✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
Acts 9,1-10 4316
12. Sn. n. Trinitatis 057
Athanasia, Widow Abbess at Timia, Greece, 860
14. August 2016
1. O Almighty and everlasting God, who has created all things: We thank You that You have given us sound bodies, and have graciously preserved our tongues and other members from the power of the adversary: We beseech You, grant us Your grace, so that we may rightly use our ears and tongues; help us to hear Your Word diligently and devoutly, and with our tongues so to praise and magnify Your grace, so that no one shall be offended by our words, but that all may be edified thereby. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for 12. Sn. n. Trinitatis).
2. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him: „Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?“ And he said: „Who are you, Lord?“ And He said: „I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.“ The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision: „Ananias.“ And he said: „Here I am, Lord.“ For some days Saul was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying: „He is the Son of God.“
3. The Christians in St. Paul’s day, 3 years (ad 36) after Jesus’ death and resurrection, did not call themselves Christians. Rather, the first name they identified with was The Way. It may seem odd to us, 2000 years later, but that designation was rather descriptive of who they are in Christ Jesus. The designation was taken from something Jesus said in the Gospel according to John: »I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no one goes to the Father except through Me.« (John 14,6). Thus those who designated themselves as The Way were men and women who believed that only Jesus was the way to God the Father and eternal salvation. (Does anyone remember an edition of that paraphrased Living Bible translation from around 1971 that was titled „The Way“ and its New Testament edition called „Reach Out“?) Most of the Christians at this time were Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. By calling themselves The Way they distinguished themselves from their Jewish brethren who rejected Jesus. Today we called Jews who believe in Jesus Messianic Jews. These Jews of The Way were a thorn in the side of the Jewish religious authorities.
4. Acts 9 recounts how these leaders were opposed to those Messianic Jews. St. Luke recounts how Saul, soon to be known as Paul, approved the killing of Stephen, undertook the roundup of other Jewish Christians, urged them to reject Jesus as the Christ and if they refused to recant then they were killed. He was on his way to Damascus to gather up more Jewish Christians and send them in chains back to Jerusalem where they would await trial before Caiaphas – the same high priest who had condemned Jesus to death for blasphemy.
5. We would label Saul and Caiphas as „terrorists“. They were just as zealous and murderous in stomping out faith in Jesus among the Jews as Muslim jihadists are in forcing people to submit to Allah in our day and age. Saul was a zealous religious terrorist who firmly believed that he, as a Pharisee, had the pure and orthodox doctrine about God and that the Jews calling themselves The Way did not because they confessed Jesus to be both God and Messiah. Saul was serious about breathing threats and murder against the Jewish Christians.
6. And then Jesus intervened: »Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?« The Church celebrates Paul’s conversion to Christianity on 25. January when he encountered the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. On that day Jesus called Saul to be an apostle to the Gentiles. Ananias preached the gospel to Saul, healed his blindness and baptized him in the Triune Name of God. The Apostle Paul would later tell the Corinthian Christians: »I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me is not in vain.« (1. Corinthians 15,9-10). The Holy Spirit created faith in Paul and put him onto a different path, the path of the Way which is faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps this is why soon thereafter Saul began going by his Roman name Paul. The old man had passed away and a new man had been born; this man was no longer Saul the Jewish Pharisee, but now Paul the Christian Apostle.
7. What did Paul do after His resurrection encounter with Jesus? St. Luke tells us: »For some days Paul was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying: „Jesus is the Son of God.“ Paul confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ« (Acts 9,19-20.22). Paul simply followed the example of Jesus who taught the two disciples going to Emmaus: »Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, interpreting to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself« (Luke 24,27). Luke tells us later in Acts that »Paul reasoned with the Jews from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying: „This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.“« (Acts 17,2-3).
