Chapter 22
Verse 1 – Paul now begins his message before the assembled mob which had been temporarily quieted. There are two things that have caused this: the principle of organization facing a disorganised mob, the concept of the Roman empire and law and order, and enforcing it.
“Men, brethren, and fathers” – brethren: Paul is speaking to Jews, and he himself is a Jew. This is one of those cases where “Brethren” does not refer to believers but to members of the same race. Paul is trying to establish some rapport with the crowd. A public speaker must have some rapport with him audience. He uses the word “fathers” to recognise that in the mob are Jewish religious leaders. The fact of religious leaders in the mob tells us that they were leading the mob. Whenever you have a breakdown of law and order you always have religion either encouraging the mob or leading the mob. This means by principle that religion often sponsors and fosters mob action. But civil disobedience is anti-Christian. Such action destroys any doctrinal issues.
“hear ye my defence now unto you” – “hear ye” is an aorist active imperative of the verb a)kouw, he demands a hearing; “unto you” is proj plus the accusative which means face to face with you.
Verse 2 – “(And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue” – “speak” is prosfonew [fonew == from which we get the word phonetics means simply to make noise; proj = face to face] which means to speak face to face or to courageously, confidently, face them out. When you have complete control of yourself and you understand the issue, and those who are in the audience have no control over themselves and do not understand the issue, is why prosfonew is used. It has the concept of standing up with great courage and great poise, and looking right down at them and levelling with them; “to them” is dative of advantage, it is to their advantage to hear what he has to say.
“they kept the more silence: and he saith,)” – which means there was a general silence but people were still talking. Now they kept the more silent, but the word isn’t really to keep here, it is parexw [par = immediate source; exw = to have] meaning to have from the immediate source of self. He had from the immediate source of these people their silence. So he didn’t keep their silence, he had their silence. For the moment they had a desire to hear him. This was volition. Now the self-discipline factor will take over for a while. For the first time this mob is not a mob, and for some verses now this mob will not be a mob. Why? When the people of a mob move into the sphere of self-discipline they are no longer a mob but an audience, and this is exactly what happened here.
Verse 3 – Paul’s own background. “I am verily [truly] a man, a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia” – the fact that he was born in Tarsus means that he was a Roman citizen; “yet brought up in this city” – brought up means to be reared or educated, a)natrefw [a)na = to be again; trefw = means to train, to nourish, to educate] means to train again and again and again—responsibility of parents, to train their children again and again and again. Telling children something once doesn’t do the job, it has to be inculcated. Paul is actually saying that he was brought up from his childhood in Jerusalem under the system of Judaism. It was inculcated into him. Judaism was his life, and therefore any deviation in his life from Judaism is something they should stop and take a good look at because there might be some reason for a change.
“at the feet of Gamaliel” – who was famous because he was the mos objective of all of the Pharisees ever; “and taught” – present active participle, which means not to be taught but to be trained: paideuw. The word for “taught” is didaskw; paideuw means to take a child and train him over and over. This means that he received the best type of communication training; “according to” is kata, the preposition for norm or standard; “the perfect manner of the law.” The word “perfect” is not perfect at all, it is a)kribeia which means “accurate.” He was taught accurately and objectively the Mosaic law. An accurate manner of the law refers to a clear presentation of its content, not its application. (The application never came home to him. That’s why he was never saved until he met Jesus Christ)
“and was zealous toward God” – the fact that he was zealous simply means that he was on positive volition at the point of God-consciousness. Not saved, but he was zealous toward God. Therefore when you are not saved and you are zealous toward God, what do you have? Legalism.
“as ye all are this day” – present linear aktionsart, “as you keep on being.”
Verse 4 – “As I persecuted this way.” The aorist tense gathers into a point of time Paul’s persecution. From the time he became a religious person through his study and until the time that he accepted Christ as saviour his life was constantly characterised by the persecution of these people. When he calls it “this way” he is referring to Christianity; “unto the death” – Paul was responsible for killing people. Cf. 1 Timothy 1:12ff. There was a time when Paul was the most religious of all.
