The answer to this can be put into very few words.
(a) It was MORALLY impossible for Paul to be deceived by others.
Two conditions in the circumstances attending Paul's conversion show the impossibility of his being deceived by others. First of all, those who accompanied him on the journey to Damascus were of his retinue, and of his own way of thinking, that is in full sympathy with the task of persecuting the Christians, and seeking to stamp the name of Christ from off the face of the earth. Therefore they would be the last persons in the world to suggest the sudden change conversion involved. The second consideration is that the conversion was so perfectly unexpected and sudden, that the change, from being a bitter hater of Christ, to becoming his devoted servant, could not possibly be brought about by the deceitful influence of others.
(b) It was PHYSICALLY impossible for Paul to be deceived by others.
We have already replied to this when we pointed out that the persons with him would be the last persons in the world to turn him aside from his murderous errand to Damascus. Nor could the Christians have persuaded him, for they were not on the spot, hut would have hidden themselves in terror from his persecuting zeal.
(c) Paul's after-life proved the reality of his con-version.
The record of his activities, as seen in the Acts of the Apostles and by the perusal of his remarkable epistles, exhibit a devotion to Christ that shines resplendently; a courage that braved dangers to life and limb continually; an endurance that stood the strain of constant travel in days when travel was arduous and attended with dangers by land and sea. There surely never was a life more devoted to our Lord than his. In this way his conversion and after-life were all of a piece. Such a presentation of Christ in glory as he beheld would make a deep and abiding effect on Paul's waking and sleeping all through the years of his arduous life of labor, for the Lord.
If his alleged conversion had never taken place, and he knew it had not, is it conceivable there should flow from the pen of an utterly dishonest man, a stream of ministry upholding righteousness, holiness and truth, presenting the knowledge of God and of Christ, condemning in no measured terms untruthfulness, covetousness, immorality, not only in outward deed but in inward thought? Surely such a thought must be dismissed at once as so utterly incongruous as to be most patently untrue.
One realizes as never before the wisdom of Lord Lyttleton's choice of subject, we believe unwittingly on his part, but surely the overruling hand of God, that in the conversion of Paul we have the last and most powerful witness to the resurrection of Christ, and in his after-life the evidence of how this great truth gripped this truly great man, revolutionizing his life, and affording us a picture of what God can do with a life wholly devoted to Him.
We rise from our study, fully sharing Lord Lyttleton's conclusions, that Paul's conversion was just as the Scripture narrative presents it, and that his conversion and after-life were the greatest events that ever happened in this world, outside the incomparably blessed life and atoning death of our Lord. No events, outside of our Lord's life, have made a greater mark on this world, and even then the life of the Apostle Paul was in reality the life of Christ in measure through a human vessel. The Apostle Paul to-day under God is shaping the thoughts and lives of millions of the human race, putting into the shade every other influence affecting man's destinies. Christianity is the one and only truly purifying agency in the world to-day. Let men give up their belief in the Bible, and you find evil rampant, sin unabashed, and the descent of man to the level of the beast, and even worse, more evident.
The Bible is putting its mark upon millions of the human race, and indirectly has affected society generally with some sense of decent living. Out of twenty-one inspired epistles we have in the New Testament no less than fourteen come from the pen of the Apostle Paul. To put it another way, out of 3,601 verses no less than 2,767 of them come from his pen, whilst only 834 verses from the pens of the remaining writers of inspired epistles.
The truth that Paul covered in his written ministry is very impressive-the truth of the Gospel of the grace of God in all its fullness; the unfolding of the truth of the church of God as the mystical body of Christ, of which He is the glorious Head in heaven; Christians being in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit of God; the truth as to the Lord's second coming, and His appearing to set up His kingdom on earth, with which for the Christian is connected the teaching as to the judgment seat of Christ. All this and more covers ground beyond what the other epistles set forth. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles to whom was communicated the double ministry of the Gospel and of the church.
Js this the record of a deceiver, or a man capable of being deceived by others? Far be the thought!