The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2Stokes, George Thomas
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2
Stokes, George Thomas
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries; Bible. Acts -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
looking at them from a believer's point of view, we can see good
reasons why the supernatural light should have been granted. Next to
the life and death and resurrection of our Lord, the conversion of St.
Paul was the most important event the world ever saw. Our Lord made to
the fiery persecutor a special revelation of Himself in the mode of
His existence in the unseen world, in the reality, truth, and fulness
of His humanity, such as He never made to any other human being. The
special character of the revelation shows the importance that Christ
attached to the person and the personal character of him who was the
object of that revelation. Just, then, as we maintain that there was a
fitness when there was an Incarnation of God that miracles should
attend it; so, too, when the greatest instrument and agent in
propagating a knowledge of that Incarnation was to be converted, it
was natural that a supernatural agency should have been employed. And
then when the devout mind surveys the records of Scripture how similar
we see St. Paul's conversion to have been to other great conversions.
Moses is converted from mere worldly thoughts and pastoral labours on
which his soul is bent, and sent back to tasks which he had abandoned
for forty years, to the great work of freeing the people of God and
leading them to the Land of Promise; and then a vision is granted,
where light, a supernatural light, the light of the burning bush, is
manifested. Isaiah and Daniel had visions granted to them when a great
work was to be done and a great witness had to be borne, and
supernatural light and glory played a great part in their cases.[33]
When the Lord was born in Bethlehem, and the revelation of the
Incarnate God had to be made to humble faith and lowly piety, then the
glory of the Lord, a light from out God's secret temple, shone forth
to lead the worshippers to Bethlehem. And so, too, in St. Paul's case;
a world's spiritual welfare was at stake, a crisis in the world's
spiritual history, a great turning-point in the Divine plan of
salvation had arrived, and it was most fitting that the veil which
shrouds the unseen from mortal gaze should be drawn back for a moment,
and that not Saul alone but his attendants should stand astonished at
the glory of the light above the brightness of the sun which
accompanied Christ's manifestation.[34]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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