Notice: Paul is in between two systems of law, but this time there is a breakdown in the Jewish system of law which is not functioning. It happens every time: the greatest destructive action to any system of law is religion. Jewish law was not functioning because the people were religious. Religion did not attack Roman law but religion attacked Jewish law. So in this particular passage the Jews are lawless, and therefore the Roman garrison must put down the insurrection and deliver Paul. The Romans are lawful. Mob action was incited by religion and religion destroyed Jewish law. Paul is saying to the crowd that he once stood where they do right now.
“binding” – present active participle. It means to incarcerate; “and delivering [for imprisonment] into prisons both men and women.” This is contrary to the whole system of Jewish law. The Jews recognised women’s helplessness and throughout Jewish law are to be found many law cases cited in the Bible, and you will always find that when they were condemned it was always for what they did to widows or orphans. Principle: A believer is religious to the extent that he has ignored Bible doctrine. And: No matter how great a system of law is the thing that always destroys it is religion.
Verse 5 – “As also the high priest doth bear me witness.” He makes reference to the religious leader in Israel. When religion infiltrates law then the country is in trouble, and on whom does he call for his witness? The high priest himself. The high priest was a religious person; the Sanhedrin was basically a religious organisation. When the supreme court of the land became the Sanhedrin—the fall of Israel happened over a period of some 300 years, and as Israel went down the Sanderin went up—it became a religious hierarchy administering the law. It was never intended that way.
“and all the estate of the elders” – the supreme court; “from” – para, from the immediate source; “whom I also received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them that were bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.” He was so zealous that after he “cleaned up” Jerusalem (by distorting the law) he wanted to go up Damascus and do it because he heard there were Christians up there. This was not a Jewish jurisdiction; they were out from under the law of the Jews. The law of the Jews at this time was confined to Judea but Paul was going to go 300 miles out of his way, out of the jurisdiction of Jewish law, and use Jewish law to capture these people, and haul them back to Jerusalem to kill them and put them in jail. His idea was to use Jewish law to stamp out Christianity.
Verse 6 – “I made my journey,” i.e. from Jerusalem to Damascus; “and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me” – the great light is actually the Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense it is similar to the burning bush. The light is perpetuated, it is the manifestation of Jesus Christ apart from His actual physical bodily form. There have been throughout the history of the human race certain inanimate manifestations of Christ. Christ was the cloud that led the Jews, He was the pillar of fire that protected them, He was the burning bush, and in this case He was the actual light Himself.
Verse 7 – the light was so powerful that it knocked Paul to the ground. “And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He heard the voice instantly—aorist tense, and “persecutest” is present linear aktionsart, “Why do you keep on persecuting me?” The reason that Jesus Christ at this point revealed Himself to Saul, who at that time was an unbeliever, is because at the point of God-consciousness Saul of Tarsus had gone on positive volition toward God. God-consciousness means that he was only aware of the existence of God and positive volition means that he desired to know God. Because of this God was responsible to provide at some time in his life gospel information. At the point of gospel hearing he will again go on positive volition and personally believe in Jesus Christ and become Paul the apostle. But during the interim something happened to him. First of all, he had legalistic parents who were steeped in Judaism; so much so that his whole educational background was in the area of legalism. So he had a strong religious training, first of all from legalistic parents and then from the school where he was taught by Gamaliel. So between God-consciousness and gospel hearing this man became very religious and very legalistic. That was his training and background. But he carried it further than most people do, to the point where he wanted to destroy everything that was anti-Judaism, everything that was opposed to the legalism of Israel. Therefore he began a system of persecution which resulted in people being killed and imprisoned. How could a person be on positive volition at the point of God-consciousness and then turn so radically in another direction? The answer is parents and training. These were both legalistic to the core. Jesus Christ personally dealt with the apostle Paul; at this time Saul of Tarsus, hardened unbeliever.
