Verses 1-32
Chapter 26
26:1-11 Agrippa said
to Paul, "You have permission to speak on your own behalf." Then Paul
stretched out his hand and began his defence. "With regard to the
charges made against me by the Jews, King Agrippa, I count myself
fortunate to be about to state my defence before you, especially because
you are an expert in all Jewish customs and questions. Therefore I ask
you to give me a patient hearing. All the Jews know my way of life from
my youth, which from the beginning I lived amongst my people in
Jerusalem. They already know from of old, if they are willing to testify
to it, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of
our religion; and now it is for the hope of the promise that was made to
our fathers that I stand on trial, that hope to which our twelve tribes
hope to attain, earnestly worshipping God day and night. It is for that
hope, your Majesty, that I am accused. Why should you judge it to be
incredible if God raises the dead? It is true that I myself thought it
right to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth;
and this I did in Jerusalem. When I had received authority from the
chief priests, I shut up many of the saints in prison; and, when they
were executed, I gave my vote against them. Often throughout all the
synagogues I took vengeance on them and I tried to force them to
blaspheme. In my insane fury against them I even extended this
persecution of them to cities abroad."
One of the extraordinary things about the great characters in
the New Testament story is that they were never afraid to confess what
once they had been. Here in the presence of the king, Paul frankly
confesses that there was a day when he had tried to blast the Christians
out of existence.
There was a famous evangelist called Brownlow North. In his
early days he had lived a life that was anything but Christian. Once,
just before he was to enter the pulpit in a church in Aberdeen, he
received a letter. This letter informed him that its writer had evidence
of some disgraceful thing which Brownlow North had done before he
became a Christian; and it went on to say that the writer proposed to
interrupt the service and to tell the whole congregation of that sin if
he preached. Brownlow North took the letter into the pulpit; he read it
to the congregation; he told of the thing that once he had done; and
then he told them that Christ had changed him and that Christ could do
the same for them. He used the very evidence of his shame to turn it to
the glory of Christ.
Denney used to say that the great function of Christianity was
in the last analysis to make bad men good. The great Christians have
never been afraid to point to themselves as living examples of the power
of Christ. It is true that a man can never change himself; but it is
also gloriously true that what he cannot do, Jesus Christ can do for
him.
In this passage Paul insists that the centre of his whole
message is the resurrection. His witness is not of someone who has lived
and died but of One who is gloriously present and alive for evermore.
For Paul every day is Easter Day.
26:12-18 "When, in
these circumstances, I was on my way to Damascus with authority and
commission from the chief priests, as I was on the road at midday, I
saw, your Majesty. a light from heaven, more brilliant than the sun,
shining round about me and my fellow-travellers. When we had fallen to
the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 'Saul,
Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the
spikes.' I said, 'Who are you, sir' The Lord replied, 'I am Jesus whom
you are persecuting. But up! and stand upon your feet! For this is why I
have appeared to you--to appoint you a servant and a witness of how you
have seen me and of further visions you will have; for I am choosing
you from the People and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you to
open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the power
of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share
amongst those who have been sanctified by faith in me.'"
This passage is full of interest.
(i) The Greek word apostolos (Greek #652) literally means, one who is sent forth. For instance, an ambassador is an apostolos (Greek #652) or apostle. The interesting thing is that an emissary of the Sanhedrin was technically known as an apostolos (Greek #652)
of the Sanhedrin. That means that Paul began this journey as the
apostle of the Sanhedrin and ended it as the apostle of Christ.
(ii) Paul was pressing on with his journey at midday. Unless a
traveller was in a really desperate hurry he rested during the midday
heat. So we see how Paul was driving himself on this mission of
persecution. Beyond doubt he was trying by violent action to still the
doubts that were in his heart.
(iii) The Risen Christ told Paul that it was hard for him to
kick against the spikes. When a young ox was first yoked it tried to
kick its way out. If it was yoked to a one handed plough, the ploughman
held in his hand a long staff with a sharpened end which he held close
to the ox's heels so that every time it kicked it was jagged with the
spike. If it was yoked to a wagon, the front of the wagon had a bar
studded with wooden spikes which jagged the ox if it kicked. The young
ox had to learn submission the hard way and so had Paul.
