Paul’s Defense
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 3 March 2024
This is the story of Felix. It starts out as the trial of Paul before Felix, and it ends up as the trial of Felix before Paul. In Acts we have an illustration of the tragedy of postponing a decision about Christ. In Acts 24:24, we read, “Several days later, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and listened to him on the subject of faith in Christ Jesus.”
Verse 25, “Now as he spoke about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix became afraid and replied, “Leave for now, but when I have an opportunity I’ll call for you.” A man who postpones isn’t fit, but there are a lot of people who do that. They say, “Someday I’m going to give my life to Christ. Someday I’m going to receive Christ as my Savior.” They’re gambling with their lives.
Careless people postpone for two reasons. One is their constant rejection may harden their hearts. You see, the more you resist Christ the harder you become and the easier it is to resist. God says “don’t be like Israel,” who kept hardening in the wilderness until they finally never were allowed to enter. They all died in the wilderness. Why? Because they forfeited the rest of the Promised Land.
Secondly, God stops calling after a certain point. In the pre-Noah time, God said, “My Spirit will not always strive with man.” Now, we meet such a man in Acts 24, his name is Felix. Felix was a procurator of Judea from AD 52 to 59. It fell his lot to deal with Paul the apostle, even as it had fallen the lot of a previous procurator by the name of Pilate to deal with Jesus Christ.
In this passage we find Paul and Felix confronting each other in a hearing, a form of a trial. The Jewish leaders desired to kill Paul. Paul represented to them a serious threat, the same threat that Jesus represented, he was getting a great following. And, the Jewish leaders feared that they would lose their authority, that they would lose their prestige and position in the eyes of the people.
Three times in Jerusalem they had tried to kill him in a riotous situation. Once they had tried to kill him with a plotted ambush. And after those three attempts, the Romans have finally decided that they’ve got to get Paul out of town to save his life, because Paul was a Roman citizen, and they had to protect him. Secondly, he had committed no crime. So, the Romans hustled him down to Caesarea.
They put him in the praetorium, the palace of the governor; the seat of the Roman government being in Caesarea. The accusers of the Jews are sent to Caesarea to bring the case before Felix in order to get a more fair trial than ever would be possible in the city of Jerusalem. So the plot to kill Paul moves to Caesarea, and these accusers are attempting to get Paul executed for his crimes.
Now in Acts 24, the trial takes place. It’s got three parts: the prosecution, the defense, and the verdict or the judgment. We saw last time the prosecution. Paul has been in Caesarea five days waiting for his accusers to arrive. Verse 1, “Five days later Ananias the high priest came down with some elders and a lawyer named Tertullus. These men presented their case against Paul to the governor.”
Now he begins his accusation by flattery to Felix, “We enjoy great peace because of you, and reforms are taking place for the benefit of this nation because of your foresight. 3 We acknowledge this in every way and everywhere, most excellent Felix, with utmost gratitude. 4 But, so that I will not burden you any further, I request that you would be kind enough to give us a brief hearing.”
Here are the three accusations. One, sedition, “A terrible threat to the security of Rome because he leads the Jews in insurrection. The second thing; sectarianism, they accuse him of being a heretic. “He is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” Now, the Nazarenes really was the name of Christians. It was demeaning. When they said “Jesus of Nazareth” that was a slur.
Many of the Messianic offshoots of Judaism definitely were problems to Rome; they were militant. So they accused him of sectarianism. Thirdly, they accused him of sacrilege, verse 6-8, “He even tried to desecrate the temple, and so we apprehended him. 8 By examining him yourself you will be able to discern the truth about these charges we are bringing against him.”
They accused Paul of bringing a Gentile into the place. He hadn’t done it, it was a lie like the rest of it. Then they said, “Whom we took and would have judged according to our law,” but of course that was a lie; they wanted to kill him in a riot. And, “Then the chief captain, Lysias, came and with great violence, took him away out of our hands.” He took him away because they were trying to kill him.
Then they brought their witnesses in verse 9, put them on the stand, and they all said, “That’s right, he did that.” So they had a prosecution from their lawyer and then witnesses to agree to it. Incidentally, it’s all lies. Paul could stand up there and say, “Friends, I am blameless.” That’s what God wants. He wants Christians to be called before the tribunal of the world and be a witness.