Saul of Tarsus knows that he has been persecuting people. One category: believers in Jesus Christ. He was doing everything he could to destroy Christianity.
Verse 8 – “And I answered, Who art thou Lord?” Twice Saul use the word kurioj, a title for deity. At this particular point he wanted an identification. He thought that he was doing what God wanted him to do, he thought that the God of Israel was pleased with the things that he was doing wit regard to the destruction of Christianity. Now he gets his great shock. He uses the word “Lord” because he knows that only God could knock him to the ground in this way, and that only God could speak to him in this way. Jesus Christ identifies Himself so that Saul can become Paul: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.” In other words, every time he touched a believer he was touching Jesus Christ—positional truth: every believer in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the first time that Saul understood it. For once in his life he became aware of the fact that Jesus Christ is God, and he became aware of it at this moment. This is the time when he accepted Christ as his saviour. He will mention the word “Lord” a second time in verse 10, and between the two “Lords” he became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 9 – “And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid” – the phrase “were afraid” is not found in the original, even though it may have been true; “but they heard not the voice that spake to me” – in other words, even though it was noon time, the time of maximum light, they actually saw the light and did not hear the voice. Jesus Chris dealt only with Saul of Tarsus. There could be several reasons for that. The one obvious one is that he appeared to Saul to lead him to Himself. But in this group Saul of Tarsus is possibly the only person who had positive volition at the point of God-consciousness. Apparently the others were on negative volition at the point of God-consciousness and God did not reveal Himself to them.
Verse 10 – “And I said, “What shall I do Lord?” Here is a believer, speaking now from the concept of phase two. This is an aorist active subjunctive because of poiew which describes the whole concept of phase two. The aorist tense covers his whole life as a Christian. The subjunctive mood means that whether he ever gets with God’s plan for his life in phase two depends upon certain factors, for example knowledge of doctrine. And it is the subjunctive mood with every one of us as believers. God has a plan for our lives and whether we ever get with that plan or not depends entirely upon Bible doctrine. It doesn’t depend upon anything else, and one of the greatest tragedies with young people today in the churches is that they get everything but Bible doctrine.
Immediately Saul is zealous for the Lord. He wants to do for the Lord what he has done against the Lord during these early years. And his first question, “What shall I do?” is going to be put in abeyance because he is in no position to do. Principle: The first thing to do after you are saved, if you are ever going to get started right, is to do nothing. The first thing you do is close your mouth and open your ears. You have to be briefed; you have to find out what it is all about.
“And the Lord said unto me, Arise and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told you” – and this is why Saul of Tarsus became one of the greatest believers of all time. “It shall be told you” – future passive indicative of the verb lalew which means to communicate. Future tense: future from now; passive voice: you will receive communication; the indicative mood: the reality of a point of doctrine—you have to find out what the Christian life is all about before you do anything.
“all things which are appointed” – “all things” means that God has a plan for Saul of Tarsus. Saul has accepted Christ as saviour and he is going to have a phase two experience before he is called home to be with the Lord. God has all things for us. As believers we are in full time Christian service and God has his all things for us just as He has his all things for every believer. These all things, God’s plan for us, were designed in eternity past. These all things are delineated for us personally through Bible doctrine; they are to be understood through the Word of God. Basically, you can never learn these all things as long as you emphasise the details of life and exclude Bible doctrine. “Which are appointed” – tassw means to organise, it means an organised plan, the concept of something which is organise or arranged perfectly. This is a perfect passive indicative. Perfect tense: in eternity past God planned everything you would need for phase two; passive voice: the arranging was received—you simply receive in time what God provided for you from eternity past. Doctrine is the link between God in eternity and you in time. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that God has a plan for every life.
“for thee to do” – poiew again. But notice, tassw the plan; now God says there is something for Paul to do [poiew], but the plan comes before the execution of the plan. So we have an aorist active infinitive for “to do” this time, and the aorist infinitive means that at any point n time when you are oriented through knowledge of doctrine, in that point of time in phase two you will actually execute the plan of God. You have to know the plan before you can do it; knowledge comes before production. This is the principle by which Paul will become the greatest believer of all time. He will learn and then he will do.
