Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 22:7

"And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" — Acts 22:7 (ASV)

This description of Christ’s encounter with Paul on the road to Damascus, except for stylistic differences, closely parallels the one in 9:3–6 (cf. comments there). As in Acts 9, he maintains that his conversion to Jesus as God’s Messiah was the result of a heavenly confrontation and that it was not something Paul originated subjectively or others imposed on him. It was, indeed, “Jesus of Nazareth” who confronted him, and this places his messianology in the matrix of the Jewish homeland. But it was the risen and ascended Jesus of Nazareth, the heavenly Christ, who rebuked him and turned him about spiritually; this alone explains his new understanding of life and his new outlook on all things Jewish.