CRITICAL REMARKS
Acts 23:1. Earnestly beholding, or looking steadfastly on, describes the eager, anxious gaze with which the apostle was accustomed to scan those to whom he spoke—perhaps arising from his infirmity of sight (Alford), but more from the intense emotion of his spirit (see Acts 14:9, and compare Acts 7:55.) Men and brethren. Or simply brethren (see also Acts 23:5-6.) The omission of “fathers” (Acts 22:1) was probably intended to suggest that he felt himself on an equality with the council. I have lived.—πεπολίτευμαι properly signifies to discharge one’s civil and political duties, but as used here and elsewhere (Philippians 1:27) by Paul, includes his whole moral and religious conduct, or his behaviour in every respect. In all good conscience.—I.e., in every respect, in every instance with a good conscience, or with a consciousness of integrity and sincerity (compare 2 Timothy 1:3).
Acts 23:2. The high priest Ananias.—Not the individual of that name mentioned earlier (Acts 4:6; compare Luke 3:2; John 18:13), but the son of Nebedæus, who succeeded Camydus, or Camithus, was nominated to the office by Herod, King of Chalcis, in A.D. 48, and entered on his duties in the procuratorship of Tiberius Alexander (Jos., Ant., XX. Acts 23:2). He was deposed from his office not long before the departure of Felix (Ant., XX. viii. 8), but still retained great power, which he used violently and lawlessly (Ibid., ix. 2). He was eventually assassinated by the Sicarii (Wars, II. xvii. 9). Them that stood by him were not members of the council or spectators, but most likely the servants in attendance, as in Christ’s trial (John 18:22; compare Luke 19:24). To smite him on the mouth.—Compare John 18:22; Jeremiah 20:1-2. “This mode of enjoining silence is practised in the East at the present day” (Hackett). “For a Jew to order a Jew to be struck on the cheek was peculiarly offensive. ‘He that strikes the cheek of an Israelite strikes, as it were, the cheek of the Shekinah,’ for it is said (Proverbs 20:25), ‘He that strikes a man (i.e., an Israelite, who alone deserves the name) strikes the Holy One’ ” (Farrar).
Acts 23:3. Thou whited wall!—Thou hypocrite! Like the similar phrase, “whited sepulchre” (Matthew 23:27). The prophecy here uttered against Ananias—not a wish (Kuinoel)—was fulfilled (see above).
Acts 23:4. To revile God’s high priest was certainly forbidden by the law of Moses (Exodus 22:28).
Acts 23:5. I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest.—These words have been interpreted as meaning either:
1. That the apostle refused to acknowledge Ananias as high priest; either because he had procured the dignity by money (Grotius) or by usurpation (Lightfoot), and was therefore not the high priest in reality.
2. That the apostle declined to recognise as God’s high priest one who behaved so insolently as Ananias (Calvin, Baumgarten, Stier, Meyer, Besser, Holtzmann), in which case his language would be ironical.
3. That he spoke without due reflection, and therefore rashly, and now meant to recall his words (Bengel, Wetstein; Olshausen, Ewald, Wordsworth, Hackett).
4. That at the moment he was not acquainted with the person of the high priest, Ananias having been installed into office during his absence from the city (Chrysostom, Beza, Lechler).
5. That when he spoke he did not really know by whom the order to smite him had been given (Farrar)—which might well have been the case if his vision was as defective as is commonly supposed (Alford, Plumptre), or if Ananias was not presiding (Zöckler), because the Sanhedrim was sitting at the bidding of the Roman captain (Lechler), or if, though Ananias did preside, Paul did not know he was the high priest (who was not always required to preside: compare Schürer’s Gesch. des Jud. Volks, p. 156 ff), but thought him an ordinary member of the court (Lechler, Plumptre). Of these, the first and second may be set aside as improbable, if not unworthy of the apostle. The third may contain an element of truth, to this extent, that the apostle ought, perhaps, to have been sure who the person was against whom he uttered so severe a prophecy. That he knew and spoke in anger, “in an outburst of natural indignation” (Conybeare and Howson), we think unlikely in the case of one
(1) who had just been claiming that he had lived before God in all good conscience up till that day (Acts 23:1);
(2) who had the day before exhibited such presence of mind;
(3) who possessed, along with his brother apostles, the promise of the Holy Spirit’s help as to what he should say when brought before kings and councils; and
(4) who afterwards, when confessing his wrong-doings before the council, made no mention of this supposed ebullition of wrath (Acts 24:20-21). In our judgment this last consideration is fatal to the theory that Paul spoke unadvisedly with his lips. The fourth and fifth explanations appear in all respects the most satisfactory. It is written.—The passage (Exodus 22:28) applies to any civil magistrate as well as to the high priest.
