The Anatomy of a Holy War Gone Wrong Text: Acts 26:9-11
Introduction: Zeal's Double Edge
There is a kind of zeal that builds kingdoms and a kind of zeal that burns them down. There is a holy fire that consumes the sacrifices on God's altar, and there is a profane fire, a strange fire, that consumes the priests themselves. The difference between the two is not the heat, but the source. The tragedy of fallen man is not that he has stopped worshipping; it is that he worships with a furious energy, but he worships the wrong things, or he worships the right thing in a monstrously wrong way.
In our text today, we have the Apostle Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, giving his testimony before King Agrippa. And in this testimony, he is not making excuses for his former life. He is not pleading youthful indiscretion. He is laying out the anatomy of his rebellion, and in so doing, he is magnifying the sheer, unadulterated sovereignty of the grace that arrested him. He is presenting himself as Exhibit A in the case for God's unmerited favor. What we see in Saul is a man utterly convinced of his own righteousness, a man whose every action was hostile to the name of Jesus, and yet he was acting, in his own mind, as God's premier agent. He had a zeal for God, but it was a zeal without knowledge (Rom. 10:2).
This is a terrifying condition, and one that is not unique to the first century. We live in an age of furious zealots. Our culture is filled with people who think they are on the right side of history, who are absolutely convinced that they must do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. They persecute the saints, they try to force them to blaspheme the created order, and they are enraged when we refuse. They do not think of themselves as wicked. They think of themselves as virtuous. They are fighting for "justice," for "love," for "progress." They are, in short, just like Saul.
And so, this passage is not just a historical account of one man's bloody resume. It is a mirror. It shows us the dark potential of religious devotion when it is untethered from the truth of the gospel. And more than that, it is a window into the heart of God. A God who does not just defeat His enemies, but who, in a stunning display of power and grace, makes His most furious enemies into His most faithful servants.
The Text
“So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.”
(Acts 26:9-11 LSB)
Convinced Hostility (v. 9)
Paul begins with the internal state of his mind before his conversion. He was not a reluctant persecutor, but a convinced one.
"So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene." (Acts 26:9)
The phrase "I thought to myself" reveals the internal engine of his jihad. This was not peer pressure. This was deep, personal conviction. He believed it was his solemn duty, his obligation before God, to oppose "the name of Jesus the Nazarene." The name represents the person, the authority, and the claims of Christ. To Saul, that name was an existential threat to everything he held dear: the Law, the Temple, the traditions of the fathers. The addition of "the Nazarene" is likely a term of contempt. Jesus was from a nowhere town, a backwater. This was not just theological opposition; it was mingled with a high-minded, cultural snobbery.
He says he "had to do" these things. This is the language of moral necessity. In his mind, to fail to persecute the Church would have been a dereliction of his duty to God. This is what makes religious error so potent and so dangerous. A man who knows he is doing wrong may have his conscience restrain him. But a man who believes his evil is righteousness has no brakes. He will persecute with a clean conscience, believing the whole time that he is earning God's favor. This is precisely what Jesus had warned His disciples would happen: "they will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service" (John 16:2).
Saul was the poster child for this prophecy. His hostility was not random; it was principled. His war was not against a people, but against a Name. And this is always the case. The world can tolerate a sanitized, spiritual Jesus who stays in the private sphere of your heart. But the moment the Name of Jesus, with all its exclusive claims to authority and lordship, is proclaimed in the public square, the hostility begins.
Authorized Atrocities (v. 10)
In verse 10, Paul moves from his internal conviction to his external actions. His zeal was not just a private opinion; it was armed with state power.
"And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them." (Acts 26:10)
Notice the progression. He "locked up many of the saints in prisons." He is not minimizing his guilt. He calls his victims "saints," the holy ones. He recognizes, in retrospect, that he was warring against God's own people. He did this "having received authority from the chief priests." This is crucial. Saul's persecution was not rogue vigilantism. It was an officially sanctioned, state-sponsored holy war. He had papers. He had the backing of the religious establishment. This is a sober warning that the greatest evils are often perpetrated by those who have the full weight of institutional authority behind them.