Acts 26:17-18
give a perfect summary of what Christ does for men. (a) He opens their
eyes. When Christ comes into a man's life he enables him to see things
he never saw before. (b) He turns them from the darkness to the light.
Before a man meets Christ it is as if he were facing the wrong way;
after meeting Christ he is walking towards the light and his way is
clear before him. (e) He transfers him from the power of Satan to the
power of God. Once evil had him in thrall but now God's triumphant power
enables him to live in victorious goodness. (d) He gives him
forgiveness of sins and a share with the sanctified. For the past, the
penalty of sin is broken; for the future, life is recreated and
purified.
26:19-23 "Therefore,
King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. But first of
all to those in Damascus, and to Jerusalem, and throughout the whole
land of Judaea and to the Gentiles, I brought the message to repent and
turn to God and do deeds to match their repentance. Because of this the
Jews seized me in the Temple and tried to do away with me. So then
because I have received the help of God up to this day, I stand bearing
witness to great and small, saying nothing beyond those things which
both the prophets and Moses said would happen, that the Anointed One
must suffer, that as a consequence of his resurrection from the dead he
must be the first to bring the tidings of light to the People and to the
Gentiles."
Here we have a vivid summary of the substance of the message which Paul preached.
(i) He called on men to repent. The Greek word for repent
literally means change one's mind. To repent means to realize that the
kind of life we are living is wrong and that we must adopt a completely
new set of values. To that end, it involves two things. It involves
sorrow for what we have been and it involves the resolve that by the
grace of God we will be changed.
(ii) He called on men to turn to God. So often we have our backs
to God. It may be in thoughtless disregard; it may be because we have
deliberately gone to the far countries of the soul. But. however that
may be, Paul calls on us to let the God who was nothing to us become the
God who is everything to us.
(iii) He called on men to do deeds to match their repentance.
The proof of genuine repentance and turning to God is a certain kind of
life. But these deeds are not merely the reaction of someone whose life
is governed by a new series of laws; they are the result of a new love.
The man who has come to know the love of God in Jesus Christ knows now
that if he sins he does not only break God's law; he breaks God's heart.
26:24-31 As Paul was
making his defence, Festus cried out, "Paul, you are mad. Much learning
has turned you to madness." But Paul said, "I am not mad, Festus, your
Excellency, but I am uttering words of truth and sense. The king has
knowledge of these things and it is to him that I boldly talk; for I do
not think that any of these things are escaping him; for this was not
done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you
do." Agrippa said, "You surely think that you are not going to take long
to persuade me to be a Christian." Paul answered, "I could pray that,
whether it takes short or long, not only you but also all who are
listening to me today were such as I am, apart from these fetters." The
king and the governor and Bernice and those who were sitting with them
rose up; and when they had withdrawn they kept saying to each other,
"This man does nothing which merits death or fetters." And Agrippa said
to Festus, "This man could have been released if he had not appealed to
Caesar."
It is not so much what is actually said in this passage which
is interesting as the atmosphere which the reader can feel behind it.
Paul was a prisoner. At that very moment he was wearing his fetters, as
he himself makes clear. And yet the impression given unmistakably is
that he is the dominating personality in the scene. Festus does not
speak to him as a criminal. No doubt he knew Paul's record as a trained
rabbi; no doubt he had seen Paul's room scattered with the scrolls and
the parchments which were the earliest Christian books. Agrippa,
listening to Paul, is more on trial than Paul is. And the end of the
matter is that a rather bewildered company cannot see any real reason
why Paul should be tried in Rome or anywhere else. Paul has in him a
power which raises him head and shoulders above all others in any
company. The word used for the power of God in Greek is dunamis (Greek #1411); it is the word from which dynamite comes. The man who has the Risen Christ at his side need fear no one.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)