Acts 23:6. Sadducees.—See Acts 4:1; Acts 5:17. Pharisees.—See Acts 5:34. For both see “Homiletical Analysis.” Men and brethren.—Or, simply brethren. The son of a Pharisee.—According to best codices, a son of Pharisees. Of, or touching, the hope and resurrection of the dead.—I.e., touching a hope (which I have), even that there shall be a resurrection of the dead (compare Acts 24:15; Acts 24:21; and see Acts 17:31). Baur, followed by Holtzmann, objects to the apostle’s statement as untruthful, since he must have known that the matter for which he was called in question was not his preaching of a resurrection from the dead, but his teaching with regard to the law, that it was not binding on Gentile Christians. But in point of fact the apostle’s statement was substantially correct, that whatever was the ostensible ground of complaint against him, the real cause of his apprehension was his witness concerning Christ’s resurrection—since out of that rose the altered relations of both Jews and Gentiles toward the law. Besides, had the apostle here deliberately uttered an untruth, or been guilty of an evasion, it is hardly likely that the recollection of this would not have troubled his conscience afterwards when his remembrance of having set his judges at variance did (Acts 24:20-21).
Acts 23:7. A dissension between the Pharisees and Sadducees.—Here again Baur “can scarcely imagine that a single expression undesignedly” (Baur himself holds it was deliberately) “let fall by the apostle could have kindled so fierce a fire” as to blind both parties to their own interests, and Weizsäcker thinks it “far from being in the least probable that Paul should have attempted to set the Pharisees and Sadducees against each other, or that he should in point of fact have succeeded in doing so”; but Josephus (Life, 29) relates a similar procedure of himself when his life was threatened at Taricheæ, which was followed by a similar result, the division of his enemies, which ended in his life being spared.
Acts 23:8. The Sadducees denied the doctrine of a resurrection and the existence of either angel or spirit. “They have been called materialists.… But there is no proof that they denied what in our day we call the invisible world. They were only opposed to new speculations. They believed firmly in Mosaism, and adhered to the letter of the Scriptures. The resurrection, they said, was not supported by a single text in the law. The Sadducees, for the same reasons (the silence of Moses), discouraged Messianic hopes.… The Sadducees were the living proof that the Old Dispensation was drawing to a close” (Stapfer, Palestine in the Time of Christ, pp. 319, 320). The Pharisees confessed both. They “had formulated, under the Maccabees, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body,” by which they “did not intend merely the survival of the soul, the immaterial part of man, or even of a spiritual body, as St. Paul afterwards teaches, but a reunion with the very body which had been laid down” (ibid., p. 318). The Pharisees “believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards and punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life”—the vicious being “detained in an everlasting prison,” but the virtuous having “power to revive and live again.” The Sadducees hold “that souls die with the bodies” (Jos., Ant., XVIII. i. 3, 4).
Acts 23:9. The scribes should probably be some of the scribes. But if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him.—Supply, What then? The allusion obviously is to Paul’s vision in the temple (Acts 22:17). The best texts omit let us not fight against God. They were probably an interpolation from Gamaliel’s speech (Acts 23:9).
Acts 23:10. “The fear of the chiliarch was naturally heightened by his knowledge that he was responsible for the life of a Roman citizen” (Plumptre).
Acts 23:11. The oldest authorities omit Paul. For the phrase be of good cheer, in which the verb is θάρσει (Christ’s), compare Matthew 9:2; Matthew 14:27; Mark 6:50; John 16:33. For the same phrase with a different verb, εὐθυμεῖτε (Paul’s), see Acts 27:22; Acts 27:25. The vision announced the close of the first and the beginning of the second of Paul’s proposed journeys (Acts 19:21).
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Acts 23:1-10
The Scene in the Council Chamber; or, Paul’s Doubtful Strategy
I. An exalted exordium.—
1. Delivered in a historic place. If in the usual court room of the Sanhedrim, the Hall Gazith, in one of the temple chambers, then it was probably the spot on which Stephen had stood twenty-two years before, when Paul heard him deliver his great apology (Acts 6:12); on which the apostles had stood when Gamaliel, a Pharisee, spoke up in their defence (Acts 5:34); and on which Christ had stood when Caiaphas pronounced him worthy of death (Matthew 26:57). If in some apartment in the city to which their meetings had been transferred about twenty-six years before this (see “Critical Remarks” on Acts 22:30), it was still the spot on which many a solemn trial had taken place. Men in general, and speakers in particular, are always more or less affected by the associations which cluster round the spots on which they stand.
