Acts 26

Acts 26:1-32

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 26:1-32 Acts 26:1-32 In our last study we observed the surroundings in the midst of which this final address of Paul was delivered. Our attention must now be focussed upon the two men confronting each other; the one standing, a prisoner; and the other seated, in the dignity of his kingly office. Agrippa and Paul were face to face, the one a king, robed and enthroned; the other a prisoner, chained and arraigned; the one an expert in all the technicalities of the Hebrew economy, as the Rabbinical writers testify; the other a man equally expert in the same technicalities, but knowing the spiritual values and intentions thereof; the one given over to sin and impurity; the other glorying in deliverance from the dominion of sin; the one an enslaved king; the other an enthroned prisoner. The picture is full of light, life, colour, and arresting force. Agrippa having given Paul permission to speak, he made what Luke here terms his defence. The movement of the defence falls into three parts: first his address to Agrippa, in verses two and three (Acts 26:2-3); then his apologia, from verses four to twenty-three (Acts 26:4-23); and finally that wonderful closing appeal made to the man Agrippa, in forgetfulness of the purple of his royalty, and the dignity of his throne, in verses twenty-four to twenty-nine (Acts 26:24-29).

Paul’s address was that of courteous introduction, recognizing Agrippa’s knowledge, and requesting that he should hear him in patience.

What were the probable values of that method of address? First of all I seem to hear in it a genuine sigh of relief on the part of the apostle that he was to be heard by one who would at least be able technically to follow his argument. His plea for a patient hearing suggested his memory of former interruptions. It is well perhaps to be reminded that Agrippa granted him his patient hearing; but it is well also to notice that the address was never finished, for Festus interrupted him. Having followed the journeys of this man, having listened to his discourses, having observed his manner of life through this study of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, I believe that there was a deeper note in that introductory address. I think there was a stirring in his soul of that deeper passion from which he never escaped.

Paul knew how the letter of the law had flamed into new light in the spiritual interpretation that had come to him by the way of the resurrection of his Lord. As he looked into the face of Agrippa, and knew him a magnificent man in many respects, of physical presence, of mental ability, expert as Paul said, and as Rabbinical writers agree, in all the technicalities of the Hebrew economy, I think he felt within him: Oh, that this man could only see these things as I have seen them through the light of the resurrection of the Lord. I think the passion for his saving possessed him as he asked Agrippa to hear him patiently. In that appeal to Agrippa, if that be the deepest sense of it, there is an interesting revelation of Paul’s personal conviction that the logic of “The Way” was irresistible. Was Paul right about that? The answer must be postponed to the end of the study.

From that brief examination of the method of address we turn to the argument itself. Paul made no reference here to the charges which had been brought against him by his own countrymen. Probably they were not present, they had been excluded, as this was a court function, and not a trial. Festus, Agrippa, and Bernice, the chief magistrates, and the heads of the military department and their friends were there. It was a pagan assembly, designed for the entertainment of Agrippa and Bernice. Paul’s defence was of the nature of an explanation of the reason of the change of attitude and activity which had taken place in his own career.

Agrippa said, “Thou art permitted to speak for thyself,” and true to the lines suggested by the king, he spoke for himself; the whole address was experiential. It was infinitely more, in our ordinary use of the word, than experiential. Gathered round about this central personal experience are all the values of the Hebrew economy, and all the virtues of the Christian faith. Nevertheless in this defence Paul was himself central. Agrippa had said: “Thou art permitted to speak for thyself”; and for himself, and from himself, and of himself, Paul spoke.

While all that is true, we might write across the whole of this defence: “Not I but Christ. I have been crucified . . . nevertheless I live.” The note was negative, but it was also positive. The Cross cancels the old ego, but it creates a new: “Christ liveth in me,” therefore “I live,” a definite personality with an experience resulting from all the facts of contact with Christ. The great value of this address is that it is a revelation of the relation between the truths of Christianity, and the triumphs it produces in the life. So his defence was an explanation of the reason of the change of attitude and activity in his own career.

There are two ways in which the defence may be considered; it was a defence of “the Way” to a logical mind; and it was a declaration of “the Way” to a seeking spirit. The apostle had his eyes fixed upon Agrippa, and not on Agrippa only, but upon Bernice also, and upon Festus, and upon the heads of the military department, and upon the chief ministers. He included them all in the final burst of affectionate and passionate appeal. Perhaps his thoughts centring upon Agrippa, there were two purposes in his mind; first to convince this man, in a defence of “the Way” intended to capture the logical assent of an acute mind. But that was not all. It was moreover, the declaration of “the Way” to an enquiring spirit.

