That some very unusual but objective experience happened to Saul is to be seen in the conduct of his companions at the time. In Acts 9:7-8 (Authorized Version), we are told that they “stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man,” and found it necessary, because Saul had been blinded, to lead him “by the hand” into Damascus. In in the account in Acts 22:9 we are told that Saul’s companions “saw indeed the light, . . . but they heard not the voice of him that spake . . . “The discrepancy in these two accounts was cleared up by the prophet Joseph Smith, who make known by the spirit of revelation that the one in Acts 22 is to be regarded as correct. (See “Inspired” revision of the Bible.)
Unfortunately for the religious welfare of mankind, modern rationalists, in their open opposition to the supernatural, have given wide publicity to their “natural” explanations of Saul’s vision and conversion. To Latter-day Saints a brief summary of their views may be of profit and interest if only because of the fact that the prophet Joseph Smith’s accounts of his first and subsequent visions have been attacked in much the same manner. The rationalist hypotheses may be reduced to two: (1) Saul was by nature nervous and excitable, subject to attacks of hysteria and epilepsy, and predisposed to visions and ecstasies. The appearance of Christ to him, therefore, on his mission to Damascus, was but the first of those ecstatic experiences which were repeated at intervals thereafter. (2) Saul’s conversion, with the extraordinary phenomena that accompanied it, was but the final crisis of a great mental and soul-searching struggle that had shaken him profoundly since the death of Stephen. All during his trip to Damascus Saul was questioning his own motives in persecuting the Church. By day and by night he was harried and haunted with thoughts and feelings of fear, remorse and uncertainty. Finally, when he was near the great Oriental metropolis, Saul’s great interior struggle reached its climax. A psychological transformation took place in him which Luke has erroneously materialized.
So much for the critics. But the evidence does not bear out their conclusion. As many believers in Saul’s remarkable vision have not been slow to point out, his own words ascribe his conversion absolutely and without question to God’s grace and the personal intervention of the Christ
It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen [Gentiles]. (Gal. 1:15-16)
Nowhere in the New Testament records is it possible to find any hint of Saul’s having a soul-searching struggle while on the way to Damascus. He seems to have been caught unawares when our Lord vouchsafed him his first great vision.
The charge that Saul was subject to attacks of hysteria and epilepsy is difficult to maintain in view of the fact that the men with him at the time of his vision also saw the light and were speechless and afraid. (Acts 9:7; 22:9).
The evidence points to the fact that Saul was miraculously turned from carrying out a plan which he zealously believed to be right. To make him about-face, the Lord delivered a spiritual “jolt” that the proud Pharisee never forgot. The arisen Christ made him out as a persecutor, instead of a good man in God’s service. But, quickly, and effectually convinced that he was in the service of the wrong master, Saul asked the Lord what he should do. The Master did not berate him, but gave to him a divine commission which the Apostle was to recall in later years before King Agrippa. Part of it we have already quoted above, but a repetition of that part may be pardoned.
But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 22:16-18)
Saul now knew his real life’s work, and he entered into the Lord’s service with the same vigor and zeal that had characterized his career as a Pharisee. Like Alma the Younger and the four sons of King Mosiah of Book of Mormon fame (Mosiah 27:8-37), who years before on the American continent, had had a very similar conversion to his, Saul anxiously embarked upon a course tending not only to undo the damage he had wrought upon the church, but also to spread its fame and increase its membership throughout the Roman Empire. (Sidney B. Sperry, Paul’s Life and Letters [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft Publishers, 1955], 18-20, emphasis added)