2. Presented to a venerable court. The highest ecclesiastical and religious tribunal of the country, composed of priests and elders and scribes (Acts 4:5-6), belonging to the two principal parties of the day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees (see “Critical Remarks,” and below), and presided over by the high priest of the time, Ananias, the son of Nebedæus.
3. Spoken with intense earnestness. Realising at once the sanctity of the place, the dignity of the court, and the solemnity of the occasion, the apostle fixed his eyes with steadfast gaze upon his auditors and began to pour out upon them the transcendent thoughts with which his soul was laden.
4. Begun with dignified self-respect. Not cringing before them, as if he either acknowledged himself a culprit or desired to fawn upon them with flattery, but dropping the term “fathers” which he had employed on the castle stairs (Acts 22:1), and addressing them as an equal, “as a former Sanhedrist to his ancient colleagues”—brothers! The man who is conscious of his innocence has no need to hang his head like a bulrush, or speak with bated breath and whispered humbleness, or forget the native nobility of his manhood.
5. Summed up in a noble confession. Not prompted by self-esteem or rendered possible by a self-indulgent criticism, but dictated by an inward consciousness of its truth. A confession that all his life long—not even excluding his persecuting days (Acts 26:9)—he had studied, and, so far as he could speak for himself, with a considerable measure of success, to preserve a good conscience, which could only have been done by following its dictates, in all his relationships in life, at all times, and under all circumstances, aiming at the service and glory of God (2 Timothy 1:3; Hebrews 13:18).
II. An unmannerly interruption.—
1. From whom it proceeded. From the high priest who presided over the council, Ananias, the son of Nebedæus, who was appointed to fill this ecclesiastical office by Herod of Chalcis and whose tenure continued from A.D. 47–59, when he was superseded by Ismael, the son of Phabi. Having lived after his deposition till the outbreak of the Jewish war in A.D. 66, he was murdered as a friend of the Romans by the revolutionaries. During the last years of his life, even after the demission of his office, he ruled like a tyrant in Jerusalem. His haughty disposition revealed itself in his behaviour towards Paul (see Schürer in Riehm’s Handwörterbuch des Biblischen Altertums, ii. 62, art. Ananias). “Ananias” says Besser (Bibel Stunden, III. ii. 504), “was the third high priest whom the Spirit, poured out from the throne by the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, called to repentance. But, like his predecessor Joseph, he was a legitimate successor of Caiaphas.”
2. How it was expressed. By commanding the officials of the Sanhedrim who were standing by to smite Paul upon the mouth. To the arrogant prelate it seemed unendurable—in fact, an intolerable presumption and unspeakable insolence—that one who was arraigned before them as a prisoner should either call them “brothers!” or advance for himself the claim of innocence. The mouth that uttered such words should be stopped. Whether the attendants obeyed or not is uncertain. If they hesitated for a moment (Besser) the probability is that they ultimately carried out their master’s command and inflicted on the apostle the same brutal insult that had once been offered to his Master (John 18:22), and long before to the prophet Jeremiah (Acts 20:1-2).
3. What response it evoked. Unlike his Master who, when one of the officers standing by struck him, meekly answered, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou Me?” (John 18:22-23), Paul replied with an indignant outburst—“God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; and sittest thou to judge me according to the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law.”
(1) So far as Ananias was concerned the language was both strikingly correct and richly deserved. Sitting there as Jehovah’s representative, clothed, perhaps, in his white priestly raiment and pretending to be a judge of offences against Heaven’s law, he was little better than a whited wall, beautiful without, but coarse within, “daubed over with untempered mortar”—an expression which perhaps had been borrowed from the similar phrase of Jesus Christ, “whited sepulchre” (Matthew 23:27; Luke 11:44), and had become current among the early Christians as a fit designation for hypocrites, of whom Ananias was a magnificent specimen. That the phrase did not express a malediction or imprecation must be assumed, since such would have been altogether unbecoming on the lips of one who professed himself a follower of Jesus, and who had claimed to have lived up till that moment in all good conscience before God. The terrible utterance is best understood as a prophetic denunciation (Zöckler), which, according to Josephus (Wars, II. xvii. 19), was ultimately fulfilled, the Sicarii or assassins in the revolutionary war having entered Jerusalem and, after burning Ananias’s palace, dragged him, along with his brother Hezekiah, from concealment and murdered both. The rebuke as to his judging Paul contrary to the law was thoroughly deserved.
