, and blood thirstiness he was full of; and is observed to illustrate the riches of divine grace in his conversion. And wonderful it is, that that same mouth which breathed out destruction and death to the followers of Christ, should afterwards publish and proclaim the Gospel of the grace of God; that he whose mouth was full of cursing and bitterness, should hereafter, and so very quickly, come forth in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. And this rage of his, who now ravened as a wolf, as was foretold of Benjamin, of which tribe he was, was against the lambs of Christ, and the sheep of his fold: against the disciples of the Lord; not against wicked men, murderers, and thieves, and other evildoers, but against the harmless and innocent followers of Jesus, and which was an aggravation of his cruelty: and being thus heated, and full of wrath, he went unto the high priest; Annas or Caiaphas, who, notwithstanding the Jews were under the Roman government, had great authority to punish persons with stripes and death itself, who acted contrary to their law.

And he was three days without sight,.... Without bodily sight; for otherwise all this while his spiritual sight was increasing, and Christ was giving him by his Spirit a full view of himself, his state and case, and where his salvation was; and a clear insight into the doctrines of the Gospel, which he is said to have by the revelation of Christ, whereby he was fitted for the immediate preaching of it: and neither did eat nor drink; having no regard unto, or time for either; being filled with grief and sorrow, and true repentance for sin, and taken up in prayer to God, and employed in attending to, and receiving the doctrines of grace, he was afterwards to publish.

And for three days he neither did eat nor drink, being blinded. What could equal this? To compensate the discouragement in the matter of Stephen, here is encouragement, in the bringing in of Paul: though that sadness had its consolation in the fact of Stephen's making such an end, yet it also received this further consolation: moreover, the bringing in of the villages of the Samaritans afforded very great comfort.

But why did this take place not at the very first, but after these things? That it might be shown that Christ was indeed risen. This furious assailant of Christ, the man who would not believe in His death and resurrection, the persecutor of His disciples, how should this man have become a believer, had not the power of His resurrection been great indeed?

Be it so, that the other Apostles favored His pretensions: what say you to this man? Why then not immediately after His resurrection? That his hostility might be more clearly shown as open war. The man who is so frantic as even to shed blood and cast men into prisons, all at once believes! It was not enough that he had never been in Christ's company: the believers must be warred upon by him with vehement hostility: he left to none the possibility of going beyond him in fury: none of them all could be so violent.

And he eat not, neither drank: he condemned himself for the past, he confessed, prayed, besought God. But should any say, This was the effect of compulsion: we answer, The same thing happened to Elymas: then how came it that he was not changed? What evidence could be more compulsory than the earthquake at the Resurrection, the report of the soldiers, the other miracles, the seeing Himself risen? But these things do not compel belief, they are calculated to teach it.

Why did not the Jews believe when they were told of these things? That he spoke truth was manifest: for he would not have been changed, had this not happened; so that all were bound to believe. He was not inferior to them that preached the Resurrection, and was more credible, by being all at once converted. He had no intercourse with any of the believers; it was at Damascus that he was converted, or rather before he came to Damascus that this happened to him.

I ask the Jew: Say, by what was Paul converted? He saw so many signs, and was not converted: his teacher Gamaliel was converted, and he remained unconverted. Who convinced him-and not only convinced, but all at once inspired him with such ardent zeal? Wherefore was it, that he wished even to go into hell itself for Christ's sake? The truth of the facts is manifest.

Because he judged himself most harshly over the persecution of the Church, and, grieved, he begged God to be forgiven.

And he was without sight for three days. Because he had not believed that the Lord had conquered death by rising on the third day, he is now instructed by his own example, who would change the darkness of three days with the returning light.

"And for three days he did not see, and did not eat, and did not drink." Why did he do this? Because he greatly repented of having persecuted the Church, and he grieved, and prayed, and besought God that this might be forgiven him.

