Acts 22(22)–23(11)

Introduction

If you were here last Sunday, you might remember that we read that the Jews in Jerusalem were trying to kill Paul. It happened because some Jews from the Roman province of Asia accused him of turning everyone against the Jews and against their laws and against their temple. And they also believed that he’d brought Gentiles into the temple, which was forbidden by God’s law. And so, they stirred up a crowd, who seized Paul and dragged him from the temple in order to kill him.

When the Roman commander found out what was happening, he took his officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd to put a stop to the disturbance. He had Paul arrested and brought him to the barracks in order to question him. But even as the Roman soldiers were taking Paul away, the Jews continued to attack Paul so that the soldiers had to carry him through the mob.

However, when they reached the barracks, Paul asked the Roman commander for permission to address the crowd. And having received permission to do so, Paul turned to the Jews and began to address them in Aramaic. And he told them how he once persecuted the Christian church. But then he saw the Risen Lord Jesus when he was on the road to Damascus. And the Lord told him to go into Damascus where someone will tell him what to do next. And in Damascus, Ananias came to tell him that the God of Israel had chosen Paul to know his will and to see and hear the Righteous One, Jesus Christ. And the God of Israel had chosen him to be his witness to all men of what he had seen and heard. And so, the God of Israel called Paul to proclaim to everyone the news that Jesus Christ, who died, is now alive and rules and reigns in heaven.

And we noticed last week that Paul described his speech as his ‘defence’. We often think of it as his testimony as if this were some kind of evangelistic rally and he was telling them how he became a Christian. So, here’s my life without Christ. Then I met the Lord. And this is my life now. That’s how we often think of his speech. But his speech was a defence and not a Christian testimony. He was trying to demonstrate to the people that he had always been a good and faithful Jew. He’s not a trouble-maker. He’s not an apostate. He’s a good and faithful Jew and the God of Israel had appointed him to this work.

And then he went on to tell them about another time when the Lord Jesus appeared to him in a vision when he was in the temple in Jerusalem. And the Lord told him to leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people there will not listen to his testimony. Instead the Lord was sending him far away to the Gentiles.

22:22

And that’s as far as we got last week. And for most of the time that Paul was speaking, the people in Jerusalem were listening to him. He was talking and they were listening. And it all seemed to be going fine.

But that all changed when Paul told them that the Lord was sending him far away to the Gentiles. As Luke says in verse 22: ‘The crowd listened to Paul until he said this.’ And after he said this — after he told them that the Lord was sending him far away to the Gentiles — they raised their voices and shouted, ‘Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!’

They wanted to kill him. And they wanted to kill him because he said that the Lord was sending him far away from the Jews in Jerusalem to the Gentiles. And the Jews in Jerusalem could not bear the thought that God was sending Paul to the Gentiles. After all, God was the God of the Jews. He was the God of the Israelites. He has chosen them a long time ago to be his special people. On the other hand, the Gentiles were unclean sinners and God was against them. That, at least, is what they thought. And they could not accept the idea that God was sending Paul to the Gentiles.

And yet, it was always God’s plan to bring salvation to the Gentiles. Last week I was telling the children the story of how God appeared to Abraham when he was living in Haran. And the Lord told Abraham to leave that place and to go to the land God will show him. And God promised to make Abraham into a great nation and to make his name great and to bless whoever blesses Abraham and to curse everyone who curses him. And then God said: ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ Right there, God was announcing to Abraham his intention to bless all the peoples on the earth through Abraham. That is to say, it was his intention to bless all kinds of people through one of Abraham’s descendants. And God blesses us by giving us salvation: by forgiving our sins; by accepting us as righteous in his sight; by adopting us into his family; by giving us his Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of Life who enables us to live for ever with God. Those are the blessings the Lord had in mind when he was speaking to Abraham.

And the descendant God had in mind, through whom we receive this salvation, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s only begotten Son, who came into the world as one of us and as a descendant of Abraham. And he came into the world as one of us to bring salvation to the world.

So, on Sunday evenings, we’re going through John’s gospel. And we’ve reached chapter 4, where the Lord met the Samaritan woman at the well. We’ll finish the story this evening and the story finishes with the Samaritans in the nearby town saying that they have come to believe that the Lord Jesus really is the Saviour of the world. He’s the Saviour of the world, because the gospel message is: whoever believes in him will be saved. Whoever believes in him will be saved, because he’s not only the Saviour of the Jews, and he’s not only the Saviour of the Gentiles, but he’s the Saviour of the world. And whoever believes in him — no matter their religious or ethnic or cultural background — whoever believes in him will be saved. The blessing of salvation comes to us from God the Father through his Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to pay for our sins and who was raised to give us eternal life.

And do you see the expansiveness of God’s love? As John tells us in his gospel, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. God’s love embraces the world. He reaches out to the whole world in love. In fact, because God’s love is infinite and overflowing, he created the world to be the object of his love. And even when the whole world turned against him, and chose to go its own way, he continued to love the world and he sent his Son to save us from the path of destruction we’d chosen for ourselves. And God offers forgiveness and eternal life to everyone who believes in his Son.