(2) So far as Paul was concerned, there was nothing wrong in either of the statements, unless it was wrong to denounce a scoundrel like Ananias, and foretell his fate. If anything was wrong about the utterance it was the passion (if there was such) with which it was accompanied. “It was certainly some disadvantage to Paul that (although provoked and unjustly smitten) he called the high priest ‘whited wall’; he was glad to excuse it by his ignorance. We may not be too bold or too forward to speak in a good matter, lest we overshoot” (Trapp.) But is it not rather easily assumed that Paul lost his temper and burst into a rage? Had he done so, it seems to us Paul would have not only acknowledged his offence when he cooled down—which some say he did (but see below, and “Critical Remarks” on Acts 23:5)—but when recalling this scene afterwards would not have omitted to mention this unchristian outburst (if it was such) as one of the mistakes he had committed—which, however, he did not (see Acts 24:21).
4. How it ended. Challenged by the attendants for reviling, as they called his scathing sentence, God’s high priest, as they styled the painted and decorated hypocrite who presided over the assembly, Paul replied that he wist not that the person whom he addressed was the high priest. This statement is generally interpreted as an acknowledgment on Paul’s part of having spoken unadvisedly with his lips. It ought, however, rather to be accepted in its plain and literal sense, as an intimation that, from some cause or other—defective sight, or an uncertainty as to whether the president of the court was the high priest—he did not know the exalted dignity of the person he addressed (see “Critical Remarks”). Had he known that Ananias was the high priest, rather than seem to violate the law of Moses—“Thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people”—he would have borne the indignity in silence. This does not appear to us as an admission that he had spoken rashly, except perhaps in so far as he ought to have made sure who the object of his denunciation was before launching against him such a scathing judgment and rebuke. But the judgment and the rebuke fell on the right head, and Paul, if he erred, only showed he was still a man and not the equal of his Divine Master (see “Hints”).
III. A dexterous strategy.—
1. The occasion of it. The mixed character of the council, which consisted of Pharisees and Sadducees.
(1) The Pharisees at the time of Christ formed a compact, important, and influential party inside the Jewish people—representing that tendency which was generally peculiar to post-exilic Judaism, and which in them (the Pharisees) received its sharpest and at the same time its most correct expression, viz., the tendency to transform religion into merely external legal service. That tendency drew after it as a necessary consequence this, that the external action rather than the moral disposition became the decisive factor in determining the quality of an action. Hence the Pharisees laid great stress upon oral legal tradition as supplementing the written law. The Pharisees were the democratic, popular party in Palestine.
(2) The Sadducees, deriving their name originally, it is believed, from Zadok the high priest in David’s and Solomon’s times, consisted principally of the members and adherents of the high priestly family, and formed in consequence the aristocratic party in Jerusalem, whose chief distinction lay in this—that they rejected the Pharisaic principle of legalism and with that the oral tradition which their rivals valued.
(3) Their dogmatic differences were principally these: that the Pharisees believed in and the Sadducees denied, the resurrection of the body and future punishment, the existence of angels and spirits, the doctrine of an overruling providence, which superintended and controlled the seemingly free actions of men (see Schürer in Riehm’s Handwörterbuch, arts. Pharisäer and Sadduccäer; and Langhans’s Biblische Geschichte und Literatur, ii. 431–435).
2. The nature of it. A sudden exclamation by Paul that he was a Pharisee and a son of Pharisees, and that he was that day being called in question for the hope and resurrection of the dead (see “Critical Remarks”). Both statements were true, although the latter may not have been so obvious to his hearers as it was to himself. It was undoubtedly a clever stroke, and perhaps illustrated that serpentine wisdom combined with dovelike harmlessness which Christ recommended to His followers (Matthew 10:16). “Religion,” says Trapp, “doth not call us to a weak simplicity, but allows us as much of the serpent as of the dove. The dove without the serpent is easily caught; the serpent without the dove stings deadly. Their match makes themselves secure and many happy.”
3. The effect of it. It divided the circle of his enemies into two opposing camps. Some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party immediately protested that they found no evil in Paul. If a spirit or an angel had spoken to him, what then? That was by no means impossible or incredible; and, if it really was so, it might be dangerous to meddle with the prisoner. Of course to the aristocratic Sadducean party, who regarded spirits and angels as nursery legends, creatures of the fancy, such a suggestion sounded ridiculous. The deeply seated antagonism which parted the two sects rose to the surface and flamed out into angry dissension. In their violent attempts, on the one hand to release, and on the other part to detain, Paul, he was like to be torn in pieces between them.
4. The end of it. The commandant of the castle, who had once more got to hear of the turmoil and feared for his prisoner’s safety, despatched a company of soldiers to the council chamber to rescue the apostle and fetch him into the fortress.