He assumed whether the assumption was justified or not I do not know, that this man was an enquirer, not merely inquisitively curious, but sincerely wanting for once to hear what this thing really meant. These then were the two movements of the great apologist, a mental movement intended to compel logical acquiescence; and a spiritual movement intended to compel the will to yield obedience to the mental conviction, Let us observe in the first place how he pursued his defence of “the Way” to the logical mind. He began by asking Agrippa to remember his past. He said, “My manner of life from my youth up … among mine own nation and at Jerusalem known all the Jews.” It is interesting to notice that he commenced with the period when he went up to Jerusalem, and sat at the feet of Gamaliel. He made no appeal to the Jew about that earlier period, that wonderfully formative period in Tarsus, when he was influenced inevitably by Hellenist teaching. That was not pertinent to his argument with Agrippa.

A Jew “from my youth up,” from that period when his parents, Hebrews both of them, sent him away from the influence of Tarsus, in order that he might be trained in Hebraism.

Continuing, he said, “After the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.” There the emphasis was not upon the supernatural conviction of the Pharisee, but upon the narrowness of the Pharisee’s traditional interpretation of righteousness; being of “the straitest sect . . . a Pharisee,” he had also been one in whose mind there burned the central hope of Judaism, the hope of a resurrection. He was a Jew, a traditional religionist, and yet one believing in the supernatural element in his own religion, looking for resurrection. Such was his past.

The next phase was that in which he described to Agrippa his first contact with “the Way” of Jesus of Nazareth. The first picture had been that of himself as a young Jew, a Pharisee, having in his heart the great hope of immortality, of resurrection, of the fact of the spiritual; and now he told Agrippa that when he came into contact with “the Way” of Jesus of Nazareth, his attitude was that of mental antagonism, expressing itself in strenuous opposition. He declared his mental antagonism in the words, “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; “and he was careful to make Agrippa see how definite his opposition was:

“And this I also did in Jerusalem; and I both shut up many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.”

That was the first effect produced upon this man by Jesus of Nazareth, by “the Way.”

All that led up to the simple and central story. He now told Agrippa how the crisis came which changed everything in his life. It came when he was on the way to Damascus, in strenuous opposition to Jesus, when he was persecuting even unto foreign cities those who named His name, or professed to believe Him alive, Whom he knew to be crucified. It came when he was sincere with a sincerity that had never been surpassed even in his Christian history, and when he was carrying out his sincere conviction, even against intellectual perplexity.

He told how a light had shone about him brighter than the light of the sun; how a voice had spoken, entirely unknown to him, but compelling his attention because it was above the natural, and out of the ordinary; definite, positive, real. The discovery must have been so marvellous and startling to this man, that it is almost impossible to convey the idea of it. Suddenly a light, then a voice, and he found that it was the voice of Jesus; and in the words uttered there was no unkind accusation, no railing judgment against him. The most amazing and startling thing in the whole revelation to Paul was that Jesus had said that He had a purpose in apprehending him, and appearing to him. He declared that He would make him His pioneer messenger of this very fact of resurrection to all the Gentile peoples.

Then said Paul to Agrippa: “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” Logically how could he be? That is what he desired to make plain to Agrippa.

What was the issue? Passing over the experience of the long years he said: “For this cause the Jews seized me in the temple.” The effect produced upon him was expressed in the words “I stand . . . testifying.” He then declared that his testimony was in harmony with the foretelling of prophets, and the teaching of Moses, that the Messiah must suffer; and that out of the resurrection light, had come the explanation of the ancient prophesying.

Paul thus argued before Agrippa that his Christianity was the logical and necessary sequel to his past, because that which was the central hope of Hebraism had been fulfilled in One Who demonstrated His Messiahship by His actual resurrection from among the dead. Here was no laboured argument, no attempt to define the doctrine of the resurrection, but rather an almost cold and dispassionate, clear and unyielding testimony, of a personal experience, the avowal of the fact that he had met the Jesus they had murdered, alive; and that he could do no other than follow His call.

But now let us notice how all through, this address of Paul was not merely a defence of “the Way” for the logical mind; but the declaration of “the Way” for the enquiring spirit. The central fact creating the Gospel according to Paul was the risen, living, acting Jesus. Take Him out of the address, and nothing is left; the address could not have been given, apart from Him. The address could not have been given, apart from this man’s conviction that He was risen from the dead. If men are inclined intellectually to question the actual fact, at least this must be admitted, that this man believed it. Everything centred in his belief that Christ rose.

That fact had created the crisis, revolutionizing his mental attitude, and causing his activity under the mastery of Jesus Christ. The conviction took possession of him, capturing him, compelling his loyalty, that Jesus, Who had been executed as a felon, was alive, and at the heart of the universe, managing the affairs of men, apprehending him, and commissioning him to his work.