By contrast, we can be mean and unkind. We can be lacking in love. We limit our love. Think of the Lord’s parable of the good Samaritan. Do you remember what prompted him to tell that parable? An expert in the law was discussing the law with the Lord Jesus The Lord asked him: ‘What is the greatest commandment?’ And the expert said there are two great commands: one is to love the Lord our God; and the other is to love our neighbour as ourselves. ‘You have answered correctly’, the Lord replied. But ‘who is my neighbour?’ That’s what the expert wanted to know. And you get the impression that he wanted to limit the number of people he had to love. He was hoping that the Lord would say that the number of people who are his neighbours and who he’s to love is small and not large.

So, our love is finite. It’s small. It’s limited. But God’s love is great. It’s expansive. It’s overflowing and unending. God’s love reaches out to embrace the whole world. And his love reaches down to the lowest sinner.

When the Lord sent Paul far away to the Gentiles, he was teaching Paul that his love is wide, wide as the ocean and it reaches out to the whole world. And in obedience to the Lord, Paul went all over the Roman Empire to tell people everywhere the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But the Jews living in Jerusalem could not accept it. And so, they raised their voices and shouted: ‘Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!’

22:23–29

Luke tells us in verse 23 that they were shouting and they were throwing off their cloaks and they were flinging dust into the air. Throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust in the air are expressions of rage. In fact, they may have taken off their cloaks in order to get ready to stone Paul. And so, the Roman commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks in order to keep him safe from the mob. And he also needed to question Paul. Remember: Paul addressed the crowd in Aramaic, which the Roman commander probably did not understand. So, he has no idea what’s going on or why the people are so angry with Paul. And he wants to find out.

So, he gave orders for Paul to be flogged and questioned. This was what they typically did in those days to extract information from suspects. And the flogging could be so severe that it could leave people permanently crippled or it might even lead to death.

But Luke tells us that, as they stretched Paul out to be flogged, he asked the centurion who was overseeing it whether it was legal for him to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t been found guilty. We’ll discover in a few verses that Paul is indeed a Roman citizen. And we known from historians that it was indeed unlawful for a Roman citizen to be treated this way. Non-Romans could be treated like this, but Roman citizens were protected by law.

It’s interesting, however, that Paul isn’t demanding his rights. He’s not shouting at the centurion, telling him he’s wrong. He’s not threatening the centurion. He’s treating the centurion with respect and honour and he’s merely asking a question: ‘Is what you’re about to do lawful?’

And the centurion knows that it isn’t lawful for him to punish a Roman citizen like this. And so, he goes to the commander to see what they should do, because they’d both be in big trouble if the commander let the centurion continue with the flogging.

The commander goes to Paul to see whether it’s true that he’s a citizen. When Paul confirms that it is, the commander says that he himself had to pay a big price for his own citizenship. The historians tell us that that’s something people could do in those days. But then it turns out that Paul was a citizen by birth. We don’t know how this came about, but it’s perhaps possible that Paul’s father or another relative had been granted citizenship by paying for it or as a reward for some act of service to Rome. And then Paul inherited it so that he was indeed a citizen of Rome by birth.

And when they heard that Paul was a natural-born citizen, the soldiers around him drew back from him. It’s as if he was toxic. And in a sense he was, because being a natural-born citizen meant he could get them all into trouble for treating him this way. Luke tells us that the commander himself was alarmed. This was a potentially explosive situation for them.

22:30–23:10

And yet, the commander still needed to find out why the Jews in Jerusalem were so angry with Paul and what was their complaint against him. And so, he tried a different approach. Rather than let his men interrogate Paul by flogging, he ordered the Jewish chief priests and the members of the Sanhedrin to assemble. The Sanhedrin was the Jewish court. They were they ones who tried the Lord Jesus. They also tried James and John in the early days of the church. And now, Paul was brought before them so that they could question him.

And Luke tells us that Paul began by telling the Sanhedrin that his conscience was clear. Our conscience is a kind of ethical organ which commends us when we do well and which condemns us when we do evil by making us feel ashamed. It’s not perfect and it can become hard and insensitive if we disregard it repeatedly. But it’s a pretty good guide for us most of the time. And Paul’s conscience was telling him that he had done nothing wrong.

And Luke tells us that at this, Ananias the high priest ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. Strike him on the mouth as punishment for what he just said.

Paul replied by saying that God will strike him in return. That perhaps strikes us as being unkind. However, Paul is simply doing what he will tell all us to do in Romans 12, where he says we’re not to take revenge ourselves, but we’re to leave it to God to act on our behalf. So, Paul will leave it to the Lord to strike this man back if he so wills.

Paul also calls him a ‘whitewashed wall’, A whitewashed wall looks good. But a whitewashed wall can be deadly, if it’s full of cracks and if the cracks cause the wall to collapse. And this man may look good and upright and holy. But his heart is full of evil. And he’s full of evil, because he’s violating God’s law by commanding Paul to be struck for no good reason.

The people around Paul are indignant. Doesn’t Paul realise that he’s speaking to the high priest! Show a little respect!