5. The rightness of it. That the apostle’s bold stroke terminated in his release may seem to many to be justification enough of the course adopted; but on subsequent reflection Paul himself was not perfectly sure about it (Acts 24:21). At least, without expressly granting that he had done wrong, he owned himself ready to admit that his action might wear the appearance of wrong. Possibly he was not himself certain that he had not erred from that straight path of conscientious duty he had up till that moment endeavoured to tread. His exclamation was perhaps secretly dictated less by an effort to vindicate himself or advance his Master’s cause, than by an endeavour to set his judges at loggerheads. If so, he would himself pronounce it wrong. What a sensitive conscience the apostle must have had!
IV. A sweet consolation.—
1. Its opportune arrival. The night following that exciting scene in the council, which again had ensued on a day of equal agitation in the temple and on the castle stairs. At a time when the apostle’s soul and body both were exhausted by the terrible conflict through which he had passed, and when perhaps through natural reaction he might have been disposed to subside into deep depression. But man’s extremity is ever God’s opportunity (compare Acts 27:24).
2. Its heavenly origin. It came direct from the Lord—i.e., the risen and exalted Christ, who instead of sending consolation to His wearied servant by a messenger, either human (2 Kings 4:42), or angelic (1 Kings 19:5), came Himself, stood by that servant, discovering His presence and speaking to that servant with His own lips. This circumstance showed both the importance of the occasion and the need of Paul.
3. Its cheering burden. It was practically an assurance that neither would his life be taken nor his career ended by this outrageous assault upon his person. The purpose he had formed would be fulfilled. As he had testified for his Master in Jerusalem, he would live to do the like in Rome (see “Hints” on Acts 23:2).
Learn—
1. That a good conscience is a strong support in time of trouble.
2. That good consciences are not always fully enlightened.
3. That mistakes, when discovered, should be frankly acknowledged.
4. That good men should study not to let their good be evil spoken of.
5. That wicked men who hate each other often combine against the good.
6. That materialism is an old heresy.
7. That a good man may defend himself by all honest means.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Acts 23:1. A Good Conscience.
I. From what it proceeds.—
1. True faith in Christ, which obtains the forgiveness of sins.
2. The assurance of Divine grace and eternal life.
3. The renewal of the Holy Ghost to a new life and conduct.
4. The faithful performance of our calling.
II. To what it contributes.—
1. The possession of inward peace before God.
2. The establishment of the heart in the hour of danger.
3. The strengthening of the soul for the performance of duty.
Note.—Those who attribute to Christianity a gloomy condemnation of, and a certain injustice towards, the natural man, and that which is good in him, or even those real devotees who, going beyond the truth, think badly of and inveigh against themselves and their former life, may learn here from Paul’s example that a regenerate man may rejoice before God and man even in his former relatively good conscience when in a position of error and sin, if his present conscience in Christ bears him witness that he has not belonged to the class of gross hypocrites.—Stier.
Acts 23:2. The Three Ananiases in Acts.
I. Ananias of Jerusalem, the insincere disciple (Acts 5:1); or, the detection and doom of false professors. A warning to Church members.
II. Ananias of Damascus, the true disciple (Acts 9:10; Acts 22:12); or, the ministry and reward of a humble Christian. An encouragement to Christian workers.
III. Ananias also of Jerusalem, the Sadducean high priest; or, the criminality and judgment of those who, acting as God’s vicegerents, nevertheless misrepresent Him. An admonition to Christian ministers.
Ananias and Paul. A parallel and a contrast.
I. Resemblances.—Both were—
1. Men. Probably both were (certainly one was) possessed of intellect and education.
2. Jews. Members of the Hebrew nation and of the covenanted people.
3. Representatives. The one of Jehovah, whose priest he was; the other of Jesus, whose apostle he claimed to be.
II. Differences.—In their—
1. Offices. The one a high priest, the other an apostle, as above stated.
2. Characters. The one a hypocrite, the other sincere.
3. Beliefs. The one a Sadducee, the other a Pharisee.
4. Positions. The one judge, the other prisoner.
5. Conduct. The one violent, the other resentful.
III. Lessons.—
1. The differences between men are commonly more than their resemblances.
2. The best men do not always occupy the highest social positions in life.
3. The providence that makes prisoners of moral princes like Paul, and judges of mean reptiles like Ananias, though not wrong, is nevertheless mysterious.
4. Well-nigh intolerable are—
“The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.”
Shakespeare.
Acts 23:3. God’s Judgment on Whited Walls.
I. A striking characterisation of hypocritical professors.—Whited walls. “Holy offices, spiritual titles, priestly dignities, are nothing else than white lime, by which the internal impurity of a carnal heart is covered.”