The central fact of the Gospel according to this truth of the risen, living, acting Jesus, is the suffering Messiah of Moses and the prophets, seen in the light of resurrection. In other words, the Cross, interpreted by resurrection, is the Gospel, according to Paul. Not the Cross apart from resurrection. That were a martyrdom, that were a tragedy, that were a catastrophe, that were a reflection upon the goodness of God. Is it any wonder that this man, when writing one of his letters said that He, the Christ, was “horizoned as the Son of God . . . by the resurrection of the dead”; or that Peter in his letter said, that they the disciples were born again “unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”? By that resurrection all that had preceded in the ministry of Christ was transfigured and changed; everything became sharp, clear, and full of meaning. The Cross, interpreted by the resurrection, was the Gospel which Paul preached to Agrippa.

In the address then there was a revelation of the human responsibility concerning the way of the Gospel, and of the Divine activity. The human responsibility was that of turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. The Divine activity in response was remission of sins, and inheritance among the sanctified. The central impact of the whole message to the enquiring soul was created by the words: “Wherefore, O king Agrippa,” he named him at this point “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” Not the vision only, but obedience to it; not the light merely, but walking in it; not the evangel alone, but surrender to its claims; had produced the change in Paul.

Then Festus interrupted him, and it was a perfectly natural interruption. If instead of observing Paul and Agrippa, we had been observing Festus we should understand this. Festus had listened to the past history of this man, to the strange things he had said about visions and revelations and voices and resurrection; until at last, unable to contain himself any longer he said, " with a loud voice, Paul, thou art mad; thy much learning doth turn thee to madness.” To Festus what this man had said was the raving of an unbalanced mind; and yet it was a mind well-informed.

Paul, thus interrupted, immediately gathered up everything into his final appeal. The argument passed out of sight, the defence was now certainly no more in his mind. He was seeking to gain Agrippa. He began by an oblique attack upon the citadel of his volition. It is oblique, because he spoke first to Festus:

“I am not mad, most excellent Festus, but speak forth words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these things, unto whom also I speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him; for this hath not been done in a corner.”

Then turning from the oblique method, to direct frontal attack upon the soul of the man, he first asked a question: “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?” Then came the affirmation: “I know that thou believest.” Notice very carefully the meaning of that question and affirmation, taken in close relationship. To know the story of Jesus, and to believe the prophets, was to recognize the connection between the prophetic ministry of the Hebrew people, and the historic record of the work of Christ. It was Paul’s attempt to capture the will. He was attempting to do for Agrippa what he had been trying to lead Agrippa to do for himself. He had been showing Agrippa there was expectation in the Hebrew economy, and continuation and completion in the ministry of Jesus; and he now said in effect: Agrippa, you know the story of Jesus, you believe the prophets; put them together, find the logical conclusion, in order to come to volitional abandonment.

What did Agrippa say? There are many questions which an expositor can ask, that he can never answer. At this point there is a greater diversity in the manuscripts than in the translations. I am rather interested to find that it is a little difficult to state what he did say. “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” “With a very little wouldest thou persuade me to be a Christian.” “You are very easily persuading yourself that I am going to be a Christian.” “A very little more, and you would make me a Christian.” All these renderings of Agrippa’s answer have been given. It is very interesting to study the different wording and tenses. The one thing that is certain is that for the moment he put aside the conviction and appeal, and ended the function, and chatted with Festus, Agrippa, and Bernice.

We do not know how it ended at last, we cannot say. Our last consideration, however, is not of Agrippa, but of Paul.

Here we have one of the greatest pictures in all his life. It was a moment of high inspiration, when the surging tides of the Christ life leapt forth from his heart, and flung themselves upon the soul of Agrippa: “I would to God, that whether with little or with much, not thou only,” but Bernice, Festus, and these soldiers, and these magistrates, “all that hear me this day might become such as I am”; and then, with a fine touch of the very spirit of Christ,-“except these bonds.” This does not need explanation. Notice the gracious assumption of superiority of condition. Agrippa was in the purple; Bernice was decked with her jewels; Festus was robed in scarlet; the soldiers and magistrates were seen in their dignities; the lictors were observing and listening. Paul was a prisoner in chains, in bonds; he was to be sent to Rome, perhaps to death. Yet, he said, I would to God you could be such as I am.

Such was his desire for the brilliant and yet despairing crowd. And mark the tenderness of the man: Agrippa, I fain would give thee my soul liberty, but not my bodily bonds; I would give thee all the privileges, but none of the burdens.

Three and thirty years earlier, this man had been as sincere as he was when he faced Agrippa. Of that past he had said, “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Mark carefully the difference in the man. It was a difference of tone, of temper, and of spirit. Thirty years ago his sincerity would allow him to cast his vote for the death of men and women; and made him persecute them even to other cities. To-day he would die to save Agrippa, but he would not put his chains upon Agrippa. That is Christianity. Magnify it, multiply it, apply it. The sincerity that persecutes is not Christian.

The sincerity that dies to deliver, but will not impose a chain, is Christianity.