Well, Paul did meet God, but not in the way he expected. In his zeal for God, Paul sought to destroy the new religion of faith in Jesus Christ. Paul traveled to Damascus to terrorize the believers there. Along that road the Lord appeared to Paul in a blinding light, and the Lord turned out to be Jesus Christ! Paul’s religious world exploded (Acts 9:3-19; 22:3-16; 26:13-18). He realized then that all his sincerity, all his zeal for God, and all his law keeping, had been for nothing. They had betrayed him. They had made him oppose God’s Messiah (Acts 9:1-5; 22:4-8). Paul realized then how empty and futile his old ways had been. Those Jewish qualifications were not a profit, but a loss. They were “rubbish” compared with God’s true way to salvation.
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith (Philippians 3:7-9).
The remarkable thing about Judaism and Christianity is that, on the surface, they seem so much alike. Both have sincere faith in God. Both claim to follow Scripture. Both have zeal and obedience. Both realize that sin is the barrier that keeps people away from God. Both aim at being accepted by God.