We have already seen in commenting on Acts 9. what an important event took place that day: a distinct and fresh step in the ways of God for bringing out the church (already formed, it is true) into manifestation by his ministry who was then converted so extraordinarily that divines treat it as one of the standing and most striking evidences of the truth of Christianity.
Still all was not done even as regards. Saul of Tarsus; the basis was laid, but no more. The blindness physically which had come upon him was to be taken away; and assuredly very much more light spiritually was yet to shine into his soul; but the principle that was to be folly developed in due time was already involved in the character of the word of the Lord to him. “And as I could not see for the glory of the light, being led by the hand of those that were with me, I came into Damascus; and one Ananias, a pious man according to the law, borne witness to by all the Jews that dwelt there, came unto me, and standing by said to me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight: and in the very hour I looked upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers hath appointed thee to know His will and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from His mouth. For thou shalt be a witness for Him to all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now, why tarriest thou? Arise, and get baptized, and have thy sins washed away, calling on His name” (Acts 22:11-16).
As Paul was to be, beyond all others, a witness of Christ to the Gentiles, so God took special care to remove from every fair upright man all suspicion of collusion on the part of any Jew. Outwardly the vision of glory was unmistakable before many witnesses. What passed between the Lord and His servant was necessarily confined to Saul alone of the company. But divine wisdom apprised Ananias of what had happened, independently of Saul and of every other on earth. We are not told here of his fasting for three days and nights; but the fact was patent that by the hand of those that were with him he had to be led into Damascus. That blindness furnished occasion for a fresh display of divine power. The channel of it was a simple disciple; yet was he a devout man according to the law, and well reported of by all the Jews that dwelt there. Unsought, he came; and standing by him who was blind he said, “Brother Saul, receive thy sight”; and the word was with power: Paul received his sight and looked upon him. In Acts 9, we hear of the vision that Saul had, preparing for the visit of Ananias, as the same chapter lets us know that Ananias had a vision in which the Lord sent him, by no means willing, without delay to Saul. For it was well known at Damascus, as well as Jerusalem, what a zealous persecutor of the church was the learned Jew of Tarsus—now a man of prayer.
Here again, we have the beautiful fruit of confidence in the word of the Lord. “Brother Saul” —how refreshing it must have been to the heart of the converted zealot! The key to what is here stated, and to what is omitted, is the design: the apostle recounts his conversion to the Jews. “The God of our fathers” appears here alone. It was He, as Ananias said, and not another, Who had appointed him to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice out of His mouth. It is much more than simply that the Lord, even Jesus, had appeared to him in the way which be came. Here we learn, too, that Ananias told the apostle before he was baptized that he should be a witness for Christ unto all men of what he had seen and heard. This ought to have prepared the Jews for the direction given to Paul’s ministry. Would they have him resist the “God of our fathers” and His known will? There were two witnesses, by whose mouth every word should be established. In Acts 9 his commission is named to Ananias by the Lord; but the historian does not there mention that this was repeated to the apostle. Here we learn that it was so, for he repeats it himself. Everything comes exactly in place and season.
In Acts 9 we are told that when he received his sight, he arose and was baptized, and took food and was strengthened, as well as that all-important fact that he was then and there filled with the Holy Spirit. There is no apostolic succession in this case assuredly. Ananias was but a disciple. God was acting extraordinarily in the case of Paul. Jewish order was quite set aside for the apostle of the Gentiles; yet none but the enemy of grace and truth could deny that he was an apostle, with a calling at least as high as the twelve, and called to a work incomparably more vast and profound.
Here also we have the interesting fact of the terms in which Ananias called him to submit to baptism, on which a few words may be well, as to some there is no small difficulty. The reason of the departure from the A.V., as well as the R.V., however slight, is an endeavor to express the force of the Middle Voice, as it is called in Greek. This however is independent of the doctrinal difficulty to some in calling on the apostle to have his sins washed away in baptism. Why should this seem hard? It is what baptism always means, though indeed it means yet more, even death to sin, as the apostle himself treats it in Romans 6. Baptism is the sign of salvation, as another apostle teaches, who carefully lets us know in the same context that the effectual work rests on Christ’s death and resurrection (1 Pet: 3.). Without faith no doubt all is valueless before God; but however precious may be that which faith receives through the word, the outward sign has its importance. So much is this so, that no one stands on the external ground of a Christian, who has not been baptized with water to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. To refuse baptism is to despise the authority of the Lord, as unbelief slights His grace. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not, even if baptized, shall be damned (or condemned).