The purposed hearing of the apostle wholly differed from that before Felix and Drusilla. This was private; and the apostle availed himself of it in divine love and holy courage to strip the guilty pair of their vain show, and to let them see themselves as God regarded them, as He will judge by-and-by through our Lord Jesus. Were men not insensate by the wily power of Satan, they would feel how gracious it is of God to send one faithful and able, willing and loving, to tell them the unerring truth, that, believing, they might be saved. But if they hug their sins, it cannot be. True repentance is the inseparable companion of true faith. From both the enemy finds plausible excuses to hold souls back. Conscience may tremble; but there is no repentance till self is judged before God, and faith alone produces this.
Here it was even more public than the indictment before Felix or Festus. And the appeal to the emperor, though it relieved Festus in the main, embarrassed him in that he had no tangible rational explanation of the case to lay before Nero. Hence when Agrippa expressed the desire in person to hear the accused, Festus gladly caught at it, and fixed the next day for the purpose. Agrippa’s known familiarity with Jewish affairs was too good to be lost, besides gratifying the wish of so exalted a guest.
“Therefore on the morrow when Agrippa came, and Bernice, with great pomp, and they entered into the audience-chamber with the commanders and the distinguished men of the city, at the command of Festus Paul was brought. And saith Festus, King Agrippa, and all men that are here present with us, ye behold this man about whom all the multitude of the Jews applied to me both in Jerusalem and here, crying out that he ought not to live any longer. But as I found that he had done nothing worthy of death, and as he himself appealed to Augustus, I decided to send him, about whom I have nothing certain to write to my lord. Wherefore I brought him forth before you, and especially before thee, king Agrippa, so that, after examination had, I may have what I shall write. For it seemeth to me unreasonable in sending a prisoner not also to signify the charges against him” (Acts 25:23-27).
Our evangelist as usual presents the scene most graphically; for which reason probably tradition gave out in error that he was a painter, whereas Scripture is positive that he was a physician: a fact abundantly confirmed by evidence in both his Gospel and the Acts. The king and the queen are before us with great pomp; military chiefs add to the show, as well as the most distinguished civilians; the governor gives the word of command, and the prisoner is brought into the hall of audience. Festus opens the proceedings. It is hardly to be allowed that the courteous Roman meant to insinuate a slur on Bernice when he said, “King Agrippa, and all men that are here present with us.” Undoubtedly the word is not the general ἄνθρωποι but the precise ἄνδρες, expressive of men as distinguished from women (γυναῖκες). The truth is however that ἄνδρες is used regularly in addresses as more respectful, though women may be present (cf. Acts 1:16; 2:14; 3:12; 13:16; 15:1; 17:12); and in this sense only is it here employed. Out of courtesy the distinction is ignored for the time. That the queen’s presence was implied to be improper is not the thought.
Festus addresses himself directly to the point. “Ye behold this (person) about whom all the multitude of the Jews applied to me, both in Jerusalem and here, crying that he ought not to live any longer.” There was no doubt of the general and vehement antipathy of the Jews to the noblest man of their stock and the most honored servant of the Lord. Their cry in the holy city and elsewhere was that he ought not to live longer. He, the governor, found that Paul had committed nothing which deserved death, but does not explain why he himself had occasioned the appeal to the emperor by the proposal that the prisoner should go to Jerusalem for judgment. Paul knew too that worldly religion is of all things least just and most cruel, and, declining such a change from Cæsar’s tribunal, appealed to Augustus. To this Festus agreed, as we know, and he repeats, “I decided to send him.”
But thereon arose a difficulty. What was he to write with the appellant? “About whom I have nothing certain to write to my lord.” This was his main motive for the hearing before Agrippa, versed as he was in Jewish customs and learning and prejudice. “Wherefore I brought him forth before you, and especially before thee, king Agrippa, so that, after examination had, I may know what I shall write.” The governor naturally considered it senseless, as he adds, to forward a prisoner without signifying the accusation laid to his charge. We shall find however that the issue was a true and fresh testimony to Christ far more than a solution of the governor’s perplexity.