15b”. . . I am Jesus whom you [Paul] are persecuting. 16But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; 17rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you . . .”
Paul does not shy away from self-indictment, laying out the rebuke he received by the One he had persecuted. In his theologically distorted mind, he thought he was serving God. Hardly can his Jewish listeners avoid the powerful implication that they are doing the same thing in persecuting Paul.
Paul rehearses for them the specifics: he was persecuting heretics who claimed that a renegade carpenter from Nazareth was the Messiah and that He arose from the dead. And there He was, that Jesus, right in front of him. To make sure, Jesus had stopped him in his tracks with a sound and light show (Acts 26:13) like happened only to the prophets of the Old Testament (see, for example, Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3). Further, Jesus was telling him that his actions against this “sect of the Nazarenes” were tantamount to persecuting Jesus, the one whom they believed was the Messiah.
Having fallen to the ground at this spectacle and now knowing the ID of the One talking to him, Paul was given a command. In the apostle’s mind, this command is essential; all his subsequent actions are under the command and by the authorization of Jesus the Nazarene. As he wrote in another place:
Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead) . . . that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:1, 11–12)
Jesus assigned him the task of telling people about his conversion experience and further revelation that God, through Jesus, would show him. Paul is speaking with the confidence of a prophet. He is constrained; he must do as God has directed him through Jesus. If anyone has an issue with Paul’s preaching, the real issue they have is with Jesus. Paul is merely obeying his instructions.
To the aggravation of the Jews, Paul further asserts that Jesus anticipated their opposition and promised to rescue him from them. His accusers at this trial before King Agrippa must have been particularly annoyed at how this was playing out before their very eyes. Paul was in fact rescued out of their hands, never to set foot in Jerusalem again. They could not stop Paul’s mission to preach the good news to Gentiles!
Lord, I want my testimony to point people to You; I am simply Your messenger.
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