Our Lord Jesus Christ is often called the Light. (See John 1:4, 5, 8, 9; 3:19-2 1; 12:35, 36, 46, and elsewhere.) When the Lord appeared to the three disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration they saw His Divine Human with the eyes of their spirit, and His countenance was like the sun, and His garments white as the light. He is also described in this way in the Book of Revelation (1:16). In heaven He "dwells in light inaccessible" - light so bright and dazzling that no one can ever reach it, for He is in the sun of heaven. Indeed the sun of heaven is the love and wisdom which go out from Him. Of course the angels see that sun. We cannot see it; no man on earth can, unless the Lord mercifully opens the eyes of his spirit. When this is done, the eyes of the body are closed. This was the case with the three disciples when they saw Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and also with John when he was "in the spirit" on the Island Patmos, where he saw the wonderful visions described in the Apocalypse, or Revelation.

Today we read about another man, the eyes of whose spirit were opened. But he did not see the Lord, but the light that comes from Him. This was Saul of Tarsus. Saul was not one of the disciples. On the contrary, he had been a great enemy of the disciples, having been a witness of the stoning of Stephen, and being active in persecuting the Christians. The Lord converted him by showing him the bright light that comes from Him. Saul saw this light with the eyes of his spirit and not with the eyes of his material body, for we read afterwards that he opened his eyes but was blind, showing that they had been shut while he saw the vision and heard the voice of the Lord Jesus. The ears of his spirit had been opened as well as the eyes of his spirit, for he heard the voice of the Lord.

Why do you suppose the Lord said that Saul was persecuting Him, although he was persecuting the disciples? Because while the Lord was still on earth He had told His disciples that whatever is done "unto the least of His brethren," that is, to anyone who is His disciple, is done to Him. Read this in Matthew 25:31-46.

Whatever happens in the spiritual world can be witnessed by people only to the extent in which their spiritual senses are opened to notice. You will see this in John 12:28, 29, where, when the Divine spoke to the human, the Lord permitted some of the people to hear it; some heard it as thunder, while others heard it as the voice of an angel.

As there is a correspondence between the sight of the spirit and the sight of the body, no doubt the bright Divine light from the Lord Jesus affected Saul's spiritual eyes, and through them his natural eyes. A friend of Swedenborg's, Dr. Beyer, who was one of the first and most earnest New Church people, and who suffered persecution because of his belief in the Doctrine of the New Church, relates having been told by Swedenborg how he saw the Lord. He says that he saw Him "in imperial purple and in majestic light, seated near his bed, while He gave Assessor Swedenborg his commission. I remember that I asked him how long this lasted; whereupon he answered, `About a quarter of an hour'; also whether the strong light did not affect his eyes, when he said, 'No.' "

Swedenborg was a good man, a lover of truth, and so he was prepared to see the Lord, and the Divine light would not hurt his eyes. Paul, on the contrary, had been occupied with the wicked persecution of the Christians and was even then bent on persecuting the Christians in Damascus. He did not see the Lord, and the light blinded him for three days, and it was only when he had prayed, and Ananias, at the Lord's command, went to him and laid his hands on his eyes, that he recovered his sight.

Saul was afterwards called Paul, and became a very active missionary of the Christians. As did Philip, so did Paul, "he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God" - and, as we saw in the story of Philip, this is the first thing of the Christian faith. It was not the healing of people that was of greatest importance - that ceased after a while, after faith in the Lord had become established, for the healing of the body through religion may become a great snare to people, so that they become religious for the purpose of having healthy bodies, and thus become evil like Simon Magus. The most important and the first thing that the apostles did was to preach the Lord Jesus Christ risen from the dead, in His glorified body.

As Saul, or Paul, had been one of the principal agents of the high priests in persecuting the Christians, his conversion to Christianity made a great change in the way the Christians were treated, so that "they had rest in Judea, Samaria and Galilee."

In verses 32 and 41 the Christians are called "saints." That means that they had accepted the holy truth regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. This truth in them made them holy. The word "saint" comes from the Latin word for "holy." But do not imagine that these saints wished to be worshiped, or ever accepted worship, as many in the Roman Catholic Church think. Everyone who receives the truth in his heart is holy or a saint. But the moment that he thinks that it is his own truth and forgets that it is the Lord's with him, then he no longer has the truth, and so is no longer a saint. You will now understand why the church is often called "the communion of saints."

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