Scripture: Acts 26:12-18, Ecc 12:11, etc.
On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions (Acts 26:12-13).
These were the words that Paul spoke before King Agrippa and Governor Festus while he was held as a prisoner in Caesarea. He spoke of how he had been transformed through his experience on the road to Damascus. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, he had passed from death to life, from the dominion of Satan to the kingdom of the Son, from the slave of sin to the servant of righteousness, and from darkness to light, just as Jesus had said to him:
I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. … I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (vv. 16-18).
Paul was given the mission to “turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God,” so that they would receive “forgiveness of sins” through faith in Christ and “a place” as heirs of God. This was the truth and spiritual reality that he himself was brought into through this experience. This spiritual transformation is symbolically described as “I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions.”
We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?”
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,”
the Lord replied (vv. 14-15).
