Acts 9:18

18. There fell Ananias had put his hand upon him, verse (12,) Saul received the Holy Ghost, (Acts 9:17,) and what followed? The regenerated and Spirit-filled Saul burst away the bondage produced upon his external sense. Very probably during the three days the humours had dried upon his eyeballs, and as the abounding of his spirit quickened the whole man, the scale-like particles fell from his eyes, thus forming a striking emblem of his renewed spiritual eye-sight.

Arose, and was baptized Apparently without leaving the room. The interpolation by Lechler of a journey to the banks of some branch of the Barada river is licentious mis-interpretation. There is in the text (whatever there may be in his commentary) no intermediate event or action between the arose and the was baptized. The baptism in this case was preceded by faith, justification, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and even the special bestowment of the Holy Ghost. It follows the regenerating affusion of the Spirit as the physical picture of a spiritual operation the water-outpouring imaging the Spirit-outpouring.