The Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans telling them all things work together for good for those who love God. Was that somehow easier for Paul to believe because he had been uniquely commissioned by Jesus? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg reminds us that the mighty apostle wasn't a perfect man.
He was ordinary, like you were, to turn to it. I will read it in your hearing, and you can follow along as I read verse 30. The concluding verse of Acts 22 is where we begin our reading. The next day, since the commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews, he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul and had him stand before them.
Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day. At this the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall.
You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck. Those who were standing near Paul said, You dare to insult God's high priest? Paul replied, Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest, for it is written, Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people. Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead. When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously.
We find nothing wrong with this man, they said. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him? The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them.
He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks. The following night, the Lord stood near Paul and said, Take courage, as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome. Amen. I've given our study this morning a title. I always do.
I'm usually asked for it. I don't always have one, but I'm feeling very proud of myself in that I managed to give the title to my assistant this week before ever I preach the sermon. Usually I preach it to find out what it was about, and then I make up a title. But the title of this morning is a phrase from one of Paul's most well-known statements. The statement is in Romans 8.28, remember? And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. So this morning's title is just one little phrase, In all things God works.
In all things God works. And the truth that circumstances, albeit adverse circumstances, are turned to good by the operation of God on behalf of his children is something that is affirmed by Paul not only in his writing but also in his living. And I wonder if you've found with me that as you've been reading, particularly these chapters, as Paul proceeds towards, ultimately, Rome, interim towards Jerusalem, that the things that he has written in his epistles in many ways stand up and look at us. At least I've been finding that. I wonder if you have too. And the distinct impression is created that Paul is working out his theology not in the context of some cloistered tranquility, but that he's actually hammering out his theology on the anvil of experience, and that the things that he writes elsewhere we're able to tie into the things that we find him encountering here.
And I'll show that to you before we end this morning. This is not the easiest of little passages. At least I haven't found it particularly easy.
I don't know what you would have done with it. I wrestled with it all week, and eventually Sunday comes and you have to stop and say something. It's liberating.
It's also terrifying. But I've concluded—and I hope I don't do a disservice to Paul in this—but I have concluded that to some extent this passage provides helpfulness to us in introducing us to something of the ordinariness of this extraordinary apostle. That's something, if you like, of his feet of clay are to be found in the encounter which we've just read here. His journey to Jerusalem had begun with that dramatic declaration back in chapter 20. You needn't turn to it, but if you want to remind yourself of it, it comes about the 22nd verse, where he says, compelled by the Spirit, I'm going up to Jerusalem.
I don't know what's going to happen to me there. I only know that the Spirit has told me that in every city to which I go, there's going to be that for me to encounter that is not necessarily going to be just a walk in the park. That's my own summary of it. And of course, that prophetic word given to him has been borne out now, as we've already begun to see. And God has been working even these bad things into his purpose for him, showing Paul what he's going to write down, or has written down, in all things God works. His works, he must have said, in my imprisonment. I'm glad I said that, because here in my imprisonment, God has been protecting me from a lynching. God has been at work in my upbringing insofar as, as a Roman citizen, I've been able to avoid this dreadful flogging which, of course, could have killed him. And once again, as we've come to expect from Luke, who you will remember in his introduction to his gospel had said, I set out to investigate this, to examine it clearly, to set down an orderly account—once again, here in this little section, Luke is describing the scene very carefully and clearly.
Now, one of the things that I did in looking at this was I just looked at it, as it were, through the eyes of the different characters. And I wonder again, do you have any sense of empathy with this poor commander here? Now, the commander is quite a man, and his wife at suppertime would have doubtless asked him, What's happening with this prisoner Paul?
Are you making any headway with him? What's all the trouble about? And he would be forced to acknowledge that, frankly, what he was trying to get at, he just couldn't get at, that his quest was unsuccessful. You go back to verse 34 of chapter 21 to set the context for this. Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander—notice the phrase—could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he sent Paul into the barracks.
What have you been trying to do? Well, I've been trying to get at the truth, he said. Chapter 21 and verse 34, and then chapter 22 and verse 24, the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned. Notice, in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. First of all, he can't get at the truth.
One group shouts one thing, one group shouts another thing. He says, Okay, that doesn't work. Let's take him into the barracks. In fact, let's give him a jolly good flogging, and perhaps as we give him a flogging, I can ask him a few questions, and I'll find out why this is all taking place. The final verse of 22 sets the scene for his third attempt to find out exactly what's going on.
