The new birth is a lot like physical birth, and physical birth is used in the Bible as an illustration of what the new birth is like. What happens in physical birth? First of all, new life is created within the womb of the mother. In physical terms, there is a combination of the sperm and the egg. Until that happens there is no life. But once that union takes place, life begins to grow. It grows for nine months. Then the moment of birth comes, the baby cries, and everyone is pleased with the cry because it is a sign of a healthy baby. It is the same spiritually.
The new birth is a lot like physical birth, and physical birth is used in the Bible as an illustration of what the new birth is like. What happens in physical birth? First of all, new life is created within the womb of the mother. In physical terms, there is a combination of the sperm and the egg. Until that happens there is no life. But once that union takes place, life begins to grow. It grows for nine months. Then the moment of birth comes, the baby cries, and everyone is pleased with the cry because it is a sign of a healthy baby. It is the same spiritually.
It is sometimes helpful to compare parallel accounts of Bible stories. This is because parallel accounts are generally not quite identical, and the variations usually throw light on one another or on the meaning of the passage in which each occurs. That is the case with the stories of Paul’s conversion. There are three of these accounts in Acts—in chapters 9, 22 and 26—and Luke, the author, makes different points in each one.
Has God worked in your life? Has Jesus Christ made Himself known to you, producing His life in you, calling you by name so that you become His and say, as the Apostle Paul and the other ambassadors of the cross undoubtedly said, “I would rather die than deny what Jesus did for me?” If that is the case, then you belong to that great company of God’s people. If not, you need to seek out Jesus while He may be found.
Unless Saul was hallucinating, the appearance of Jesus proved that Jesus was alive and that Jesus was God. For this was a theophany. This was not just like merely meeting a man walking along the road. This was a voice from heaven. Moreover, this Jesus who was God was identifying Himself with the very people Saul was persecuting.
We must recall that Saul must have thought not only that the Christians were wrong, but that they were deceivers. Yet in the trial and martyrdom of Stephen, for the first time in his life Saul must actually have come face to face with a true and articulate Christian.
What would Paul have thought of Christianity before he met Jesus? He would have thought that it was wrong, of course. That is clear enough. He was a monotheistic Jew. Christians were claiming that Jesus was God. He would have regarded that as polytheism. If Jesus is God and if Jehovah is God, there must be two gods at least. Christianity would have been incompatible with Judaism, as he understood it.
The ninth chapter of Acts contains Luke’s account of the conversion of his friend Saul. But the story is told twice more, once in chapter 22 and again in chapter 26. These later accounts are not mere summaries of Saul’s conversion. They are full accounts, each with its own particular emphasis. It is significant in so short a book—yet one attempting to cover the large story of the expansion of Christianity from its small beginnings in Jerusalem shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to a religion that filled the whole empire—that the tale of one man’s conversion should be so greatly emphasized.
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