Acts 23:1 ¶ And Paul,
earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in
all good conscience before God until this day. 2 And the high priest Ananias commanded them
that stood by him to smite him on the mouth. 3
Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall:
for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten
contrary to the law? 4 And they that
stood by said, Revilest thou God’s high priest? 5 Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he
was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler
of thy people.
In Paul’s
frustration he does something that in verse 5 he acknowledges that he shouldn’t
even though the high priest is undeserving of respect.
Exodus 22:28 Thou shalt not
revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.
Acts 23:6 ¶ But when Paul
perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried
out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a
Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.
7 And when he had so said, there arose a
dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was
divided. 8 For the Sadducees say that
there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess
both. 9 And there arose a great cry: and
the scribes that were of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying,
We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him,
let us not fight against God. 10 And
when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul
should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down,
and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the
castle. 11 And the night following the
Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified
of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Josephus, the Jewish general turncoat who worked for the Romans
and wrote histories of the Jews claimed that the Sadducees believed that the
soul could die, that there was no afterlife, that there were no rewards or
penalties after death, and that only the written law was valid. They were
composed of the upper class and educated elite who oversaw the temple
operations and shared with the Roman upper class a denial of the reality of the
supernatural. They did, apparently, believe in God but were more political and
worldly than the more conservative Pharisees, and they were composed of a
ruling class that expected God’s benefits and prosperity now, in this life, and
denied even His intervention in history, sources say. They would have been
terrified of anything that threatened their position under Roman authority.
The Pharisees followed the Law given to Moses, believed in
tradition, and angels, a resurrection of the just, and also in a Messiah-to-come.
They were dogmatic in their tradition and oral law which covered most every
subject.
Paul understood how to drive a wedge between his accusers. The
Roman officer has to save Paul, however, from what is becoming an
out-of-control assembly.
God speaks to Paul to assure him that Paul will indeed go to Rome,
which Paul will make sure happens later by demanding his Roman right to appeal,
to be heard by Caesar. As we know that the physical image, the body of God, if
you will, is Jesus Christ it is Him who stands by Paul in the night.
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