'I follow after if that I may apprehend that for
which also I was apprehended of Christ
Jesus.'--PHIL. iii. 12.
'I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ.' That is how Paul thinks of what we
call his conversion. He would never have 'turned' unless a hand had been
laid upon him. A strong loving grasp had gripped him in the midst of his
career of persecution, and all that he had done was to yield to the
grip, and not to wriggle out of it. The strong expression suggests, as
it seems to me, the suddenness of the incident. Possibly impressions may
have been working underground, ever since the martyrdom of Stephen,
which were undermining his convictions, and the very insanity of his
zeal may have been due to an uneasy consciousness that the ground was
yielding beneath his feet. That may have been so, but, whether it were
so or not, the crisis came like a bolt out of the blue, and he was
checked in full career, as if a voice had spoken to the sea in its
wildest storm, and frozen its waves into immobility.
There is suggested in the word, too, distinctly, our Lord's personal
action in the matter. No doubt, the fact of His supernatural appearance
gives emphasis to the phrase here. But every Christian man and woman has
been, as truly as ever Paul was, laid hold of by the personal action of
Jesus Christ. He is present in His Word, and, by multitudes of inward
impulses and outward providences, He is putting out a gentle and a firm
hand, and laying it upon the shoulders of all of us. Have we yielded?
Have we resisted, when we were laid hold of? Did we try to get away? Did
we plant our feet and say, 'I will not be drawn,' or did we simply
neglect the pressure? If we have yielded, my text tells us what we have
to do next. For that hand is laid upon a man for a purpose, and that
purpose is not secured by the hand being laid upon him, unless he, in
his turn, will put out a hand and grasp. Our activity is needed; that
activity will not be put forth without very distinct effort, and that
effort has to be life-long, because our grasp at the best is incomplete.
So then, we have here, first of all, to consider--