Verse 11 – “And when I could not see for [because of] the glory of that light.” Paul is now at least partially blind. When it says he could not see, the word which is used us e)nblepw, which means not total blindness but impossibility to see perfectly. He couldn’t see clearly and couldn’t get along by himself; “being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came to Damascus.”
Verse 12 – Ananias. “And one Ananias.” The name is derived from a Hebrew word which means protected by the Lord. He is an ordinary believer in Damascus, an ordinary believer in the right place at the right time.
1. The ordinary believer is also in full time Christian service—every believer, and under two appointments: ambassador and priest. As ambassador he represents the absent Christ; as a priest he represents himself before God.
2. The ordinary life has occupational hazards: a) boredom, which comes from a failure to orient to the grace of God and to the plan of God. It comes to people where something is more important than Bible doctrine, when they are not occupied with Christ; b) entertainment, which becomes an occupational hazard only when Bible doctrine is not first in the life; c) apostasy. This might be social action, some form of liberalism (theologically or politically), or something as subtle as “We don’t need doctrine, all we need to do is to win people to Christ.”
3. The ordinary life is therefore the most difficult because it has the fewest outward stimulates. So it requires a deeper and steadier faith. Therefore God has designed the ordinary life to be the recipient of Bible teaching, Bible doctrine. The ordinary life becomes the extraordinary life through knowledge of doctrine.
4. We have a tendency to underrate the so-called commonplace, but the commonplace fills up the gaps of the ordinary life. Commonplace: things that we are to do habitually—learn doctrine, prayer, witnessing, worship, and so on.
5. The obscure and wonderful service which Paul received from Ananias had world-wide repercussions. Ananias could not see this, his job was to learn doctrine. The ordinary life never sees the fantastic repercussions, but they are there. Ananias was faithful in a ministry, he had no idea that Paul was going to be the greatest believer of all time. His job required faithfulness at the moment, and he was faithful at the contact.
6. To the believer who experiences disappointment and frustration because their lives are not filled with great spiritual adventures, Ananias is the pattern of what it is all about.
7. Ananias was an ordinary believer but he really wasn’t. He wasn’t because he was a doctrine man, a grace man. That made the difference.
8. Under operation grace there is no such thing as an ordinary life, even though every life is composed of a certain number of monotonous details which are commonplace.
9. Ananias demonstrates the importance of faithfulness in the little things, leading to that flash of glory (his contact with Saul of Tarsus) which is so important in the teamwork concept.
“a devout man according to the law” – in the day of Ananias and Paul—in other words, in the apostolic period of the Church Age—there were two kinds of
divine revelation: written revelation which was the Old Testament Scriptures, and over the apostolic period the gradual formation of the New testament. However the New Testament all came into existence, first of all by revelation—God the Holy Spirit revealing doctrine to the apostles so that the New Testament was gradually formed, and a second form of revelation occurred, i.e. the Old Testament system of a supernatural communication which involved dreams, trances, visions, conversation. When the New Testament is finally formed in 96 AD with the completion of the book of Revelation all supernatural communication will cease. God no longer speaks to people directly in conversation or dreams or visions or trances, etc. All revelation today is written, and everything God wants us to know is contained in the Word of God. So the period of the book of Acts is the apostolic period which goes from AD 30 – AD 96. This is also called the pre-canon period, and during this time the average believer had one source of communication open to him, and that was the Old Testament. Any time that God wanted to communicate with him in a special way God could speak to him personally, and that is the story of Ananias. Ananias got his doctrine from the Old Testament Scriptures and he got his instructions, as in this case, from God Himself who spoke to him and said to go see Saul of Tarsus. But the system remains the same. He was a devout man according to the law, which means he studied the Old Testament Scriptures. In Codex #2 he found Christ as his saviour, and his perception of doctrine from the Old Testament gave him a tremendous stability as a believer, and he was just the man to clarify certain things as far as Saul was concerned. The principle: God uses the prepared ordinary believer. But to be used of God as the ordinary believer you must know Bible doctrine. This is required regardless of what you do on this earth in representing the Lord.
“having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there” – having a good report is literally, being a good witness or receiving a good witness from all the Jews. In other words, Mr Ordinary believer was witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ—the concept of personal work as you have contact with other believers.
“Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me” – this is Ananias. Paul is describing before the Roman garrison governor and the Jews this particular scene. Notice he calls him “Brother Saul.” Ordinarily he would not call him this but this is to recognise that here is an ordinary believer who understands that Saul of Tarsus, the worst sinner who ever lived, has now become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the word “brother” indicates that he believes the Word of God. He is in effect faith-resting, because this was not found in the Old Testament, there was nothing in the Old Testament Scriptures that say that Saul is going to be a believer. This is something that came from a conversation with God. In the apostolic period conversation from God carried the same weight as Scripture. So he says “Brother Saul” because he believes what God said to him personally.
“receive thy sight” – this is an imperative, a)nablepw, and it means to look up, not “receive thy sight.” When he looked up he was able to see again.
Verse 14 – “And he [Ananias] said, The God of our fathers,” i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ who is the founder of the Jewish race; “hath chosen thee” – the word for choosing doesn’t mean to choose as we ordinarily see the word. It is proxeirizomai [pro = beforehand; xeirizomai = to take by the hand], to take by the hand beforehand means to be preappointed. So Paul was both pre-designed and preappointed. In other words, God knew in eternity past that Paul from his own free will as Saul of Tarsus would receive Christ as saviour. He saw his positive volition at the point of God-consciousness. Saul did not respond when Stephen proclaimed these things but he did when Jesus Christ proclaimed this personally on the Damascus road. Ananias himself is obviously oriented to the plan of God and he was prepared for the day when he would have the stability, the courage, the power and the grace to face the man who has persecuted the church and to declare to him Bible doctrine. As soon as Saul looked up he was getting doctrine.
“that” – purpose clause, this purpose still remains; “thou shouldst know his will” – to know is an aorist active infinitive of ginwskw which means to learn doctrine through the experience of studying it, to study and to learn. Some things can only be learned by study, so you have to study and learn doctrine. The whole objective is “his will.” You learn the will of God by learning doctrine. The will of God does not exist outside of Bible doctrine. Knowledge of doctrine, then, is the basis for knowing the will of God. Every believer must learn doctrine to know the will of God.
“and see that Just One” – once you learn doctrine you begin to enter into occupation with Christ. The word for “see” means a panoramic view—o(raw, the word from which we get “horizon.” Blepw means a glance; o(raw means a long pleasant look. In this case it means a long loving look. So Saul of Tarsus, in phase two you are going to have a long loving look at the Just One who is Jesus Christ. Again, this is accomplished through doctrine.
“and should hear the voice of his mouth” – Paul is the recipient of divine revelation, he has a special job as an apostle. So at least four time the Lord Jesus Christ appeared personally. One the road to Damascus, Acts 9:3-6; in Arabia, Acts 20:24; 26:17, also found in Galatians 1:12, 17; in the temple, Galatians 1:18; in prison, Acts 23:11. But when it says he will see the Just One the word is o(raw. The four references just quoted come under blepw, and that isn’t used here. O(raw means a prolonged panoramic view, the same view that we can have today through learning Bible doctrine. When this is fulfilled daily in the life, then it is”lloking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” “And should hear” is an aorist active infinitive and it means to hear Bible doctrine. He heard it and put it down in writing, which is why we have it today.
Verse 15 – “For thou shalt be his witness.” Future tense, i.e. future from this time; he is going to be a special witness; “unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.” “Seen” is o(raw again, this time in the perfect tense, gathering up every day that Paul learns and studies doctrine in phase two. It means he has a panoramic view in the past which he is going to keep adding to—doctrine every day; “what thou hast seen” is going to be special revelation which he will get occasionally from God. In this way he is going to be built up in the Word of God. Remember that he lived in the apostolic age when the Word was not complete.
Verse 16 – this is all mixed up in the translation. “And now why tarriest thou?” Whoever translated this forgot that the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb. The aorist active participle is “calling on the name of the Lord,” and the word is e)pikalew [kalew = to call; e)pi = upon], a synonym for believing in Christ, as per Romans 10:13. This has to do with being saved, and Paul has already done this; he was already saved: “brother Saul.” Obviously calling upon the name of the Lord has to come first. But there is another point of syntax: the action of the aorist participle is also coterminous with the action of the main verb. The main verb here is “wash away sins.” When Paul called upon the name of the Lord (aorist participle), at that moment his sins were washed away. Sins are washed away by faith in Christ.
Paul on the Damascus road fulfilled the aorist active participle. He called upon the name of the Lord and that is when he was saved. “Who art thou Lord.” In this case the action of the aorist participle is coterminous with the main verb, the closest verb in the indicative mood—“wash away.” So when he called upon the name of the Lord his sins were washed away.
“Why do you tarry [delay]?” this is a present active indicative. At the cross Paul was entered into union with Christ, which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit—not mentioned but also occurred. Since he has been saved, what has he been doing? Present active indicative of mellw, tarrying or delaying. The reason he has been delaying is because he has been blinded. But now that has been taken care of and the first thing Ananias says is, What are you hanging around for? Then he says, Get up. “Arise” is an aorist active participle. It has to have a main verb in its proximity, and it does: “be baptized.” This is water baptism. This is the first step in the recognition of points of doctrine. This is an aorist middle imperative. You only do it once, and you have to do it yourself, and it is an imperative mood—you have to make your own decision. The decision should be based on knowledge of doctrine.
Why was it necessary and why was there so much emphasis on Paul being baptized? There is a definite parallel here. Jesus Christ was baptized before His earthly ministry. The water represented the will of God the Father which was for Jesus Christ to have three years of earthly ministry, go to the cross, rise from the dead, ascend, and be glorified at the right hand of the Father. Jesus was willing to go to the cross, therefore when He went down into the water He was identifying Himself with the will of God, and the Father said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Now here is the great apostle, and he is going into the water to represent a principle (because this is the Church Age): down with human good and up with divine good. He recognises his union with Christ. The water baptism reconises positional sanctification. So being baptized is going to be the launching of his public ministry, just as with Jesus Christ being baptized was announcing His public ministry. So the baptism of Paul had the usual significance that ours has but it seems to set up a parallel with our Lord Jesus Christ. There is so much emphasis.
Translation: “Having called upon the name of the Lord, and your sins washed away, why are you hanging around here? Get up and be baptized.” In other words, Paul’s water baptism is the public entrance into the ministry recognising and emphasising positional truth. Paul’s stability, like ours, is based on positional truth, and water baptism teaches the importance of positional truth.
Verse 17 – the trance in the temple. He skips over everything to show how God drove him out into a private place where he would have to study and learn the Word. He says he was praying in the temple. A pastor should pray, like everyone else, but apparently he was making such a thing out of prayer that he wasn’t learning doctrine. He fell into a trance. The word for “trance” is e)kstasij from which we get “ecstatics.” This means he actually had an ecstatic experience. The Lord took over and appeared to him.
Verse 18 – “And saw him saying unto me.” Paul saw the resurrected Christ; “Make haste” – notice that when Ananias contacted Paul in Damascus he said Get up and be baptized.” Now, Jesus Christ says in Jerusalem and says “Get out.” “Make haste” means hurry up; “and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me” – “they refers to believers who were legalistic and who dominate the local church in Jerusalem, and the religious leaders of the Sanhedrin who dominate the city. The local church is dominated by religion and the city is dominated by legalism/religion.
