MANY years ago a proud Pharisee was journeying toward the ancient city of Damascus with authority from the high priest to bind and bring to Jerusalem for persecution and death all those he could find of the followers of the Master, Christ Jesus. It is related that suddenly a great light appeared and he fell to the ground and heard the voice of the Christ, Truth. This incident left him blinded, but much chastened and wiser, and for three days thereafter he was without sight.
Did he conclude that a great catastrophe had overtaken him during those three days of darkness, and perhaps wonder why he had so much to meet? No. According to the Scriptural narrative in the ninth chapter of the book of Acts, Saul of Tarsus was obedient to the voice of the Christ and soon learned that his affliction was the falling apple which was to lead him to new discoveries of a life transformed by spiritual vision from hate to love. This experience revealed a new nature and enabled him to turn from persecuting the followers of the Master and become the intrepid reformer and apostle of Christ Jesus, healing and preaching the gospel and organizing the early Christian Church in Asia Minor and many other countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
Paul's remarkable accomplishments as a faithful follower of the gentle Nazarene shine out like a beacon light through the intervening centuries and are aptly epitomized in his declaration (Phil. 1:21), "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." He had awakened to the Christ, which revealed his true nature. The scales that fell from his eyes in the house of Judas were symbolic of and coincident with the falling away of his untempered zeal in behalf of a false theology which had claimed to obscure the light of Christ and becloud his spiritual perception of God as Love and of man in His perfect likeness. It was the death of the materially-minded Saul of Tarsus and the birth of the spiritually-awakened Apostle Paul.
