Separated from the Womb (Acts 9:1-9)^a

Context

1. Church formed at Pentecost (Acts 2)

2. Growing, but also experiencing opposition

3. Major source of opposition: Judaism which rejected (and still rejects) Jesus as Messiah

4. Major opponent: Saul of Tarsus

5. God is about to turn Saul's world upside down

Passage (Acts 9:1-9)

[1] Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest [2] and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. [3] As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. [4] Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” [5] And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” [6] So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” [7] And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. [8] Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. [9] And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.¹

Who was Saul?

1. A Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin (Php. 3:5)

2. A resident of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia (Acts 21:39)

3. A Pharisee (Acts 23:6) who studied in Jerusalem under the famous rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3)

4. The model Pharisee of his time period. Philippians 3:4b - . . . If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

1. When he met Christ, he was walking in the same path as the Jews he would subsequently write about in Romans 10

2. Romans 10:1-2 - Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

3. A veil of darkness concerning the Messiah lay upon his mind

4. 2 Corinthians 3:14 - But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.

5. Paul had intense, zealous, blindness concerning God!

6. Why am I emphasizing this?

Who was seeking Whom?

1. Was Paul’s heart being softened?

2. Was he slowly being drawn to a realization of the truth of God?

3. Was Paul seeking God . . . on the verge of raising his hand and walking the aisle to accept Jesus?

4. Paul’s defense before the Jews of Jerusalem

1. Acts 22:3-4 - I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers' law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.

2. Acts 22:20 And when the blood of Your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death, and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.

5. What sort of free will was Paul exercising?

6. Was Paul on the verge of finding God?

God and Fairness

1. If God “overruled” Saul's free will—the path he was intentionally and zealously ommitted to—and brought him to faith by a radical intervention, how is that fair?

2. If God does it for even one, to be perfectly impartial, doesn’t he to have do the same for each one?

3. If God gave Paul the “benefit” of a personal, dramatic, radical, encounter with the divine presence—doesn’t He have to do the same for everyone else?

4. Paul’s unique and dramatic salvation experience — an “unfair advantage?”

1. A blinding light, suddenly, a light shone around him from heaven (Acts 9:3)

2. At about noon, much brighter than the sun (Acts 22:6; 26:19)

3. An audible voice, directly from God, he heard a voice saying to him ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ (Acts 9:4)

4. A physical reminder to underscore the reality of what might have later been passed off as a strange delusion or dream: ongoing blindness: when his eyes were open he say no one . . . he was three days without sight (Acts 9:8-9)

5. It simply won’t due to say that Paul is a “special case” because God wanted to do something radical and use him to subsequently write much of the New Testament.

1. The motive and purpose of God doesn’t get Him off the hook from the charge of unfairness from a human perspective.

2. From such a perspective, God cannot treat someone like Paul specially—because He has to be absolutely unbiased in every aspect related to drawing individuals to faith.

3. He might be sovereign, He might determine the grand course of history, nations, and groups at large. But when it comes to the individual and his or her “free will,” in this special case, their view is that God is bound by absolute impartiality—or else He can’t be loving and fair.

6. It seems clear: Paul’s conversion was not a case of “your faith has made you well” (Mat. 9:22; Mark 5:34; Mark 10:52; Luke 8:40; 17:19) and flies in the face of those who claim that unconditional election is both unfair and unbiblical.

7. How does Paul’s case square with the Arminian view that God enables all men equally to respond? That the determining factor in salvation is whether the individual responds—is open to seeking God?

1. Roger Olsen: Arminian Myths and Reality

1. “What Arminians deny is not predestination but unconditional predestination; they embrace conditional predestination based on God's foreknowledge of who will freely respond positively to God's gracious offer of salvation and the prevenient enablement to accept it.”²

1. Citing Henry Thiessen: “Election is “that sovereign act of God in grace, whereby from all eternity He chose in Christ Jesus for Himself and for salvation, all those whom He foreknew would respond positively to prevenient grace. . . .”³

2. One wonders what Paul would say? “Freely respond positively?! Who’s he kidding?!!!”

3. Those of an Arminian persuasion are offended by the notion that God chooses based on His will, not on the ability or desire of those who respond.