II. A solemn prediction of Divine judgment on such professors.—“God shall smite” them! If not by temporal calamities, by eternal punishments. In the great day of the Lord the secrets of all hearts shall be exposed.
III. A significant instance of moral retribution.—What will eventually happen in the case of hypocritical professors will also be the fate of other sinners. Their iniquity will be recompensed. Their wickedness will return upon their own pate.
Acts 23:5. Sins of Ignorance—
I. Are not permissible.—No excuse for a violation of the law of God to plead that it was done in ignorance.
II. May be disastrous in their consequences.—To the individual who commits them, and to those who are affected by them.
III. Should always be frankly confessed when discovered by him who has committed them, as was the case with Paul.
IV. May be forgiven.—As was the inadvertent mistake of the apostle.
Acts 23:6. The Hope (of Israel) and the Resurrection of the Dead.
I. The hope of Israel involved the resurrection of the dead.—See Psalms 16:9; Psalms 17:15; Psalms 49:15; Isaiah 25:8; Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37:12; Daniel 12:2; Hosea 13:14.
II. The hope of Israel was guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.—This proved that a resurrection of the dead was possible, and would become actual in the case of the followers of Christ. See Acts 4:2; John 11:25; John 14:19; Romans 8:10; 1 Corinthians 15:23.
III. The hope of Israel and the resurrection of the dead form the burden of the gospel message.—“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:28).
IV. The hope of Israel and the resurrection of the dead will reach their culmination at the last day.—See John 5:25; John 5:28; John 6:39; John 6:44; John 6:54; John 11:23-24; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Philippians 3:21.
Acts 23:1-6 with John 18:19-24, Jesus and Paul before the Sanhedrim; or, the Master and the disciple before unrighteous judges.
I. Wherein the Master and the disciple resembled each other.—
1. The same unmerited disgrace was inflicted on both.
2. Both maintained their Divinely bestowed dignity.
II. Wherein the Master was above the disciple.—
1. The holy self-consciousness of Jesus was more than the good conscience of Paul.
2. The calm answer of Jesus was more heavenly than Paul’s human vehemence.—Gerok.
Spots in the Sun; or, some things about Paul’s character that call for explanation.
I. Magnificent self-conceit, or spiritual pride.—“I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” Does not this seem a pretty high claim for even a Paul to advance? Does it not come tolerably near the violation of one of his own precepts (Romans 12:3)? Justifies it not Paul’s statement that he was a Pharisee? What was it, if not a manifestation of that self-righteousness so vehemently condemned in them? Well—
1. Paul could not have meant to assert that he had lived a sinless or blameless life (see Romans 3:9-10), either before his conversion (see 1 Timothy 1:13) or after it (Philippians 3:12).
2. Paul was certainly not conscious at the time that he was doing wrong in making such an allegation, as afterwards he was not in the least degree troubled about it (Acts 24:20).
3. Paul could only have signified that he had, throughout his entire career, endeavoured to follow the dictates of his conscience, as he afterwards explained to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:3). Possibly in so saying Paul may have been mistaken; but a mistake cannot be catalogued as a sin.
II. Unchristian anger, or lack of meekness.—“God shall smite thee, thou whited wall!” Was this like obeying his Master’s words—“Whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). And what about his own precepts?—“Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26); “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but give place unto wrath” (Romans 12:19). To these interrogations it may be answered—
1. That anger is not always sinful, and, if ever there was an instance in which it was justifiable, it surely was when Ananias, God’s vicegerent, commanded Paul to be unjustly smitten.
2. That even Christ did not abstain from complaint when unjustly smitten by Annas (see John 18:23).
3. That as Paul was acting under the Spirit’s guidance when he stood before the Sanhedrim (Luke 12:12), we cannot doubt that his language about the high priest was justified, and was intended by the Holy Ghost as a Divine judgment, which, ten years later, was fulfilled.
4. That as the Lord, when He appeared to Paul that night, did not find fault with His servant, so neither should we.
III. Deliberate untruth or unworthy equivocation.—“I wist not that it was the high priest.” How could Paul say so when he knew that he was standing before the Sanhedrim? In addition to the last two observations under the preceding charge, which apply to this with equal force, the various explanations offered in the “Critical Remarks” and “Homiletical Analysis” may be consulted.
III. Worldly policy, or cunning craft.—“I am a Pharisee … touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.” How, it is asked, could Paul describe himself as a Pharisee when he knew that he had utterly and permanently broken with them; and how could he, as a good man, resort to the device and trick of a vulgar demagogue? Well, it is noticeable that this is the only point about Paul’s conduct that did cause him uneasiness. Yet
(1) it was perfectly true that he was a Pharisee in so far as he held with them the doctrine of a resurrection; and
(2) if he did throw an apple of discord among his enemies it is not quite clear that this was sinful.