Verse 19 – Paul’s rationalising so that he could stay in Jerusalem, and right here standing in Jerusalem he explains his own tendency: he loved Jerusalem. He loved Jerusalem to the point that sometimes this was a detail that almost crowded out everything else. Paul had his detail temptation. Even when Jesus Christ tells him to get out because they would kill him, he is standing there arguing.
Verse 21 – “And he said unto me, Depart.” This means to go from one place to another—aorist active imperative, Get up and get out of here now.
“for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” When he said “Gentiles” the mob came up again.
What was the whole of Paul’s objective during the first few years of Paul’s ministry? Ananias said, Get up, what are you hanging around for? Jesus Christ said, Get up and get out of here. Everything was move, move, move, until a place was found for him. He obeyed and he moved and then in Arabia the Lord said, Stop. Why? Because here there is no publicity, here there is privacy, here there is no one who knows Saul of Tarsus now becoming Paul the apostle. Here there is no one whom can interfere with your ministry and out here you are going to learn Bible doctrine. You don’t learn doctrine in the limelight of publicity. God’s plan for the new believer is doctrine, doctrine, doctrine.
The Romans were very smart about people. The assumed that everyone who wasn’t a Roman couldn’t tell the truth; that anyone who didn’t understand Roman law and didn’t function under Roman law was automatically going to lie. They assumed that the best way to turn a liar into telling the truth was to beat it out of him. If a man was a Roman citizen they assumed he was telling the truth; if he was not a Roman citizen he was an enemy of SPQR and they assumed he was telling a lie. The Roman garrison commander started out by assuming that Paul was telling a lie. He did not realise that this man was a Roman citizen. The procedure which was followed here was normal modus operandi for a Roman officer of any kind when dealing with a non-Roman—unless he was an aristocrat or a nobleman from some other kingdom, who handled in a slightly different manner. We have to look at this passage from the standpoint of the garrison commander, it was written from his viewpoint: the viewpoint of an unbeliever. But it is also written from the viewpoint of a man who when he gets information immediately switches gears and puts Paul under a new procedure entirely. This paragraph starts out with the mob screaming for Paul’s death and ends with an orderly Roman trial which is going to come to a termination because we have a conflict of two systems of law, both of which are the best systems of the ancient world. The Roman law always assumed the Roman citizen to be innocent until proven guilty. In Jewish law there had to be the establishment of at least two witnesses before an indictment could be brought. So the two systems were parallel in many ways. The actual function of the two systems was slightly different. The administration of Jewish law fell into religion when the religious leaders began to administer the law with the rise of the Pharisees. But Roman law was always administered by non-religious as far as prejudice was concerned. Roman law was the best system on earth because it was not infiltrated with religion. Jewish law which in principle was just as good, if not superior, to Roman law in its function has now been infiltrated by religion, and religion corrupts everything it touches. Religion is the greatest enemy of mankind and the worst thing that ever happened to mankind. Here we have Jewish law seeking to kill an innocent man, and Roman law delivering an innocent man.
Verse 22 – “And they gave him audience unto this word.” Up to this point in his speech Paul avoided the fatal word “Gentile.” This one word immediately aroused the mob again and brought about a second outburst in the area between the temple and the fort. It ended Paul’s message, antagonised the mob of religious Jews and gave maximum manifestation of their negative volition toward the grace of God. These religious Jews thought that being a Jew by birth, being circumcised, and keeping the Mosaic law as a way of salvation was all that was necessary, and Gentiles were excluded from this system. So it was obvious to them that Paul, a Jew, had the audacity to take salvation to the Gentiles, and this antagonised them leading to a fresh outburst.
“they gave him audience” is the imperfect active indicative of a)kouw, “they kept on listening.” Just as soon as Paul mentioned Gentiles there is a change, aorist tense, a point of time: “they lifted up their voices, and said” – the word for “lift up voice” is e)pairew, which with the word to say, it means they started screaming. They had lost control of their reason and expressed it vocally. This mob is really each individual throwing a tantrum all at the same time. This is a frustrated mob because now all they can do is throw a tantrum, they cannot get to the apostle Paul.