2. “[Arminians] . . . believe that God foreknows every person's ultimate and final decision regarding Jesus Christ, and on that basis God predestines people to salvation or damnation. . . . God's predestination of individuals is conditioned by their faith.”⁴

1. Individuals, not God, are in the driver’s seat.

2. God simply looks ahead, down through the corridors of history, and based on their future choice of Him, He elects to choose them.

3. What kind of faith did Paul have on the road to Damascus?

2. The fact is that every conversion is a radical miracle which runs completely counter to man’s inclination.

1. No less radical that Paul

2. No less intent in an initial bias toward rejection of God

Separated from his mother's womb

1. Galatians 1:13-16 - For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood

1. Separated [ἀφορίζω [aphorizō]] = to set aside for a particular or special purpose

2. Was God’s purpose dependent on seeing, ahead-of-time, that Paul would choose God?

2. Akin to the prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

1. I sanctified [set part] you

2. I ordained you a prophet

3. How can we say that God’s will was not determinative here? It would have read, “I saw ahead of time that you would be confident and bold in my name and looked like you would be prophet material.”

4. What was Jeremiah’s prophetic potential on his own? Jeremiah 1:6 - Then said I: "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth."

3. Paul, in Philippians 3:12 - Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

1. Who does Paul said laid hold of whom?

Why would God, in His sovereignty, overwhelm Paul’s hardened resistance?

1. So Paul could write truths concerning God’s sovereignty, as found in Romans!

2. None seek God, Romans 3:10-13 - As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit; The poison of asps is under their lips”

3. Enemies, Romans 5:10 - For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

1. Who could understand this better than Paul?

4. The sovereignty of God in election, in individual response to God

1. Romans 9:18-21 - Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

2. If Paul had an Arminian persuasion, there would have been no need to ever have written chapter 9 of Romans!

3. The question, Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will? would never arise in the first place.

4. Paul is responding to accusing tongue of those who place the autonomy of man above the inscrutable will and elevated purpose of God.

5. If God elects and the non-elect wind up in hell, how can it be just? Haven’t they merely walked out God’s will for them?

6. According to the Arminian view, the non-elect are not walking in God’s will. Here, Paul says they are.

7. Arminians are quick to point to those of us with a Calvinistic understanding of God’s sovereignty, saying: “Your God is an Ogre. He doesn’t elect all mankind to salvation!”

8. To which we simply respond: “Your God is an out-of-control Ogre. Not only did he create millions of people whom He foresaw, in His foreknowledge, would never choose Him and wind up in hell, but he can’t ultimately be in control of history. What if He had looked down through history and saw that noone would choose Him? He would have been “cornered”, He couldn’t have elected anyone!”

9. Indeed, this is precisely what the Bible reveals: nobody would seek God apart from His foreknowledge, foreordination, and calling.

Church doctrinal statement

1. Doctrine of Salvation: God the Father planned it as He sovereignly chose some, apart from foreseen human merit or response, to be recipients of His grace from before the foundation of the world. God's election does not negate man's responsibility to believe, the Christian's responsibility to freely offer the gospel to every person, or the fact that God desires salvation to all men (John 1:12-13; 6:37-44, 65; Acts 13:48; Ephesians 1:3-5; 2 Timothy 1:9; 2:3-4).⁵

God’s Glory

1. Christianity today has become anemic, in part because it is overwhelmingly man-centered, is all about “us”, all about “me”, all about “my relationship with God”. Salvation is all about “me choosing God.” My worship of God is all about “what He did for me”, rarely about Who He is—His glory—apart from anything He did for me—or even if we even exist!

2. We have lost sight of the primacy and grandeur of God’s determinative will and purpose.

3. All of creation will ultimately dance to God’s tune

4. It’s about God’s glory, His will, His sovereignty

5. Individual “free will” is not the idol we want to make it.

6. The Almighty One, the Creator of a billion galaxies, the Mastermind of the universe with infinite intelligence will never be beholden to the puny will and sinful bias of fallen mankind.

   Tue Jun 9 20:57:41 2015

   

   
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