Acts 23:7. Divide and Conquer; or, Paul’s Happy Stroke!—Surely no defence of Paul for adopting this course is required, but all admiration is due to his skill and presence of mind. Nor need we hesitate to regard such skill as the fulfilment of the promise, that in such an hour the Spirit of wisdom should suggest words to the accused which the accuser should not be able to gainsay. All prospect of a fair trial was hopeless; he well knew, from fact and present experience, that personal odium would bias his judges, and violence prevail over justice; he, therefore (Neander) uses, in the cause of truth, the maxim so often perverted to the cause of falsehood—Divide el impera.—Alford.
Acts 23:8. The Creed of the Sadducee.
I. A hopeless and melancholy creed.—
1. No resurrection. Then
(1) Christ is not raised and Christ’s people will not be raised hereafter. If Christ still exists, and if Christ’s people do not cease to be at death, in both cases existence is apart from the body.
(2) We are yet in our sins, and Christ’s death has not been an atonement for the sins of men.
(3) The Christian gospel is a fiction, the Christian’s hope a delusion, and the Christian himself of all men most miserable (1 Corinthians 15:13-19).
2. No angel. Then
(1) man is the highest created being in the universe, which may say much for man, but does not speak highly for the universe, considering what man has in practice shown himself to be.
(2) Scripture, both old and new, which talks of principalities and powers in the heavenly places and even represents them as having at times appeared to men, must be set down as largely mythical, a conclusion which may not disturb rationalising critics, but which will unquestionably disconcert sincere Christians.
3. No spirit. Then
(1) man is not a composite being, consisting of soul and body, but a simple organism, consisting of body only; and the materialists of to-day and yesterday are right.
(2) There can be no immortality for man, since nothing remains after the earthly house of this tabernacle has been dissolved.
(3) It is doubtful if there can be any Holy Ghost or any God distinct from His works, in which case the dogma of pantheism must be accepted as correct, a result which philosophers might hail as the highest expression of wisdom, but which ordinary reasoners would not be able to distinguish from atheism.
II. An unproved and unproveable creed—
1. Unproved. No dialectician, whether scientist or philosopher, has ever demonstrated that man is the most exalted being in the universe, that he consists only of material particles, and that when he dies he can never again return to life. Arguments to that effect have been frequently advanced, but it is doubtful it they have convinced more than a few. At the bar of impartial reason the verdict sounds that the Sadducean thesis has not been established.
2. Unproveable. Except on the hypothesis that there is no personal God, and before one could convert that hypothesis into a truth he must have roamed the universe and demonstrated by personal examination that no such being as God anywhere existed—in other words, must himself be God.
III. A refuted and exploded creed.—
1. By the consciousness of man, which attests that his “I” is something totally distinct from his material body, that angels are at least conceivable beings, and that the doctrine of a resurrection is in perfect accord with the deepest instincts of his nature.
2. By the testimony of Scripture, which announces the fact of a resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:52), certifies the existence of angels (Luke 15:10; Galatians 3:19) and pre-supposes the reality of man’s spiritual nature (Job 32:8; Romans 8:10).
3. By the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which places the doctrine of a future resurrection beyond dispute, and in so doing guarantees the existence of man’s spirit as a separate entity from his body. If it does not certainly prove that there are angels, it at least shows, by what occurred in connection with the rising of Christ, that there are intelligences in God’s world superior to man.
Note.—The inconsistency of the Sadducees, in denying the existence of angels and spirits and yet adhering to the Pentateuch, which contains so many narratives of angelophanies, and practising the temple ritual, which certainly proceeded on the assumption that for man there was a future life, has been thus explained: The great body of the higher priestly class were mere Sadducees and were carried along by one of the great waves of thought which were then passing over the ancient world, and were Epicureans and materialists without knowing it, just as the Pharisees were, even to the eye of a writer like Josephus (Life iii.), the counterpart of the Stoics.—Plumptre.
Acts 23:11. Paul’s Midnight Visitor.—“And the night following the Lord stood by him.” What did this signify?
I. Christ’s fidelity towards His servant.—When Christ called the persecutor Saul to be an apostle, He did not send him forth alone and unprotected, but put him under the same promise as had been given to the eleven: “Lo! I am with you alway!” The present appearance of Christ to Paul in the castle prison showed that Christ intended to keep His word.