Notice the phrase in verse 30, the next day, since the commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews. He says, Okay, let's try this another way. Why don't we release him from custody? Let's call a meeting of the Sanhedrin. Let's allow the Sanhedrin to conduct the investigation. Let's listen while they conduct the investigation, and then maybe I'll be able to tell my wife at suppertime tonight exactly what's going on with this character.
Because so far, my first attempt was no good, because of the hullabaloo. My second attempt was foiled, because he's a Roman citizen and we couldn't flog him. Let's see what we can do when we bring him in front of the Sanhedrin. And so it was that before the ruling council of the Jews, in a way that ought to cause some of you to have an immediate flashback—in fact, if you were making a movie of this, you could quite easily have flashbacks twenty-seven years previously to another individual brought before the ruling council of the Jews, another individual who is struck in the face, another individual who is confronted by the challenge of these moments. I'm not going to be tedious and turn you back to that. I just set you in that direction in case you want to follow it up at your leisure.
Any hopes that he had for resolution by means of this third attempt were quickly dashed, as Luke tells us, in the fracas which followed. Now, those of you who are going to do journalism, I hope some of you are, because there's so much dreadful journalism, and it would be nice to have a few bright sparks on the horizon, looking forward to the days when we could read your columns in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street and so on—not least of all that wonderful paper, The Plain Dealer. But those of you who are doing English and have been given the assignment of writing, you know how important it is to be able to say things pithily, straightforwardly, the vital importance of verbs. This morning, at an early hour, you maybe heard it on National Public Radio, I heard a couple of fellows who were asking individuals on the street, Summarize your life for me in thirty seconds. It was fascinating. Summarize your life for me in thirty seconds.
And one gentleman, an Italian construction worker, he said, It started bad and got worse. I thought, No, I like that. That's clarity. Now, Luke gives us just the scene. He sets a scene, just three verbs—standing, looking, talking—just so that we might have this in mind. That he brought Paul and had him stand before them.
Again, the flashback. Luke 22. And Jesus was led before them. There he stands before them. Secondly, looking at them. Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin, fixing his eyes on them. In fact, the phraseology here is graphic phraseology.
I won't bore you with where you can find it elsewhere. Fixing his eyes on them. In other words, nothing diffident, nothing deceptive about his posture.
Standing, looking, talking. I have, he says, fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day. That is a dramatic statement, isn't it? I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day. Remember Micah 6.8? He has shown you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? And Paul makes this very special statement. He has a lot to say concerning his conscience. He, remember, writes to the Corinthians and says, My conscience is clear.
That doesn't make me innocent. On a number of occasions, he makes much of the fact that he wants to have a clear conscience before God. We'll come back to this in chapter 24, the importance of a clear conscience in the service of God.
But what we discover is that he only gets as far as this opening statement before, at the behest of the high priest, he struck on the mouth. And in the account which then follows and takes us up to the eleventh verse, we see, I suggest to you again, something of the ordinariness of this extraordinary man. Now, I have three headings, and I'll give them to you.
I'll try to get quickly to the third one, because that's where I want to spend most of my time. First of all, notice the hostility that he encounters, the hostility that he encounters. Again, you see, here is somebody trying to do his best. Here is somebody who gets up in the morning, as it were, shackled, and then unshackled, and out into the day, and once again confronted by this ugly scene, and is setting himself up for the opportunity of investigation by the ruling counsel. He speaks to them initially in a kindly and respectful way.
Brothers, my brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day. Bam! And they strike him right in the mouth. Now, I don't know how long it is since you've taken a punch in the mouth. I have to go back quite a long way. I think I probably have to go back to my schoolyard, but I have some memorable punches in the mouth in my record, as a result of the use of my mouth.
I remember going home with my nose in my hands, blood coursing through the palms of my hands, and my dad saying to me, what happened? And I said, Well, I asked this big boy if he'd like a punch on the nose. And he said, You probably shouldn't have said that.
And I said, No, I understand that now. But here, this is an unprovoked strike in the mouth. This is without provocation. This is a bizarre interruption. This is strange. Don't you expect that the people who represent the religious establishment will at least be in control of themselves? They'll be able to moderate things properly. You don't rise to become the high priest, presumably, because you're a vagabond and a rascal, because you're an insolent and quick-tempered character.
Oh, but maybe you do. In fact, Josephus tells us that this particular high priest was known for his greed, for his insolence, and for his quick temper. Calvin observes, The LORD allows wicked people to be so carried away by Satan that they abandon all pretense of fairness and moderation. Now, if the intervention of the high priest is striking, what do you think about Paul's reaction? Paul knows the Bible. Paul knew that a silent answer turns away wrath. But here he adopts a more aggressive approach. Then Paul said to him, God'll strike you, you whitewashed wall. I mean, I don't think he said it like, And God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall. No, I think it was a riposte.
