Acts 9:15 But the Lord said to him, Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings… I. He is a VESSEL. The word means either an "instrument" in the hands of the Divine Agent to carry out His purposes, or a "vessel" into which the Lord Jesus poured abundantly of His mind and His love. We are not fountains which give forth. "All our springs are in Thee." God is an infinite Spring giving inexhaustibly forth; men are empty vessels receiving everlastingly of His fulness. The difference between men is not in their power to originate, but in their power to take in. II. A vessel UNTO ME, i.e., Paul was now the actual possession of Christ. Heretofore he was in the service of the great enemy, and was the ablest and the most dangerous opponent the young Church had yet encountered. But the vessel was wrested from the enemy, and henceforth is a vessel separated unto and honoured in the service of Christ. III. A CHOSEN vessel. 1. A choice vessel; "earthen," it is true; but there is a great difference in the quality of even earthen vessels. Chemical analysis, it is said, discovers considerable difference in the quality of human brains. The brain of the rustic is coarse and gritty, whereas that of the man of genius is fine, smooth, silky, and sensitive. Be that as it may, Paul was a vessel manufactured with the greatest care out of the finest materials. He was "separated unto God from his mother's womb." God even then thought of the purpose to Which he was to be devoted, and proceeded to fashion him accordingly. The same law runs through grace as through nature — the perfect adaptation of means to ends. If God has any special design to accomplish, He always seeks to bring it about by the most suitable means. Saul would have been a public man if he had never been an apostle. He would have been an orator if he had never been a preacher. The raw material of an apostle was wrought into his original make. 2. He was chosen or ordained of God unto the work of the apostleship. "He is a vessel of election unto Me." The doctrine of election has been wrongly taught and falsely apprehended. The Scriptural doctrine is that God chooses man before man chooses God, and the latter is only the faint echo of the former. The Divine election should be viewed in much the same light as the Divine love. "We love Him because He first loved us." "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." The fundamental principle of all false religions is that man chooses his God. IV. TO BEAR MY NAME. Paul bore the name of Jesus — 1. In his intellect. His capacious mind had no room for anything else. "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge," etc. The glorified Form appearing unto him on the way to Damascus photographed itself so deeply upon his mind that it could never afterwards be effaced. "To me to live is Christ." Sir David Brewster says that Sir Isaac Newton once gazed so steadfastly on the sun that for days after, turn which way he would, he constantly beheld the image of the sun. And Jesus impressed Himself so deeply in the "great light" on the mind of Paul that ever afterwards, whichever way the apostle looked, he always perceived the reflection of Christ. 2. In his heart. Paul may be compared to an "alabaster box of precious ointment" — the box is valuable, but the ointment is more precious. "The name of Christ is like ointment poured forth." Paul was possessed of much genius. But only when he received the unction from the Holy One did he fill the world with his perfume. You can quote other ancient authors of surpassing beauty, but I defy you to quote any where the fragrance is so sweet and so abundant. Carry the rose about you and you will scatter scent wherever you go. And Paul's writings are sweetly scented with leaves from the Rose of Sharon. Christ is an "offering of sweet smelling savour" to men as well as to God. A lump of clay has been made fragrant by being thrown into the midst of a bed of flowers. And although Christians in their original state are not a whir better than other men, yet by holding fellowship with Him whose "garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia," they catch the fragrance. 3. In his ministry. He "shall bear My name before Gentiles," etc. And in ver. 28 we see him beginning to fulfil the prediction. What then prompted him so powerfully to bear the name of Christ to perishing millions? To return an adequate answer, two factors must be taken into consideration. The first was a vivid, heartfelt conviction of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Where the sense of sin is weak the sense of ministerial responsibility is shallow. But the second and more powerful element was his intense love to the Saviour (2 Corinthians 5:11, 14). The terror moved, the love constrained. The mill wheel may be turned either by a current of water flowing underneath or else by a stream falling upon it from above. But of the two the latter is the more efficient. In Paul the two currents worked together — the terror from beneath and the love from above; and as a consequence imparted unusual impetuosity and rapidity to his revolutions. V. BEFORE GENTILES, AND KINGS, AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. The wide scope of his ministry required — 1. Certain social qualifications which the other apostles did not possess. Paul enjoyed all the privileges and exemptions of a Roman citizen. Born at Tarsus, he became master of the Greek tongue and sensible to all that was refined in classic life. A pupil of Gamaliel, he was deeply versed in Scriptural and rabbinical lore. Thus in him all that was best in the three dominant types of civilisation met — the freedom of the Roman, the language of the Greek, and the theology of the Jew. 2. Great intellectual culture. The sphere of his labour embraced all classes and ranks of men. Moses, the founder of Judaism, was "learned in all the learning of Egypt." Paul, too, the foremost apostle of Gentile Christianity, was learned in all the learning of his own and other nations. We are here introduced to a grand evangelistic principle — the Saviour ordained the most accomplished of the apostles to be His missionary among the heathen. The greatest knowledge is always the best instructor of ignorance. 3. Much moral courage. Before, literally in the face of, Gentiles and kings. Paul would have to encounter innumerable obstacles which only the greatest courage could surmount. And perhaps true courage never towered more sublimely than in his life. Conscience was keen and strong in him, and scrupulous fidelity to its voice marks his whole career. Indomitable strength of his will is nowhere seen to better advantage than in the presence of difficulties. The eagle never soars so high as he does on the day of tempest — the wilder the gale the loftier his flight. Lord Chatham, it is said, made his crutches add to the grandeur of his oratory; and Paul, dangling his chains in the face of his judge, made the most impressive peroration in the literature of eloquence. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: |
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