And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, (2) And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.
The Holy Ghost hath most graciously shown, in the history of Saul of Tarsus, to what a desperate height the human mind void of grace is capable of advancing, in malice and hatred, against the Lord, and that the church of Christ might learn, that there is no difference between one man and another, in the Adam-nature in which all are born; the Lord the Spirit hath here shewn in the example of one of the most eminent servants of Jesus, as he afterwards proved, what our state would do, while unawakened and unregenerated before the Lord: and what the Lord enables his people to do when called by sovereign grace from darkness to light, and from the power of sin and Satan to the living God, I pray the Reader to enter upon the wonderful history here before us with prayer to the Lord the Spirit, that all his gracious designs in giving this relation to the Church, and frequently repeated as it is, may be blessed both to the Writer and Reader of this Poor Man's Commentary; that in the perusal of it, w e may be made wise unto salvation through the faith that is in Christ Jesus. See Acts 22:1; Acts 25:1; Ga 1; 1 Timothy 1:16; 1 Timothy 1:16
It should seem, that Saul at this time, had fairly routed all the preachers of the Gospel, which were at Jerusalem, excepting the Apostles; and that he made no attack upon them, we can only refer into the Lord's sovereignty, such as Jesus exercised when on earth, in their personal protection. (See John 18:8. and Commentary upon it.) And now the fury of his heart led him, as he said elsewhere, (Acts 22:4; Acts 26:9-11) to persecute them even unto strange cities; determining, if it were possible, to exterminate Christ and his Church from the earth. Reader! pause and contemplate the subject, for it is exceedingly momentous. Who should have thought, that in the very moment this man was thus aiming destruction at the Lord's people, that he was himself a chosen vessel of Christ, and had been so from all eternity? Who that heard the blasphemy of the-man, and beheld the bitter cruelties he exercised on the Lord's redeemed ones, compelling them to blaspheme; Acts 26:11, could have conceived, that the very mouth which breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, should soon preach Christ in all his fulness and glory; and to feel the salvation of souls so near his heart, as to wish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen after the flesh, Romans 9:3. But what cannot the grace of God accomplish? What will it not accomplish, rather than one, whom the Father hath given the Son in an everlasting covenant which cannot be broken, should perish? Reader! I pray you at every step you take in this wonderful history, figure to yourself that you hear the man, whose conversion the Holy Ghost hath here so sweetly recorded, proclaiming in his own words, For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-sufferings for a pattern to them, which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting, 1 Timothy 1:16
I stop the Reader in the midst of the history, to beg him to remark with me, that it is evident, both from the stoning of Stephen, the binding unto prison, and death, men and women, and Saul's going to Damascus for the same purpose, the power of the Sanhedrim was not totally gone. But if he compares this part of Saul's history here, with that part of it we meet with when he stood before the council to answer for his life, as related, (Acts 22:1) and when the chief captain rescued him from them; he will perceive that a change had then taken place. And if he will prosecute the subject a little further, (and it is a subject of some moment to ascertain the point), he will discover, that the Sanhedrim now no longer exercised their authority in cases of life and death. For when Festus declared Paul's cause to Agrippa, he made this remarkable observation: It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him, Acts 25:16. And what a beautiful proof this is, in confirmation of Jacob's prophecy, of the departure of the sceptre from Judah now Christ the Shiloh was come, and the gathering of the people to Christ was taking place in the earth! Genesis 49:10. See Commentary on Acts 25:16.