R-I-P-O-S-T-E. It was boom! It was out before he knew it! Well, what about turning the other cheek? Calvin—and I think probably because Calvin sees himself in Paul's reaction—Calvin says that the command of Christ to turn the other cheek, quote, does not stop us from complaining about injuries we have suffered and convicting the ungodly of their guilt, provided we do so calmly and without ill will. Well, I don't know how you do that. And when we get a chance to ask Calvin, we can ask him, you know, just to work his way through it for us. I'm not so sure he knew how to do it himself. You know, the best I can do with this—and I've read just about every commentary I can find, hoping that in the next one I take down from my shelf, there will be somebody who says something that says, Oh, that's perfect. That explains it. That cleans it up. It leaves Paul in the clear, gets me out of my problem, has something to say to the congregation.
None of them were any help at all. They were all absolutely just dribbling down their chins when it came to this. And so here I go. We must always remember that Paul was a mighty apostle, but he was at the same time a mere man. That he was not a perfect man.
And it is surely not inconceivable that he lost his temper. See, think about it. When he says, The good I want to do I don't do, and the bad I don't want to do, this I do. We read that and we go, Oh, yeah, that was nice, Paul.
You put that in for us. But you're not like that. You don't know what he was writing. He was fabricating. No, he was describing his own experience. He says, When I reflect upon my life, I know there are times I should be quiet and I speak, and I know there are other times when I speak and I should be quiet.
This may well be one of those times. He accuses the high priest of hypocrisy, hence the whitewashed law. You're violated in the law, he says, while claiming the right to judge. And the onlookers, verse 4, those who were standing near, immediately took the sight of the high priest.
Well, they had an agenda, didn't they? You dare to insult God's high priest? Wouldn't one of them say, Hey, what are you doing belting Paul on the mouth? He hasn't done anything yet. All he said was, I have been fulfilling my duty to God with a clear conscience. And then verse 5, it gets even more troublesome, doesn't it? Paul replied, Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest. Because he says, I know that the Bible says, Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people. And since I know that's a clear instruction of Scripture and I don't want to violate a clear instruction of Scripture, I wouldn't have gone about and said what I just said if I'd known he was the high priest. Which raises the question, why didn't he know he was the high priest?
Now, once again, the commentaries are pretty useless. One commentator says, Well, there was a great babble of voices in the commotion that was going on. Paul knew somebody said something, but he didn't know who said what he said.
Therefore, he confused the origin of the statements possible. I wondered if maybe the high priest was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, which was my great contribution to the discussion. So, you know, maybe he had his street clothes on, or sometimes it's his day off, and you expect that… But that couldn't be either, because of this whitewashed wall, because I think probably the whitewashed wall is a reference to the white robes of the high priest as well, and that he's tying things together. John Stott, for whom we're all grateful in what we do, says, When we take what we know of the dimness of his sight and the problems that he had with his sight, referenced in Galatians 6, see with what big letters I write to you, and his reference to, These people cared about me so much they would have taken their very eyes out and given them to me. Stott, he says, it is a most likely explanation that his response is to be found in his poor eyesight.
In this case, you whitewashed wall may not have been such a reference to hypocrisy as an uncouth allusion to a white-robed figure across the court whom Paul could only dimly perceive. So he stands before the signhedron, he makes his opening statement, somebody says, Strike him on the mouth! And as he looks across—and those of you who have very poor eyesight will understand this. I have people walk past me all the time, and they tell me that it's their eyesight, which I hope is true, not just to, you know, bolster up my, my miserable ego, but I have had people literally walk past me, and because their contact lenses are out, because I'm in a different situation, they just walk right past me. I said, Hey, hey. And he turned around and said, I didn't realize it was you.
I find that hard to believe given my eyesight. But for those of you who are, whatever that sight is, you know that can take place. Is that you, honey?
Oh, I didn't realize it was the high priest. That's the best I can do with it. I don't know. I don't know. You're listening to a message from Alistair Begg titled In All Things God Works on Truth for Life.
We'll hear the conclusion tomorrow. Now, as many of you know, this year, Truth for Life is celebrating 30 years of ministry. This daily program began on 31 radio stations back in 1995. And today, Alistair's Bible teaching reaches a global audience through nearly 2,000 radio stations, along with podcasts and online channels. We're able to reach millions of listeners in nearly every nation with the good news of the gospel, thanks to our truth partners. This is a small group of listeners who give each month to Truth for Life.
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