Now as Paul has concluded the giving of his conversion details in Acts 22:6-11, just think about the chain of events he has just described beginning in v.3. He was a poster-boy for Judaism, not only living out the regulations to the fullest extent, but defending them at the expense of others’ lives. No one who had that life trajectory would one day just wake up on their accord and alter their life’s mission in 180-degree fashion! What Paul once hated with all of his might, he now loved with all of his soul. And vice versa—what he once esteemed above all things, he now viewed as absolute trash (Php. 3). That is an automatic result of Christ’s saving work!
It’s not adding Christ to an already somewhat moral life; it’s Christ delivering a dead, depraved, hopeless and helpless sinner from sin and eternal death! Ultimately, conversion is an encounter with divine power!
There are various passages that speak to the spiritual realities of conversion…
2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come; Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…
This is what Christ does when he saves someone and this is what salvation is—a rescue from destruction. Paul didn’t just make a decision for Christ one day; no, he was stopped in his wicked tracks by nothing less than the hand of God and was appointed to be a witness for Christ. That’s what must and will take place for all saved sinners and thus that is once again a point of commonality we have with unbelievers. Regardless of what brand of rebellion against God we subscribed to, we were just as lost as any unbeliever we may encounter and therefore, the same transforming grace that the unbeliever needs is the same transforming grace we have received.
Glorifying the power of God in conversion
