Acts 9:20-25

PAUL'S SANCTIFICATION

20-25. (Galatians 1:15-22 and Romans 7.) Saul had long been a preacher of no ordinary ability. Hence he was a fluent orator when thus powerfully converted under the impetus of a spiritual Niagara. He preached Jesus boldly in Damascus, to the unutterable surprise of all who had trembled with awe at the mention of his name. Luke's scanning history is here elliptical, involving the conclusion of an inward conflict, accompanied by divine leadership off to Arabia, where God taught Moses forty years and sanctified him at the burning bush. John the Baptist was also taught in God's theological school, i. e., the desert of Judea, preparatory for his wonderful ministry. So Saul must spend three years amid the wild beasts and Bedouins of the Arabian desert. Galatians 1:16:

“When God was pleased to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood, but went away into Arabia.”

This is included in Luke's narrative (Acts 9:22), “And Saul continued to be more and more fi]led up with dynamite.” This is his Arabian experience of sanctification, testified in Romans 7:25, the preceding chapter describing his conflict with inbred sin, while in the justified state. On the Damascus Road the Holy Ghost revealed to him the Son of God, shining on him from without. In Arabia (Galatians 1:15), He revealed to him Jesus within sitting on the throne of his heart. It is our privilege all to have Pauline experiences, in which Jesus first appears to us, shining on us from without in regeneration. Then it is our privilege to receive the Holy Ghost, our sanctification, who in that case always enthrones Jesus in the heart and gives you the blessed consciousness that Jesus henceforth sits on the throne of your heart, making your life a cloudless sunshine and lighting up your entire being with the glory of His presence. Be sure your experience is Pauline; first Jesus appearing to you and shining on you, and then revealed in you, sitting on the throne of your heart. Saul did not dare to go up to Jerusalem, appear before the apostles and claim his apostleship, to which Jesus called him when He met him, without receiving in addition to his conversion in the house of Judas a clear Pentecostal sanctification, thus rendering him experimentally homogeneous with the other apostles. Acts 9:9: “And he mightily confounded the Jews, proving that He is the Christ.” This was after he returned from Arabia. He is now a cyclone of fire and logic irresistible.