II. Christ’s sympathy with His servant.—Even had Christ not expressed His sympathy in words, His presence could not have failed to indicate it. Perhaps also Paul remembered the words which Christ formerly spoke to him upon the way to Damascus—“Saul! Saul! why persecutest thou Me?” If he did, he must have felt solaced by the reflection that as Christ had sympathised with His persecuted followers when they were cast into prison by him, Saul, so now did his Lord sympathise with him, Paul, in his bodily sufferings and mental anxieties.
III. Christ’s approbation of His servant.—Remarkable that no word of fault-finding or rebuke falls from the lips of Christ. Rather, the absence of any such word signified approbation. What a comfort to Paul! who always affirmed it was a small matter for him to be judged of his fellow-men so long as he secured a favourable judgment from his Master (1 Corinthians 4:3). So should Christians labour to be accepted of Him (2 Corinthians 5:9).
IV. Christ’s protection of His servant.—“Thou must bear witness also at Rome! “Then Paul could not be left for ever in the hands of his enemies. Already Paul had conceived the idea of visiting Rome (Acts 19:21). Now he learns that his Master had included that in His plan also. Henceforward Paul knew that he would lead a charmed life until his work was done. So may the Christian reason.
V. Christ’s use for His servant.—Paul was not to be cast off, but promoted to higher service. “Thou must bear witness for Me at Rome also.” All Paul’s past experiences had only been training him for his last place of ministry—Rome. So Christ leads His people and educates them for higher and nobler service. Often true on earth; certainly true of all earth’s discipline, which is a preparation for nobler service in heaven.
Illustrations.—Saints in Prison.
1. Paul. Not the first time this that the apostle had been imprisoned. “In prisons more abundant” (2 Corinthians 11:23) formed one important item in his life-record. A memorable instance occured in Philippi (Acts 16:23). Nor was this the first experience Paul had of being visited during night by Christ in a season of dejection. On an earlier occasion in Corinth (Acts 18:9) Christ had appeared to him with words of cheer.
2. Master Philpot. This eminent martyr under Mary wrote to his friends that his loathsome and horrible prison was to him as pleasant as the walk in the garden of the King’s Bench, because, though in the judgment of the world he was in hell, he nevertheless felt in the same the consolation of heaven.
3. Samuel Rutherford. Dating his letters from Christ’s palace in Aberdeen, within which he was detained as in a prison, this holy man thus wrote to a friend: “The Lord is with me; I care not what man can do. I burden no man. I want nothing. No king is better provided than I am: sweet, sweet and easy is the cross of my Lord.… My well beloved is kinder and more warm than ordinary, and cometh and visiteth my soul. My chains are over-gilded with gold.
4. Madame Guyon. This illustrious lady, imprisoned in the castle of Vincennes in 1695, not only sang but wrote songs of praise to her God. “It sometimes seemed to me,” she wrote, “as if I were a little bird whom the Lord had placed in a cage; and that I had nothing now to do but sing. The joy of my heart gave a brightness to the objects around me. The stones of my prison looked, in my eyes, like rubies. I esteemed them more than all the gaudy brilliancies of a vain world.”
The Midnight Vision in the Castle; or the Master speaking words of cheer to His servant. These words assured him of three things:—
I. Of a safe issue out of his present troubles.—So they upheld and comforted him in the uncertainty of his life from the Jews.
II. Of an accomplishment of his intention of visiting Rome.—So they upheld and comforted him in his uncertainty as to liberation from prison at Cæsarea.
III. Of the certainty that, however he might be sent thither, he should preach the gospel and bear testimony at Rome.—So he was upheld and comforted in the uncertainty of his surviving the storm in the Mediterranean, and in that of his fate on arriving at Rome. So may one crumb of Divine grace and help be multiplied to feed five thousand wants and anxieties.—Alford.
Comfort for Christ’s Suffering Servants.
I. Christ’s presence with them.—As Christ appeared to Paul in the castle, so is He ever beside His faithful servants in the hour of their tribulation. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” “If He undertake our protection, we may set those that seek our ruin at defiance” (Henry).
II. Christ’s words to them.—“Be of good cheer.” Christ desires His people to be happy under all circumstances. Because
(1) He is ever with them. “God is near thee; therefore cheer thee, sad soul!”
(2) All things work together for good to them that love Him. “Who, then, is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?”
III. Christ’s plans for them.—
1. That they should serve as His witnesses, wherever they might be.
2. That their lives should not terminate till their work was finished.
3. That their own purposes for Him, if for His glory, should be fulfilled.
Acts 23:1-11. The Best Advocates of a Servant of God before the Judgment-Seat of an Unrighteous World.
I. The comfort of a good conscience in his breast.
II. The curse of an evil thing in the ranks of the enemy.
III. The sympathy of the honest and unprejudiced in the world.
IV. The gracious testimony of a righteous judge in heaven.—Gerok.