But he goes further. "When they were being put to death I cast my vote against them." The word for vote here is psephos, which refers to a pebble used for voting. This strongly suggests that Saul was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, and that he participated in the capital trials of Christians like Stephen. He didn't just watch from the sidelines; he was an active participant in their judicial murder. He heard the evidence, such as it was, and he formally, officially, condemned them to die. Every time a Christian was sentenced to death, Saul's pebble went into the jar of condemnation.
Think of the cold, hard reality of this. He is confessing to being a serial murderer, all under the color of law. He was a religious terrorist with a government grant. This demolishes any romantic notion that our sincere convictions are all that matter. Saul was utterly sincere. And he was sincerely and damnably wrong.
The Goal of Persecution (v. 11)
Verse 11 reveals the ultimate goal of his persecution and the demonic fury that drove him.
"And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities." (Acts 26:11)
He "punished them often in all the synagogues." The synagogues were not just places of worship; they were community centers with judicial authority, including the authority to scourge. Saul went from synagogue to synagogue, hunting down believers and having them flogged. But physical punishment was not the end goal. The goal was spiritual destruction: "I tried to force them to blaspheme."
What does this mean? He was trying to make them renounce the Name. He was trying to make them curse Jesus Christ and declare that He was not the Messiah. This is the ultimate aim of all persecution. The enemy does not simply want to kill Christians; he wants to make them deny their Lord. He wants to prove that their faith is a sham, that under enough pressure, they will break and curse the one they claim to love. The goal is apostasy. The goal is to make a mockery of Christ by turning His own followers against Him.
And what was the fuel for this campaign? "Being furiously enraged at them." This was not a calm, dispassionate enforcement of the law. This was a white-hot, consuming rage. Why was he so angry? Because the very existence of these Christians was a challenge to his entire worldview. Their peace, their joy, their love for one another, and their unwavering confession of a crucified and risen Messiah was a constant, implicit rebuke to his self-righteous, works-based system. As Stephen's face shone like an angel's, Saul's heart was filled with a black rage. This is the fury of a man fighting against a truth he cannot extinguish and perhaps, deep down, fears might be true.
His rage was so boundless that it could not be contained by Jerusalem. He "kept pursuing them even to foreign cities." This is what set him on the road to Damascus. His was a missionary zeal for destruction. He was an apostle of persecution, planting seeds of terror wherever he went. He was, as he later described himself, a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man (1 Tim. 1:13). He was the chief of sinners, not because he was worse than anyone else by nature, but because his sin was so active, so zealous, so furiously and religiously bent on destroying the church of God.
The Sovereign Interruption
Why does Paul recount all this? Is it to wallow in his guilt? No. He is setting the stage. He is painting the backdrop as black as he possibly can in order to make the star of God's grace shine with an unbearable brightness. The blacker the sin, the brighter the grace. The point of this testimony is not the fury of Saul, but the sovereign power of Jesus Christ.
The man who was "furiously enraged" at the saints was about to be knocked off his high horse by a light from heaven. The man who tried to force others to blaspheme would soon be crying out, "Who are you, Lord?" The man who breathed out threats and slaughter against the disciples would be transformed into the man who would suffer the loss of all things for the sake of the Name he once hated.
This is the gospel. The gospel is not for people who have their act together. The gospel is for blasphemers, for the enraged, for persecutors, for religious zealots who are sincerely wrong. The gospel is for us. God's sovereign grace does not negotiate with our rebellion; it conquers it. It does not ask for our permission; it invades our lives. It takes the raw material of a murderous Pharisee and makes an apostle to the Gentiles. It takes the persecutor's vote and transforms it into a martyr's testimony.
Saul's testimony is a permanent rebuke to all our pride and self-reliance. If God can save Saul of Tarsus at the height of his rage, then there is no one beyond His reach. It is also a permanent rebuke to our fear. We look at the furious rage of our modern secularists, their determination to make us blaspheme, their institutional power, and we can be tempted to despair. But we must remember Saul. The Lord on the throne is not wringing His hands. He knows how to turn the persecutor's fury into a preacher's fire.
Therefore, we should pray for our enemies. We should pray for those who are furiously enraged at the Name of Jesus. We should pray that they too would be met on their own road to Damascus, that the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ would blind them to their own self-righteousness, and open their eyes to His magnificent, sovereign grace.