“Away with such a fellow” – i.e. remove him; “for he is not fit,” is literally, “it is not fitting that he should live.” They used the word zaw which is the mechanics of living. Never again should he be aloud to eat or drink or live like a normal person. There is another word, from which we get biology, biow, which means the pattern of life. But they want him to stop functioning.
Verse 23 – the mob demonstration. “And as the cried [screamed] out, and cast off their clothes [the tantrum operation].” Paul is totally under the protection of Rome and the mob is totally ineffectual. This reaction is typical of religious people and legalistic people.
Verse 24 – the garrison commander begins and erroneous investigation and winds up with the correct procedure. “The chief captain” is a bad translation. He is a chiliarch, the highest-ranking military officer in any area, comparable to someone who is a general officer. He is the Roman garrison commander.
“commanded him [Paul] to be brought into the castle” – you can’t handle anything in front of a mob and he has no intention of doing so. The mob is going to be dispersed and the source of their antagonism is going to be removed from their sight. When he said he commanded, it is an aorist active indicative to show us something. The aorist tense indicates he was decisive, and he made the decision under pressure and immediately.
“and bade that he should be examined by scourging” – his decision was good but the procedure was wrong because to examine a man by scourging is to assume that he is not a Roman. Of course Paul looks like a Jew, speaks like a Jew, and the commander makes an ordinary decision that would be assumed to be correct due to the fact that here is a man who appears to be a Jew. Since he spoke Aramaic he assumed correctly that Paul was a Jew. And Paul is a Jew. But what he did not assume and what he did not know—therefore this part of his decision was erroneous—was that Paul was also a Roman citizen.
“that he might know wherefore they so cried against him” – he wanted to know why the mob formed. Obviously he has no respect for the mob but he does have a right to ask why the mob. This was very impersonal; he wanted to know the facts. The mob didn’t want facts, they simply wanted, Does he conform to our religion or not?
Verse 25 – “And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?” The word “Roman” here means Roman citizen. It is not lawful to examine a Roman citizen by scourging, and this general could lose his rank for this.
Verse 26 – Notice that the centurion has respect for his commander and is loyal to him. The word “heard” is an aorist active participle: “having heard it”; “he went” – is “having gone.”
Verse 27 – the garrison commander comes back and interrogates.
Verse 28 – the commander makes an interesting observation. “With a great sum obtained I this freedom.” He is a man who belonged to some other nationality and was not a citizen, and he got into the Roman Army. The Romans took a certain number of people who were non-citizens, and if a portion of their pay could be taken every month and put into the treasury, and they were given credit for it, when they reached a certain sum they could purchase a citizenship. This man did that. Paul didn’t pay anything for his citizenship, he was born into his. The word “I obtained” is an aorist active indicative of ktaomai which means to purchase. He purchased by a regular procedure. The word “freedom” is politeia which means a citizenship and the rights of being a Roman citizen—the freedom to enter into the affairs of the state. It is the word from which we get “politics.”
Paul says, “I have been born one” – perfect passive indicative. The perfect tense indicates that Paul is not even a first generation citizen, that even Paul’s grandfather was a Roman citizen. The passive voice: at the moment of birth he received this citizenship. The participle indicates he was the son of a Roman citizen. Therefore at the moment of birth he is recognised as a Roman citizen.
Verse 29 – “Then straightway they departed [withdrew]from him which should have examined him.” In other words, they withdrew with respect. There would be no examination by scourging.
“and the chief captain also was afraid, after that he knew that he was a Roman citizen, and because he had bound him.” He had overstepped hi authority. Rough treatment of Roman citizens was never tolerated and therefore he recognises that this part of his decision was a mistake. Now he goes about to rectify it.
Verse 30 – he is going to do the next thing that is required of him as a garrison commander: call the parties together and make an investigation. So he is going to call in the Sanhedrin, and he will put Paul before him under Roman protection.