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relation to that very name he had so intensely hated. From henceforth the name of, "The
Hung" (the name of reproach heaped upon Christ by the Rabbis) was his glory. The
"Crucified" was henceforth Master and Lord.
We are allowed a glimpse of Saul in Damascus and we can see that the same zealous,
consuming temperament is there, but sanctified and mellowed by saving grace and
overwhelming mercy. We see in Paul the apostle, not only the impetuous eagerness and
vehemence of Saul the Pharisee, but we discern something to which Saul was stranger--
humility. That distrust of self and of his gifts and powers, that consciousness of some
humiliating appearance, the shrinking and tender spirit that pervades his earnest
messages, all tell of the marvellous change. "And straightway he preached in the
synagogues Jesus (R.V.), that He is the Son of God." The name of Jesus was the object
of his uncovered hatred, the spring of his converted effort, and the cause of the suffering
which he bore.
The Jews at Damascus tolerated such men as Ananias, but they sought to kill such as
Paul. One able writer has said:--
"It was, throughout life, Paul's unhappy fate to kindle the most virulent animosities,
because, though conciliatory and courteous by temperament, he yet carried into his
arguments that intensity and downrightness that awakens dormant opposition. A languid
controversialist will always meet with languid tolerance, but any controversialist whose
honest belief in his own doctrines make him terribly in earnest, may count on a life
embittered by the anger of those on whom he has forced the disagreeable task of
re-considering their own assumptions. . . . Out of their own Scriptures, by their own
methods of exegesis, in their own style of dialectics, by the interpretation of prophecies
of which they did not dispute the validity, he simply confounded them. He could now
apply the same principles which in the mouth of Stephen he had found it impossible to
resist."
Take the word "name" in Acts 9: above, and notice the witness of the word:--
Verse 14.
Saul has authority to bind all who call on the name.
Verse 15.
He is chosen to bear the name.
Verse 16.
He is to suffer for the name.
Verse 21.
He destroys those who call on this name.
Verse 27.
At Damascus he preaches boldly in the name of Jesus.
Verse 29.
At Jerusalem he speaks boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus.
When besought not to go up to Jerusalem Paul said, "What mean ye to weep and break
mine heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the
name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 21: 13). When recounting before King Agrippa the days
of his unregeneracy, he prefaces the account of his violence by the words, "I verily
thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of
Nazareth" (Acts 26: 9). The very memory of the persecutions which he had directed
against the believers was rendered odious to him ever after by the recollection of the
words from heaven, "I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest."