Acts 21. With a fair wind, Paul and his companions sailed out from Miletus, while the sorrowing elders of Ephesus prepared for their journey homewards. With a straight course, they sailed to Coos, Rhodes, and thence to Patara and Tire. From what took place there—so similar to the scene at Miletus—it is evident that Paul soon found his way to the hearts of the disciples. Though he had been only one week at Tire, and previously unacquainted with the Christians there, he had gained their affections. “And they all brought us on our way,” says Luke, “with wives and children, till we were out of the city; and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed.” It seems too, as if a spirit of prophecy had been poured out on these affectionate Tyreans, for they warned the apostle against going up to Jerusalem. After waiting there seven days, they came to Ptolemais, where they abode one day. At Caesarea, they lodged in the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven. He is already well known to us, but it is not a little interesting to meet him again, after an interval of more than twenty years. Now he has four daughters, virgins, which prophesy. Here, Agabus the prophet predicted Paul’s imprisonment, and said, that “he should not go up to Jerusalem.” All the disciples said the same thing and entreated him with tears not to go. But however much Paul’s tender and sensitive heart must have been moved by the tears and the entreaties of his friends and of his own children in the faith, he suffered nothing to alter his resolution, or move him from his purpose. He felt bound in spirit to go, and ready to leave all consequences with the will of the Lord. We now come to Paul’s fifth visit to Jerusalem, A.D. 58.
The apostle and his companions were gladly welcomed on their arrival at Jerusalem. “When we were come to Jerusalem,” Luke observes, “the brethren received us gladly.” The day following, Paul and his company visited James, at whose house the elders were present. Paul, as chief speaker, declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. But though they were greatly interested, and praised the Lord for the good news, they evidently felt uneasy. They at once called Paul’s attention to the fact, that a great number of Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah, were zealous observers of the law of Moses, and were strongly prejudiced against himself.
How to satisfy the prejudices of these Jewish Christians was now the important question between Paul and the elders. Multitudes of Jews, both converted and unconverted, they knew would come together when they heard of Paul’s arrival. They had long believed the most serious and weighty charges against him—“that he taught all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.” What was now to be done? The elders proposed that Paul should publicly show himself obedient to the law. This was the painful and perplexing position of the apostle of the Gentiles. What can he now do? Will the messenger of the gospel of the glory—the minister of the heavenly calling—stoop to the rules of Nazarite vows? This is the solemn and serious question. If he refuses compliance with their wish, the lurking suspicion of the Jews will be confirmed; if he acts according to their desires, he must humble himself—forget for the moment his high calling, yield to the ignorance, prejudice, and pride of the Judaisers. But what else can he do?
He is in the very center of a bigoted Judaism; and if mistaken, he honestly desires to win over the Church at Jerusalem to a purer and loftier Christianity.
Many have been very free in their criticisms on the apostle’s course at this time. But though it is our privilege, humbly to examine all that the sacred historian has written, some, we fear, have ventured too far in saying hard things of the apostle. We may reverently inquire, how far the will and the affections of Paul influenced him on this occasion, apart from the warnings of the Spirit through his brethren; but surely it becomes us to keep within the limits of what the Holy Spirit Himself has said. Let us now carefully view the outward facts which led the apostle to this eventful epoch in his life.
Rome had been long on his mind. He had a great desire to preach the gospel there. This was right —this was according to God—this was not of self—he was the apostle of the Gentiles. God had been working there most blessedly without an apostle, for as yet no apostle had visited Borne. Paul had been privileged to write an epistle to the Romans, and in that letter he expresses the most earnest desire to see them, and to labor among them. “For I long to see you,” he says, “that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established.” This was his state of mind and the object which he had before him; and which we must keep in view when studying this part of his history. Comp. Rom. 1:7-15; 15:15-33.
We have now come to the important question, and to the point on which Paul’s future history turns. Will he go straight west to Rome, or will he go round by way of Jerusalem? All depends on this. Jerusalem was also on his heart. But if Christ had sent him far hence to the Gentiles, could the Spirit, on Christ’s part, lead him to Jerusalem? It was just here, we believe, that the great apostle was permitted to follow the desires of his own heart; which desires were right and beautiful in themselves, but not according to the mind of God at the time. He loved his nation dearly, and especially the poor saints at Jerusalem; and having been greatly misrepresented there, he wished to prove his love for the poor of his people by bringing to them in person the offerings of the Gentiles. “When therefore,” he says, “I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will come by you into Spain.” Surely, some will say, this was loving and praiseworthy! Yes, but on one side only, and that side, alas, was the side of the flesh, not of the Spirit. “And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days; who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem.” This seems plain enough; but Paul inclined for the moment to the side of his affections for “the poor of the flock” in Jerusalem. Could there have been, we ask, a more amiable mistake? Impossible! It was his love to the poor, and the pleasure of carrying to them the offerings of the Gentiles, that led him to go round by Jerusalem on his way to Rome. Nevertheless, it was a mistake, and a mistake that cost Paul his liberty. His free labors end here. He allowed the flesh its liberty, and God allowed the Gentiles to bind it with a chain. This was the Master’s expression of truest love to His servant. Paul was too precious in His sight to be allowed to pass without His righteous dealings at such a time; and he was also made to prove, that neither Jerusalem nor Rome could be the metropolis of Christianity. Christ the Head of the Church was in heaven, and there only could the metropolis of Christianity be. Jerusalem persecuted the apostle; Rome imprisoned and martyred him. Nevertheless, the Lord was with His servant for his own good, the advancement of the truth, the blessing of the Church, and the glory of His own great name.
Here may we be permitted to offer one reflection? On how many histories, since Paul’s fifth visit to Jerusalem, has this solemn scene been engraved? How many saints have been bound with chains of different kinds, but who can say for what, or why? All of us would have said—unless enlightened by the Spirit—that the apostle could not have been actuated by a more worthy motive in going round by Jerusalem on his way to Rome. But the Lord had not told him to do so. All hinges on this. How needful then to see, at every stage of our journey, that we have the word of God for our faith, the service of Christ for our motive, and the Holy Spirit for our guide. We will now return to the history of events.
We left Paul sitting with the elders in the house of James. They had suggested to him a mode of conciliating the Jewish believers, and of refuting the accusations of his enemies. Disloyalty to his nation and to the religion of his fathers were the chief charges brought against him. But under the surface of outward events, and especially having the light of the epistles shed upon them, we discover the root of the whole matter, in the enmity of the human heart against the grace of God. In order to understand this, we must notice that Paul’s ministry was twofold. 1. His mission was to preach the gospel “to every creature which is under heaven”—it not only went far beyond the limits of Judaism, but it was in perfect contrast with the system. 2. He was also the minister of the Church of God, and preached its exalted position, and its blessed privileges, as united with Christ, the glorified Man in heaven. These blessed truths, it will be seen, lift the soul of the believer far above the religion of the flesh, be it ever so painstaking—ever so abounding in rites and ceremonies. Vows, fasts, feasts, offerings, purifications, traditions, and philosophy, are all shut out as nothing worth before God, and opposed to the very nature of Christianity. This exasperated the religious Jew with his traditions, and the uncircumcised Greek with his philosophy; and the two united to persecute the true witness-bearer of this two-fold testimony. And so it has been ever since. The religious man with his ordinances, and the merely natural man with his philosophy, by a natural process, readily unite in opposing the witness of a heavenly Christianity. See Col. 1:2.
If Paul had preached circumcision, the offense of the cross would have ceased; for this would have given them a place, and the opportunity of being something, and doing something, and even taking part with God in His religion. This was Judaism, and this gave the Jew his pre-eminence. But the gospel of the grace of God addresses man as already lost—as “dead in trespasses and sins”—and has no more respect to the Jew than to the Gentile. Like the sun in the firmament, it shines for ah. No nation, kindred, tongue, or people, are excluded from its heavenly rays. Preach the gospel “to every creature winch is under heaven,” is the divine commission and the wide sphere of the evangelist; to teach those who believe this gospel, their completeness in Christ is the privilege and duty of every minister of the New Testament.
Having thus cleared the ground as to the motives, objects, and position of the great apostle, we will now briefly trace the remainder of his eventful life. The time has come when he is to be brought before kings and rulers, and even before Caesar himself, for the name of the Lord Jesus.
PAUL IN THE TEMPLE.
In accordance with the proposal of James and the elders, Paul now proceeds to the temple with “the four men which had a vow.” Thus we read, “Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself with them, entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.” On the completion of the Nazarite’s vow, the law required that certain offerings should be presented in the temple. These offerings involved considerable expense, as we may see from Numb. 6, and it was considered an act of great merit and piety for a rich brother to provide these offerings for a poor brother, and thereby enable him to complete his vow. Paul was not rich, but he had a large and tender heart, and he generously undertook to pay the charges of the four poor Nazarites. Such readiness on Paul’s part to please some and help others, ought to have pacified and conciliated the Jews, and probably it would had there only been present such as were associated with James, but it had the opposite effect with the inveterate zealots; they were only more incensed against him. The celebration of the feast had attracted multitudes to the holy city, so that the temple was thronged with worshippers from every land.
Among these foreign Jews were some from Asia, probably some of Paul’s old antagonists from Ephesus, who were glad of an opportunity to be revenged on him who had formerly defeated them. Towards the end of the seven days wherein the sacrifices were to be offered, these Asiatic Jews saw Paul in the temple, and immediately fell upon him, “crying out, Men of Israel, help! This is the man, that teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut.” The whole city being now in an uproar, the crowd rushed furiously to the point of attack; the multitude were excited to madness, and but for their sacred care not to shed blood in the holy place, Paul would have been instantly torn to pieces. Their object now was to hurry him out of the temple, have the doors shut, and dispatch him outside the sacred enclosure. But before their murderous plans were executed, help from the Lord arrived, and they were unexpectedly interrupted.
The sentries at the gates no doubt communicated at once to the Roman garrison, situated over against the temple, that there was a tumult in the court. The chief captain, Claudius Lysias, immediately ran to the spot in person, taking soldiers and centurions with him. When the Jews saw the chief captain and the Roman soldiers approaching they left off beating Paul. The governor, perceiving that he was the occasion of all this excitement, promptly secured him, and bound him with two chains, or chained him by each hand to a soldier. See Acts 12:6.
This being done, Lysias proceeded to make inquiry as to the real cause of the disturbance, but, as no certain information could be obtained from the ignorant and excited crowd, he ordered Paul to be carried into the castle. The disappointed mob now made a tremendous rush after their victim. They saw him taken out of their hands, and so violently did they press upon the soldiers, that Paul was borne in then arms up the stairs of the castle, meanwhile, deafening shouts arose from the enraged multitude below, as they had done nearly thirty years before; “Away with him, away with him.”
At this moment of overwhelming interest, the apostle preserved great presence of mind, and perfectly controlled the agitation of his feelings. He acts prudently, without any compromise of truth. Just as they had reached the entrance to the castle, Paul most courteously addressed himself to the chief captain, and said. “May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.” Marvelous to say, this request was granted. Paul had already gained the respect of the Roman governor, if not great influence over his mind. But the hand of the Lord was in it; He was watching over His servant. Paul had thrown himself into the hands of his enemies, by seeking to please the believing Jews; but God was with him, and knew how to deliver him out of their power, and use him for the glory of His own great name. Acts 21:26-40.
Paul’s speech on the stairs of the castle.
To the chief captain he had spoken in Greek; to the Jews he speaks in Hebrew. These little attentions and considerations are the beautiful blendings of love and wisdom, and ought to serve as a lesson for us. He was always ready to win, by “becoming all things to all men, that he might gain the more.” We see the marvelous effects of his influence over the infuriated mob, as well as over the commanding officer. The moment he spoke to them, the whole scene was changed. He calmed the tumultuous sea of human passion by the sound of their sacred language. It fell like oil on the troubled waters; and there was immediately “a great silence.” We have his noble defense, addressed to his brethren and fathers, given at length in Acts 22:1-21.
It will be observed in reading the address, that his countrymen listened with great attention, while he spoke to them of his early life, his persecution of the Church, his mission to Damascus, his miraculous conversion, his vision in the temple, and his interview with Ananias; but the moment he mentioned his mission to the Gentiles, an outburst of unbounded indignation arose from the crowded area below, and silenced the speaker. They could not endure the thought of God’s grace to the Gentiles. That hated name stung them to fury. Their national pride rebelled against the thought of uncircumcised heathens being made equal to the children of Abraham. They cried down, with scornful contempt, every argument, human or divine, that could have influenced their minds. In vain did the apostle lay great stress on what had taken place between himself and the devout Ananias. Every appeal was in vain, so long as the Gentiles were to be thus owned. A scene of the wildest confusion now followed. They cast off their outer garments, they threw dust into the air, and “lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live.”
The chief captain, seeing the frantic violence of the people, and not understanding what it meant, was thrown into new perplexity. He saw the results of a speech in the Hebrew tongue—which he probably did not understand—and, naturally concluding that his prisoner must be guilty of some enormous crime, he ordered him to be bound and scourged to make him confess his guilt. But this proceeding was instantly arrested by Paul making known the fact that he was a Roman citizen.
The soldiers who were engaged in binding Mm withdrew in alarm, and warned the governor as to what he was doing. Lysias came at once, “and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.” Lysias was now in a difficulty; he had violated a Roman law. To expose a citizen to such indignity was treason against the majesty of the Roman people. But the only way of saving Paul’s life was by keeping him in custody; and he happily thought of another and a milder way of ascertaining the nature of his prisoner’s offense.