And Paul replied by saying that he did not realise that this was the high priest. And he goes on to quote from the Old Testament to make the point that if he had known that this man was the high priest, then he wouldn’t have insulted him like this, because God’s law commands us not to speak evil about those who rule over us.

He then turns the conversation in a new direction. Luke explains for us that some of the members of the Sanhedrin are Pharisees, whereas the rest were Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the body on the last day, whereas the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. And Luke says that they didn’t believe in angels or spirits either. When he says that they didn’t believe in angels or spirits, he means they didn’t believe in angel-like spirits. Or they didn’t believe in what we now call the intermediate state which lies between our death and the resurrection of our bodies. So, they didn’t believe that when we die, our souls return to God who made us. And they didn’t believe that our bodies will be raised one day and reunited with our souls. They didn’t believe in any of that, whereas the Pharisees did believe those things.

And knowing that some were Pharisees and some were Sadducees, Paul called out to them that he is a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee. And I think what he means is that he shares their view about the resurrection. And he goes on say in verse 6 that the reason he’s on trial is because of his hope in the resurrection of the dead.

Why does Paul bring up the resurrection of the dead? What has the resurrection of the dead got to do with his arrest? What’s he talking about here?

It seems to me that his arrest has everything to do with the resurrection of the body because the reason he’s been arrested is because the Lord Jesus Christ has been raised. The Lord Jesus Christ, who died and was buried, has been raised and he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus and he appeared to Paul again in that vision in the temple in Jerusalem. The Lord has been raised and he appeared to Paul and he has commanded Paul to proclaim to the Gentiles that he died and was raised and whoever believes in him will be raised as well. Though we die, and our bodies are laid in the ground, the day is coming when Christ will return in glory and with power to raise the dead. And all those who believed in him in this life will be raised to live for ever in the presence of God in the new and better world to come, whereas all those who did not believe in him in this life will be raised to suffer eternal punishment away from the presence of the Lord. If the Lord Jesus Christ had not risen and appeared to Paul, Paul would not be standing there before the Sanhedrin. But the Lord has been raised. And he appeared to Paul. And he appointed Paul to be his witness. And Paul is therefore standing before the Sanhedrin because of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, Luke tells us in verse 9 that there was a great uproar. The Pharisees announced that they found nothing wrong with Paul, because, of course, they too believed in the resurrection. They might not have believed that Christ has been raised, but they believed in the resurrection in general. And presumably the Sadducees were saying the opposite about Paul, because they did not believe in the resurrection. And Luke says that the dispute became so violent that the Roman commander was afraid that Paul would be torn into pieces. And so, he ordered his men to take Paul away and to bring him into the safety of the barracks.

And once again we see the goodness of God who has established the governing authorities to uphold law and order and to protect the innocent. We were thinking about this last week. The governing authorities may not be Christians, but they have been established by God for our good, because they’ve been established by God to protect us. This is part of God’s common grace. I explained last week that God’s special grace is his kindness to his people which leads to salvation. But as well as his special grace, there’s God’s common grace, which is his kindness to all people everywhere. It doesn’t lead to salvation, but it’s for our temporal good. And so, because of God’s common grace, he causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the righteous and the evil. And because of God’s common grace, he restrains our natural inclination to do evil so that even the pagans can do good much of the time and not evil. And because of God’s common grace, he surrounds us with people like teachers and doctors and nurses and builders and so on with the gifts and abilities and desire to help us every day. And because of God’s common grace, he gives us governing authorities and he gives us the police to keep the peace and to uphold law and order. And on this occasion, God sent a pagan Roman commander and his men to protect Paul from the members of the Sanhedrin who wanted to tear him apart.

We should give thanks to the Lord for establishing the governing authorities. And we should pray for them.

23:11

But there’s one last verse to go before we’re finished. In verse 11 of chapter 23 the Lord appeared to Paul and said to him: ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me [or as you have borne witness about me] in Jerusalem, so you must also testify [or so you must bear witness about me] in Rome.’

You see, everything that happened to Paul was part of God’s plan to bring Paul to Rome so that he could bear witness to the people there about Jesus Christ, who died and who was raised and who rules and reigns in heaven and who gives forgiveness and eternal life to everyone who believes in his name.

And so, this passage once again demonstrates for us the expansiveness of God’s love. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to pay for our sins with his life before rising from the dead to give us life. And God so loved the world that he did everything necessary to bring Paul to Rome to announce the good news of Jesus Christ to the people who lived in the capital city of the largest pagan empire at that time. God so loved the world that he wasn’t willing to abandon the world, even though we turned away from him and we chose the way that leads to destruction. God so loved the world that he would not give us up. So, first he sent the Saviour. And then he sent Paul to bear witness to the Saviour. And he continues to send preachers into all parts of the world to tell people everywhere the good news of Jesus Christ, who died and who was raised for sinners. And God comes to you today in the preaching of his word to tell you this good news and to convince you of the greatness of his love, which overflows from God through Christ to the world. He wants you to know his love and to be comforted by it and to live your life in light of it. Love so amazing, so divine, demands your soul, your life, your all. And so, in view of the greatness of God’s love for the world and for you in particular, you should live you life for him and for his glory, seeking to honour him in everything you do and say.