Immediately after Saul was saved, the Lord began to educate him concerning the Body. This was the reason He said to Saul, “Rise up and enter into the city, and it shall be told you what you must do” (9:6). Here the Lord seemed to be saying, “Saul, I shall not tell you what you need to do. You have been saved directly by Me, and no other person knows that you have been saved. Therefore, you need a representative of My Body to come to you and confirm the fact that I have saved you, chosen you, and called you. You also need such a representative of the Body to bring you into the identification with My Body.” As we shall see, when Saul came to Jerusalem and tried to join the disciples, “all feared him, not believing that he was a disciple” (v. 26). Such a situation made it necessary for his salvation to be confirmed by a representative of the Body.
When the Lord told Ananias to seek Saul, Ananias replied, “Lord, I have heard from many concerning this man, how many evil things he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem” (v. 13). Here we see that Ananias did not want to have anything to do with Saul. Then the Lord went on to say to Ananias, “Go, for this man is a chosen vessel to Me, to bear My name before both the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer on behalf of My name” (vv. 15-16). Then Ananias went to contact Saul. In his contact with Saul, Ananias recognized him as a brother in the Lord (v. 17). If the Lord had not told Ananias to seek out Saul, none of the believers would have recognized Saul as a brother. Through Ananias the Lord gave Saul excellent instruction concerning the practice of the Body life.
In 9:17 Ananias said to Saul, “The Lord has sent me, Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, so that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The filling here is the outward filling with the economical Spirit. Both in the case of Saul in chapter nine and in the case of the Samaritans in chapter eight, the Head of the Body withheld the economical Spirit. The Lord held back the economical Spirit from the Samaritan believers because the Jews regarded them as strangers and had no dealings with them. The Jews would have found it difficult to believe that God would save the Samaritans. Therefore, the Head of the Body withheld the economical Spirit until Peter and John came to Samaria to lay their hands on the Samaritan believers. Through the laying on of the hands of Peter and John, the Head passed on the economical Spirit as a sign to the Jewish believers that even Samaritans could be members of the Body of Christ.
Saul of Tarsus, of course, was a typical Jew, a pure Hebrew. However, he was a leading persecutor of the church, one who devastated the church in Jerusalem. Who would ever believe that he had turned to the Lord and had been saved? When Paul received the Lord’s salvation, he also received the essential Spirit within him. However, the Head of the Body held back the economical Spirit until a representative of the Body came to Saul and laid his hands on him. At that juncture, the economical Spirit came upon him as strong evidence of the fact that he had been saved and had been accepted by the Head into the Body as a member. Actually, Saul was a particular member, a member that was to bear the weighty commission to minister God’s New Testament economy to the Gentile world.
It is not easy to have the proper understanding of all that is portrayed in 9:1-19. Likewise, it is not easy to see the significance of what is recorded in this section of Acts. Our understanding of this portion of the holy Word came not only from reading the Bible and books written by others, but also from considering our own history and experience. As a result of many years of study and experience, we can see the crucial points in 9:1-19. Each point should not merely be a teaching to us; rather, every point should be a vision that we see on the heavenly television.