Thepfulhouvi Solo, IFS Retd
The Old Testament Jewish Patriarchs didn’t know who ‘JESUS’ (Yeshua) is. Moses himself didn’t know the name of the Anointed that would come after him and he commanded all should listen to the one who will come after him. The Prophets of the Old Testament times from -Eli, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Isaiah to Mica, expected a Messiah to come, but the name JESUS was not found recorded in any of the books till John, the Baptist appeared.
The Jews of his days found Jesus a great Prophet but didn’t know him as the Christ who was to come till John the Baptist; who declared Jesus the “Lamb of God” first. John didn’t get it from any book or heard it from his Parents; John heard it directly from heaven as he baptize Jesus in the river Jordan when a ‘voice’ from heaven came saying: “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
The Identity of a person is important in our days today as it was 2025 yrs ago [the death of Herod the great, recorded historically as happened in 4 BC] in the days of Jesus. One Principal Secretary of the Government was first refused Payment of his Pension by an inexperienced SBI Staff because the Name of the SERVICE was not found recorded at the end of the Pensioner’s name in his PPO [Pension Payment Order] book -not necessary, last Pay Slip being recorded.
The common man of those days believed Jesus with awe to be a great Prophet from God, come to raise the sovereignty of the Jewish Kingdom from subjection of the Romans.
Jesus taught his Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven to the people in simple parables and Ideas never articulated before or heard from others. He taught people to pray for their enemy, and turn the other cheek if someone hit you on one side; he raised the dead from the grave and dead bed in full view of the public:
Turned water into choicest wine, walked on water, rebuked the storm in the sea to cease, spat on the eye of a blind and restored the sight. “Let the dead bury the dead,” but “follow me”, he said: “I will make you fishers of man”. He invited all to come to him and find rest. He declared the Kingdom of God is already come.
Quite many a Jews expected him to raise up their fallen Kingdom lost long ago to the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and now the Romans, who one after the other, over the centuries, subjugated the Jews for many generations.
But the Leaders of the Jews, the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law, didn’t liked to believe him ‘son of God’ or the Messiah, because his name is not found recorded in any of the ancient Scriptures and also because they were worldly, and divine only in hypocrisy, not in the Spirit. They asked him: “If you are the Christ tell us.”
Pontius Pilat, the Roman Governor of Judea at the time from 26 to 36 Christian era heard Jews expected a Saviour. Pilat asked Jesus: “Are you the King of the Jews?” and to ingratiate himself to the Jews, crucified Jesus as “KING OF THE JEWS” at the instigation of the religious leaders.
Saul, a contemporary of Jesus, recently trained Pharisee of excellence in the history of the Jews and the Law was journeying down the International Trade Highway from Jerusalem to Damascus and was near the city, when a blinding light “from heaven” suddenly felled him down on the road and a sound called out: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads”
Saul didn’t know the identity of the sound that called him. Yet civilly he answered: “Who are you, Lord?”
Decency and Humility are the inherent characteristic nature of persons amenable to God. The great biblical characters Job and Melchezadech of old were non-Jews and non-Christians; yet humble and decent, they believed the monotheist ‘Most High God’ of the Jews.
As Saul lay on the road, the Sound from heaven replied: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me”
Saul had heard of the name Jesus and of his teachings earlier in Jerusalem but hadn’t personally known him. He is deadly opposed to Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews. And after unleashing havoc on the nascent followers of Jesus at Jerusalem in Judea, Saul was proceeding to Damascus to persecute the disciples in Damascus!
Sometime after resurrection of Jesus from the death; in the Sanhedrin of the Jews at Jerusalem, Saul went strongly against Stephen, one of the disciples of Jesus, who earnestly witnessed that Jesus is Christ, the Messiah of the Jews.
Saul intensely opposed the Idea. Of course he is a trained Pharisee and knows the scriptures very thoroughly well, because he had spent many years of study of the Scriptures of the Jews and the Law in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, the person par excellence in Jewish history and the Law. Saul had himself written to the Galatians: “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age, and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.”
Saul’s father, a well known person from Tarsus -a proud city of the Roman Province of Cilicia- was a highly decorated person of the Roman Government in spite of being a Jews of the Diaspora: and because of his good Service to the Government of Rome, the Roman Royal has given him the personal Privilege of a “Roman Citizen”, the title high officials of the Government, even Centurions in the Service of the Roman Army, purchase the Position at high Price of payment to the Emperor.
Saul inherited the Roman Privilege from his father and was brought up in a highly respectable Family of strict Jews. He was sent to special study of the Scriptures and the Law under famous Gamaliel at Jerusalem to become a highly learned and respectable Pharisee.
It is seen Saul has dauntlessly used his aristocratic confidence in audiences with Chief Priests, Governors and Kings in the service of his Lord Jesus whose Servant he has proudly and gracefully become.
Stephan in his argument cited the entire history of the Jews, from the time of their Patriarchs -Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt for 400 years, and God’s wonderful deliverance of them out of Egypt through Moses, Aaron and Joshua to the land of Canaan, for their possession.
God gave the Ten Commandments and many Laws on the ways of God to the Jews through Moses and other Prophets; yet the Jews rebelled against God. So God gave them over for many centuries to the subjection of foreign Nations.
In ringing voice Stephan rebuked the Sanhedrin Jews for their “stiff-necked unbelief” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
He told them: “Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They killed even those who predicted the coming of the Righteous one, and now you have betrayed and murdered him”.
At these, the Jews covered their ears and rushed at Stephan, dragged him out of the Sanhedrin and stoned him to dead: Saul was there in the crowd in approval of the action of the Jews.
As he was dying, Stephan knelled down on his knees and in a loud voice prayed: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” and died.’
Now, fallen in the road on the way to Damascus, Saul heard Jesus commanding him: “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Saul got up opened his eyes but could see nothing and his escorts led him by the hand into Damascus to the House of one Judas on the street called “Straight”
For three days, Saul didn’t eat or drink anything in the house and he kept on praying.
Prayer is the innermost personal communication between a Person and his Maker.
Saul never said what he communed with Jesus during the three days of prayer without food and drink in the house of Judas at Damascus. In his letter to the Corinthians Saul said he “was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell” [the writer would have liked Saul a little boastful and tell the Corinthians what he has heard in Paradise; like he has said of his Vision while at Troa of Asia on the eve of the Macedonian Call on him]!
We see Saul completely changed his Mindset after the incident at the Damascus Road. The Old Testament has the name Abram changed to Abraham after he met God, Jacob became Israel after he wrestled with an Angel and the New Testament showed Saul became Paul after Jesus met him in the Damascus road.
It is difficult to understand a long-time-known person abruptly change his or her Mindset: Friend suddenly turns into Enemy or adversaries turn into trusted Loyalties!
To Saul, the Old Testament turned into New Testament Witnesses, and the ‘zeal for Traditions of his parents’ turned into zeal for undeserved ‘Graciousness of God’! ‘The Grace of God became loftier than the mosaic law’; and Paul received the revelations himself directly from JESUS CHRIST, not from any of the Apostles of Jesus or of any other man; He died for preaching them.
