Light from Above

The word “suddenly” means to say “unexpectedly.” The Lord comes unexpectedly, when a person is not planning on it. The light which shone round about Saul was the light of the majesty and glory of God, of that God who is said to be a consuming fire and an everlasting burning. It was the same burning which Moses and Isaiah saw. If we learn to see ourselves in that light, then there remains on our side only unholiness and darkness.

Have you ever seen your own life in the light of the greatness and majesty of God? Then we must perish, because we are of unclean lips. As long as we have not seen ourselves in that light, we will always be busy speaking well of sin, and we will always think that things will still turn out well with our sins. However, if the glory of God becomes reality in your life, then all speaking well of sin will no longer take place.

That light enlightens the darkened heart. When a person is converted unto God, he receives light from above. In that light I learn to see who God is, who I am, and how great my darkness is. We need that light in order to learn to know our darkness.

However, there is also another side, for light also gives something pleasant. We speak about the light of God's grace. Saul was acting like a beast, but the Lord stood ready to confer His grace upon him. It is not that we in the beginning immediately know this; on the contrary, we learn to experience our darkness and our lost condition. We become a miserable one, a lost one, a person standing outside. The Lord uncovers and breaks down, so that we die to self, but it is to make room for the light of His grace.

It is noteworthy that it says that the light from heaven shone round about him. Thus it was light everywhere, no matter which way he turned. If the Lord enters into our lives, we can no more struggle free. There can be many impressions in a person's life which again pass away and from which we shake loose. Review this in your own life! However, if the Lord enters savingly into us, this is no longer possible. The light shone round about him, so that Saul could not escape it.

“And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Thus Saul fell to the earth when that heavenly light shone round about him. In a meeting with God a person can never remain upright. Saul had never done anything other than maintain himself. However, now he fell down from his high position. First Christ was for the fall of him before He would be for the rising of him.

Have we already fallen from our own heights? Have we already fallen prone before God in the dust? For we will all one day have to fall, if not here in this life, then it will be later, but then it will be too late. Saul fell to the earth, which means to say that he was brought down in himself with all his pharisaical religion.

The Lord did this to make room in his life for Christ. You could also say that Christ in His prophetical ministry uncovers sin, as was true here with Saul, in order to make place for His priestly ministry. Christ first breaks down a person in order to build him afterward upon His mediatorial merits.

That Saul fell to the earth also means that he was humbled and became nothing. Humility is always a fruit of the work of God in the heart of a sinner. When the Lord works, then He makes a person to be nothing before God, but it is so that the Lord should become everything in the life of that person.

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