Why Paul Was Accused

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 29, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 21.

Why Paul Was Accused.

WHEN the Jewish delegation from Jerusalem appeared against Paul before Felix, their charges were, mainly, sedition among the Jews throughout the world, and profanation of the temple. These charges Paul refuted, and they could not prove them. He then expressed a hope toward God of a resurrection. See Acts 24. In his address before Agrippa, Paul gives his version of the real animus of the complaint of the Jews, as follows: "And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers." Chap. 26:6. When Lysias had rescued the apostle from the mob (chap. 21:33, 34), he asked what he had done; but there was such confusion that he could get no satisfaction. And when he was brought before the council the next day, he declared, "Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." Chap. 23:6. Paul was persistent in his assertion regarding the real cause of their rage against him.

FROM these facts we learn that the resurrection was in some way connected with the promise to the fathers. There was a promise of the Messiah (Gen. 3:15; Deut. 18:15-18, etc.); a promise of the land (Gen. 22:18; 26:4; 49:10); and a promise that the throne of David should be established forever (1 Sam. 7:12, 13, 16; Ps. 89:4, 29, 36, 37, etc.) Christ was the prophet or Messiah that had been promised (Acts 2:36); he was the Seed to which the land had been promised (Gal. 3:16); and he was the Son of David, which was to be heir to the throne (Acts 2:29-36).

THEN every feature of the promise or promises of God unto the fathers, unto which the twelve tribes hoped to come, was centered in Christ. And Christ had been put to death. This shows us the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection. As Abraham's faith, when called to offer up Isaac, through whom the promise was to be fulfilled, lay in God's ability to raise him from the dead (Heb. 11:17-19), so the apostle had faith in the resurrection of the antitype of Isaac, who had actually carried the promise to the tomb. The entire gospel fabric hung upon the resurrection of Christ. The Jews well knew that if they could cover up this fact, Christianity would be a failure; hence the apostle could well claim that, whatever pre

tended charges they might set up, their real animosity was against the resurrection. His hope was of a resurrection with Christ to heirship of the promises, and his faith was the substance of this hope (Heb. 11:1). The importance of the resurrection doctrine to the Christian is set forth at length by the same apostle in 1 Cor. 15, the point being that "if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." If this doctrine be true, it is little wonder that Paul made the resurrection his leading theme, and that Satan, through his Jewish instruments, made it the point of attack. And if, as is popularly believed, his soul could go to Heaven at death, there would be little reason in his argument in verse 32: "If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die." Dr. Barnes, commenting on Acts 26:6, admits that in Paul's view, the promise of the Messiah and the hope of the resurrection were closely united. "He hoped that the Messiah would come, and he hoped therefore for the resurrection of the dead. He believed that he had come, and had risen, and therefore he believed that the dead would rise. He argued the one from the other."