I just bought a new shelf for my books, as I'd 'outgrown' my old one. In the process of rearranging my books, I came across one I read nine years ago. I read only the things I'd highlighted in chapter one and decided I need to read this book again. You're probably wondering by now what book it is. It's "Men Whose Eyes Have Seen the King" by T. Austin-Sparks. I'm now in chapter two and struck again by Saul's conversion. I'm going to quote from this book, so will put the quotes in blue. (That way you won't confuse what I'm saying with what Sparks wrote).
He wrote about the effect of being there for the transfiguration of Christ by Peter and how it carried him through to the end of his life and ministry. It is not that something has remained as the memory of an objective experience, but that something has happened in him.
We can get the 'truth' about anything and everything: all the truth that is available about the Lord Jesus Himself -- His birth, His life, His works, His words, His death, His resurrection -- all that there is; we can have all the 'truth' about the Church -- and what a lot there is available; we can have it all, know it all -- nothing fresh to know about it; and any other thing you like to mention, in the Scriptures -- and yet the fact can remain that nothing has happened in us as a result. That is not how it ought to be. True spiritual apprehension ought not just to be something in front of us -- it ought to be something in us.
In the next paragraph, he moves on to Paul. Here is this fact, that, on the Damascus road, Jesus appeared unto him in glory -- 'brightness above the brightness of the sun.' (Now I looked for this version of this verse in several different Bible versions a few postings ago and couldn't find it, but I knew I'd been taught at some point, that it was per above rather than just 'suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.' This so much more portrays our Lord Jesus...a Light brighter than the brightness of the sun! No wonder Paul had an eye problem throughout the rest of his life!) But as you know, when speaking of it years afterward, he says: "it pleased God...to reveal His Son in me" (Gal 1:15-16). It was not only to him -- it was something in him. The Apostle Paul's whole life and ministry was based upon and sprang out of that double event, to and in.
It very much reminds me of Romans 11:36 ~ For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things to Him be the glory forever. Amen. So that's how it was with Paul, the new creature in Christ. Paul's life was from Him, through Him and to Him. Ours should be, too, but do we really live that way? Is the 'from, through and to' as evident in my life and your life as it was in Paul? If not, let us ponder anew this great gift He's given us and pray it will be.
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