In the Light, A Life Changes

As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” — Acts 9:3-4

In Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet decides to confront the evil King, so he puts on a play, a horrifying play filled with violence and murder by poison. Because of the play’s horrid images, the King stands up and yells, “Give me some light!”  Hamlet’s play intended to catch the conscience of the King.

In Acts 9, amid Saul’s violent and horrifying persecution, he was confronted with a divine light from heaven that, like the King in Hamlet’s play, caught his conscience and changed his heart and mind. Saul’s experience and his testimony changed the world.

After the mob stoned Stephen, which Saul (soon to be Paul) openly supported, Luke starts Acts 9, describing Saul as filled with hatred and intent on murder and a reign of terror on the scattered early Christian church. As a dogmatic, brilliant Jewish scholar who lived by the laws, ironically, Saul thought he was doing God’s bidding in ravaging the upstart Christian movement. He was mistaken.

Saul represented the ongoing stubborn blindness of an unrepentant Israel that continued to reject the Gospel and Jesus Christ.[1] Much like our culture today. That is why Christ asked Saul why does he continue to persecute “me?” Shattered, Saul knew he alone was confronted by a heavenly being he learned was Jesus Christ, whom he opposed. Combined with the bright light, Saul, desperate, questioned what he should do?

Scholars think the light from heaven that appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus was a theophany, a visible manifestation of God. God’s presence is made known in such events as Moses and the burning bush and Jacob’s wrestling match. The supernatural light appeared out of nowhere and struck Saul to the ground. We also may not know when we could have a divine encounter with God.

A lesson we can take from this spatial appearance and Saul’s experience is the first thing that occurs in our salvation and changing of the heart is an understanding, a conscious awareness of Jesus as our Savior. Our heart is illuminated and is born again by the spirit of the Lord. Saul had a real eye-opening lesson for us that Jesus Christ offers love and mercy while he also confronts our sins. It gives us a new and revelatory perspective, a new way of seeing our lives and the world we live in, the way we live, and the nature of our lives. Dante’s poetic words as he approached Heaven in Paradise describe our life long change when we accept Jesus as our Savior:

Within that Light a person is so changed

It is impossible to give consent

Ever to turn from it to other sights[2]

-Dan Nickel

[1]Marianne Palmer Bonz, The Past As A Legacy: Luke-Acts and Ancient Epic (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 161.

[2]Dante, Paradise Canto 33:100