The Power of His Resurrection

Saul of Tarsus, the promising pupil of Gamaliel, who seemed the coming man of Judaism, threw away all his prospects for the belief in Christ’s resurrection, turned his friends into foes, and exchanged a life of honourable ease for a life of toil and shame – surely common sense requires us to believe that that for which he so suffered was in his eyes established beyond the possibility of doubt. (Prof. Kennett)

It is a well-known story how that Lord Lyttleton and his friend Gilbert West left the University at the close of one academic year each determining to give attention respectively during the long vacation to the conversion of St. Paul and the resurrection of Christ, in order to prove the baselessness of both. They met again in the autumn and compared experiences. Lord Lyttleton had become convinced of the truth of St. Paul’s conversion, and Gilbert West of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If, therefore, Paul’s twenty-five years of suffering and service for Christ was a reality, his conversion was true, for everything he did began with that sudden change. And if his conversion was true, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, for everything Paul was and did he attributed to the sight of the risen Christ.