Saul, bent on the destruction of the Christians, obtains letters from the high priest, authorizing him to seize those whom he should find at Damascus, and bring them bound to Jerusalem, Act 9:1, Act 9:2. On his way to Damascus, he has a Divine vision, is convinced of his sin and folly, is struck blind, and remains three days without sight, and neither eats nor drinks, Act 9:3-9. Ananias, a disciple, is commanded in a vision to go and speak to Saul, and restore his sight, Act 9:10-16. Ananias goes and lays his hands on him, and he receives his sight, and is baptized, Act 9:17-19. Saul, having spent a few days with the Christians at Damascus, goes to the synagogues, proclaims Christ, and confounds the Jews, Act 9:20-22. The Jews lay wait to kill him, but the disciples let him down over the walls of the city in a basket, by night, and he escapes to Jerusalem, Act 9:23-25. Having wished to associate with the disciples there, they avoid him; but Barnabas takes and brings him to the apostles, and declares his conversion, Act 9:26, Act 9:27. He continues in Jerusalem preaching Christ, and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, who endeavor to slay him; but the disciples take him to Caesarea, and send him thence to his own city Tarsus, Act 9:28-30. About this time, the Churches, being freed from persecution, are edified and multiplied, Act 9:31. Peter heals Eneas at Lydda, who had been afflicted with the palsy eight years: in consequence of which miracle, all the people of Lydda and Saron are converted, Act 9:32-35. Account of the sickness and death of a Christian woman named Tabitha, who dwelt at Joppa; and her miraculous restoration to life by the ministry of Peter, Act 9:36-41. Gracious effects produced among the inhabitants of Lydda by this miracle, Act 9:42, Act 9:43.

Neither did eat nor drink - The anxiety of his mind and the anguish of his heart were so great that he had no appetite for food; and he continued in total darkness and without food for three days, till Ananias proclaimed salvation to him in the name of the Lord Jesus.

CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND BEGINNINGS OF HIS MINISTRY. (Acts 9:1-25) Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, &c.--The emphatic "yet" is intended to note the remarkable fact, that up to this moment his blind persecuting rage against the disciples of the Lord burned as fiercely as ever. (In the teeth of this, NEANDER and OLSHAUSEN picture him deeply impressed with Stephen's joyful faith, remembering passages of the Old Testament confirmatory of the Messiahship of Jesus, and experiencing such a violent struggle as would inwardly prepare the way for the designs of God towards him. Is not dislike, if not unconscious disbelief, of sudden conversion at the bottom of this?) The word "slaughter" here points to cruelties not yet recorded, but the particulars of which are supplied by himself nearly thirty years afterwards: "And I persecuted this way unto the death" (Act 22:4); "and when they were put to death, I gave my voice [vote] against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to [did my utmost to make them] blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange [foreign] cities" (Act 26:10-11). All this was before his present journey.

And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink--that is, according to the Hebrew mode of computation: he took no food during the remainder of that day, the entire day following, and so much of the subsequent day as elapsed before the visit of Ananias. Such a period of entire abstinence from food, in that state of mental absorption and revolution into which he had been so suddenly thrown, is in perfect harmony with known laws and numerous facts. But what three days those must have been! "Only one other space of three days' duration can be mentioned of equal importance in the history of the world" [HOWSON]. Since Jesus had been revealed not only to his eyes but to his soul (see on Gal 1:15-16), the double conviction must have immediately flashed upon him, that his whole reading of the Old Testament hitherto had been wrong, and that the system of legal righteousness in which he had, up to that moment, rested and prided himself was false and fatal. What materials these for spiritual exercise during those three days of total darkness, fasting, and solitude! On the one hand, what self-condemnation, what anguish, what death of legal hope, what difficulty in believing that in such a case there could be hope at all; on the other hand, what heartbreaking admiration of the grace that had "pulled him out of the fire," what resistless conviction that there must be a purpose of love in it, and what tender expectation of being yet honored, as a chosen vessel, to declare what the Lord had done for his soul, and to spread abroad the savor of that Name which he had so wickedly, though ignorantly, sought to destroy--must have struggled in his breast during those memorable days! Is it too much to say that all that profound insight into the Old Testament, that comprehensive grasp of the principles of the divine economy, that penetrating spirituality, that vivid apprehension of man's lost state, and those glowing views of the perfection and glory of the divine remedy, that beautiful ideal of the loftiness and the lowliness of the Christian character, that large philanthropy and burning zeal to spend and be spent through all his future life for Christ, which distinguish the writings of this chiefest of the apostles and greatest of men, were all quickened into life during those three successive days?