8. There are any number of Old Testament Scriptures from which to prove Jesus is the Christ and Messiah. Here are some foundational Scriptural verses. Jesus is both the Messiah and God: »For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His Name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace« (Isaiah 9,6). The Messiah will be killed and crucified; also His death will be a vicarious sacrifice that atones for sin: »He will be pierced for our transgressions; He will be crushed for our iniquities; upon Him will be the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we will be healed. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His life makes an offering for guilt. Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous one, My Servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities« (Isaiah 53,5.10.11). The Messiah will rise from the grave and be seated at the right hand of God: »My flesh also dwells secure. For You will not abandon My soul to hades, or let Your Holy One see corruption. In Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore« (Psalm 16,9.10.11).
In his seminal Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul would proclaim from the Prophet Hosea: »The Christ shall ransom them from the power of Hades? He shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Hades, where is your sting?« (Hosea 13,14; 1. Corinthians 15,55).
9. Paul took a different approach with those who had no knowledge of the Scriptures. When he preached the gospel to the Athenian Greeks, he used their own philosophers and poets to point to Jesus. Standing in the midst of the Areopagus, Paul said: »Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you« (Acts 17,22-23). Paul then reminds them of their Epimenides who wrote in 600 BC: „A grave has been fashioned for you, O holy and high Zeus; but you do not die, for you live and stand eternally, for in you we live and move and have our being.“ [1] Paul then refers to two poets, who both said: „Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken. For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus. Even the sea and the harbor are full of this deity. Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus. For we are indeed his offspring.“ [2] Paul then interprets the Greek philosophers by saying: »Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Divine Being is like gold, silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead« (Acts 17,29-31). Paul tells the Athenians: It is not Zeus who created the world and mankind, but it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who created us in His Divine image. It is not Zeus who gives us life eternally and in whom we live and have our being, but it is the very resurrected Jesus who lives eternally and gives us eternal resurrection [3] life.
10. The Apostle Paul continually emphasizes God’s desire to redeem all mankind. The Lord tells us through His prophets: »I do not have any pleasure in the death of the wicked; I desire that he should turn from his wickedness and live« (Ezekiel 18,23). »I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, so that all of them may call upon the Name of the Lord and serve Him with one accord« (Zephaniah 3,9). »For from the rising of the sun to its setting My Name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to My Name, and a pure offering. For My Name will be great among the nations« (Malachi 1,11).
11. Paul preached this universal gospel. »The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek« (Romans 1,16). Paul followed this in his preaching: he first preached to the Jews in their synagogues, then he preached to the Greeks in their public squares. Paul told Timothy: »Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is arriving when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths« (2. Timothy 4,2-4).
12. The 21. century is a time where people are willing to believe false preachers and any crazy interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The gospel of Christ crucified is needed now more than ever. Both the Jews and the nations need to hear the saving message of Christ. Jesus choose Paul to carry His Name before the Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel (Acts 9,15). May the Holy Spirit guide us and bless us in proclaiming salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ our risen Lord (Ephesians 2,8). Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, Thou blessed Son of the Heavenly Father, empower us to praise Your Name both in season and out so that all nations may hear of You and your gospel for fallen mankind. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
1 Circa 600 BC, Epimenides said: „A grave has been fashioned for you, O holy and high one, the lying Cretans, who are all the time liars, vile beasts, idle bellies; but you do not die, for you live and stand eternally, for in you we live and move and have our being.“ The quote comes from his poem Radamanthus and Minos in which he puts the words in the mouth of Minos, the son of Zeus, regarding Cretans who said Zeus had been ripped apart by a bull, buried and is still in his grave.
2 Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα, τὸν οὐδέποτ' ἄνδρες ἐῶμεν
ἄρρητον· μεσταὶ δὲ Διὸς πᾶσαι μὲν ἀγυιαί,
πᾶσαι δ' ἀνθρώπων ἀγοραί, μεστὴ δὲ θάλασσα
καὶ λιμένες· πάντη δὲ Διὸς κεχρήμεθα πάντες.
τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν. κτλ (Aratus, Phaenomena 1–5).
The poets Aratus and Cleanthus both made the assertion of stanza 5 in 300 BC.
3 αναστασις. The Epicureans presumably mocked Paul at this point in Acts 17,32 because they did not hold to a resurrection for in death the soul is at peace and separated from the lusts of the body, but the Stoics would be more willing to hear more from him as Paul’s proclamation touched on several points of similarity with their own philosophy.
