Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 9:17-22

"And Ananias departed, and entered into the house; and laying his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, [even] Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way which thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And straightway there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and he arose and was baptized; and he took food and was strengthened. And he was certain days with the disciples that were at Damascus. And straightway in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God. And all that heard him were amazed, and said, Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havoc of them that called on this name? and he had come hither for this intent, that he might bring them bound before the chief priests. But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews that dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is the Christ." — Acts 9:17-22 (ASV)

(17–19a) Ananias was obedient to his Lord and followed the directions given in the vision. He was undoubtedly comforted by knowing that Saul too had been given a vision about his coming (v.12), though he must have proceeded with some trepidation. Going to the house of Judas on Straight Street, he entered, laid his hands on Saul, and greeted him with the fraternal greeting “brother”— believing, it seems, that whomever Jesus had accepted was his brother. He spoke about Jesus, who had appeared to Saul on the Damascus Road, and about the restoration of Saul’s sight and his being filled with the Holy Spirit. And “immediately,” Luke tells us, “something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” We would like to know more about the persons and details of this event, but this is all Luke records. What he says, however, is significant. As the Gospel advanced to the Gentiles, the main missioner was converted to Christ and given his commission in a manner that fully showed the heaven-ordained nature of his conversion and call—a manner that did not make him dependent on the Jerusalem church for either his conversion or call, yet brought him into essential unity with all those who are Christ’s.

(19b–22) Luke’s references here to what Saul did immediately after his conversion is difficult to fit in with Paul’s own account of his conversion and the immediately subsequent events . But these differences help substantiate Lukan authorship of Acts. Certainly no later admirer of Paul would have disregarded Paul’s most important autobiographical statement about his conversion and commission and given a portrayal that can be taken as ambiguous and contradictory. But if, as seems likely, the letter to the Galatians was written before Luke himself joined Paul’s missionary team, then it may very well have been the case that Luke was unfamiliar with the specific contents of Paul’s earlier Galatian letter.

Of more importance, however, is the fact that the purposes of Paul in Gal 1:15–24 and Luke here are different, with these purposes affecting both the selection and shaping of each writer’s presentation. Thus in his desire to assert the revelational nature of his Gentile ministry, Paul emphasized in Galatians that he was not dependent upon “any man” (Galatians 1:16) for his distinctive gospel, and particularly not upon the Jerusalem apostles. Luke, however, while also interested in depicting the heaven-ordained nature of Paul’s conversion and commission, is concerned here to stress the genuineness of Saul’s conversion and call. This he does by speaking of the new convert’s distinctly Christian proclamation in the synagogues of Damascus and his persecution by the Jews of the city because of his preaching (neither of these is ruled out by Gal 1:15–24).

A likely historical reconstruction is as follows: (1) Saul’s conversion and commission (9:1–19a); (2) his preaching in the synagogues of Damascus for a time immediately following his conversion (9:19b–22); (3) his prolonged residence in Arabia (Galatians 1:17); (4) his return to Damascus (9:23–25); and (5) his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian some three years after his conversion, with his subsequent travel to Caesarea, Syria, and Cilicia (9:26–30; Galatians 1:18–24).

The content of Saul’s preaching in the Damascus synagogues focused on Jesus: “Jesus is the Son of God” (v.20) and “Jesus is the Christ” (v.22), i.e., the “Messiah.” That Saul could preach such a message immediately after his conversion is not impossible because the certainty of Jesus’ messiahship was deeply implanted in his soul by his experience on the Damascus road. And while he had much to understand about the implications of commitment to Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, he was certainly in a position to proclaim Jesus’ messianic status with conviction and enthusiasm.

Nor is it surprising that Saul also spoke of Jesus as “the Son of God,” though this is the only occurrence in Acts of this Christological title. In a number of NT passages the titles “Messiah” and “Son of God” are brought together (cf. Matthew 16:16; 26:63; 20:31), for the Anointed One par excellence expressed uniquely that loving obedience inherent in the Hebraic understanding of sonship. That is how Paul used the titles “Son” and “Son of God” some fifteen times later in his own letters (e.g., Romans 1:3–4, 9; 1 Corinthians 1:9; 2 Corinthians 1:19; Galatians 1:16; et al.).

Those who heard Saul preach, Luke says, were “astonished” and “baffled.” But with his interest in advance and growth (cf. Lk 2:52), Luke also says that “Saul grew more and more powerful,” suggesting both a growth in his understanding of the meaning of commitment to Jesus as Messiah and Son of God and an increasing ability to demonstrate the validity of his proclamation.