Now let’s look at the defense and watch how Paul defends himself. And he does it calmly, and categorically. Verse 10, “When the governor motioned for him to speak, Paul replied, “Because I know you have been a judge of this nation for many years, I am glad to offer my defense in what concerns me.” Paul didn’t have a lawyer or a character who knew his way in and out of Roman law.
When Jesus was leaving the earth and He told His disciples in John, “I’m going to go away, but I will send to you another Comforter.” The word “comforter” is from paraklētos. It means: one called alongside, somebody who is called alongside to assist. It could mean “a lawyer for the defense.” He didn’t have a human lawyer, but he had the divine lawyer for the defense.
Every word that he said to Felix was the word of the Holy Spirit. It’s all inspired right here in the Bible. It was Paul talking, but it was the Holy Spirit moving through him. So the defense for Paul that day was Paul’s and the Spirit as well. So he says, “Because I know you have been a judge of this nation for many years, I am glad to offer my defense in what concerns me.”
There is no flattery there at all. Felix had been governor in that area for five years. Prior to that, he was under Cumanus for four years. So for at least nine years he was acquainted with Jewish affairs. In any judgment in regard to Jewish affairs, you would have to know Jewish custom. Paul is in effect saying, “Felix, I know that you have been around long enough to know this is a theological problem.”
Flattery is absolutely unacceptable to the Christian. Because Proverbs 26:28 says, “A flattering mouth works ruin,” and Psalm 12:3 says, “The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips.” Flattery is a calculated misrepresentation to gain something for yourself; it is mass self-indulgence and selfish. It is sin. People say, “Oh, if you want to get anything in life, you must flatter. No.
So Paul replies, first to the charge of sedition in verses 11-13, “You can verify for yourself that it is no more than twelve days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem. 12 They didn’t find me arguing with anyone or causing a disturbance among the crowd, either in the temple or in the synagogues or anywhere in the city. 13 Neither can they prove the charges they are now making against me.”
So Paul spent seven days in there carrying out a vow, and five days in Caesarea; but still they’re accusing him of starting a riot. Verse 11, “You can verify for yourself that it is no more than twelve days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem.” Not to desecrate, not to profane the temple; just to worship.” And he was carrying out the worship act of the Nazarite vow, which signified consecration to the Jew.
Verse 12, “They didn’t find me arguing with anyone or causing a disturbance among the crowd, either in the temple or in the synagogues or anywhere in the city.” I haven’t done anything! There is nothing with which they can accuse me.” Now, what is it that he denies? He says, “I have not been in the temple disputing.” This is the word for reasoning or arguing. He did this everywhere except Jerusalem.
Verse 13, “Neither can they prove the charges they are now making against me.” If you don’t have any proof, you don’t have any case. So he denies the charges and makes clear the fact that they can’t prove them. That takes care of sedition. He has done nothing treasonous. The second thing they accused him of was sectarianism. He says, “I am not a heretic,” while at the same he says “I am a Christian.”
Verses 14 – 16, “But I admit this to you: I worship the God of my ancestors according to the Way, which they call a sect, believing everything that is in accordance with the law and written in the prophets. 15 I have a hope in God, which these men themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection, both of the righteous and the unrighteous. 16 I always strive to have a clear conscience toward God and men.”
“According to the Way”, is according to Christianity. Unsaved people used to slur the Christians by calling them “Nazarenes” or slur them by calling them “Christians,” but the Christians called themselves “The Way,” members of The Way. We say, “Where did they get that name?” There is no other way. Jesus said, “I am the way.” Peter said, “There is no other name under Heaven whereby we can be saved.”
You can see the High Priest saying, “Here we go again on the resurrection,” because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection, right? So you know what Paul says? “I would just like to say that it is true that I am a believer in the Way and consequently, I truly worship my God; I believe all of His revelation, including the part about resurrection.” Who are the real heretics?
The high priests who have ceased worshiping God because there is only one way to God; Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father but by Me,” who have ceased believing all the Law and the Prophets because if you believed all the law and the prophets, you are going to have to believe in Christ because all the Law and the prophets talked about was Christ. It’s a pretty strong argument.
They had charged Paul with being a religious heretic; they had charged him with belonging to a subversive, extreme offshoot of Judaism. Paul denies it, while at the same time he affirms that he is a Christian. And he says Christianity is true Judaism; Judaism without Christianity is as pagan as the worship of a totem pole. They’re heretics because you can’t worship God except through His Messiah.
They don’t even believe in the hope of Israel, which is the resurrection. He doesn’t bother to explain it because Felix knows. Felix knows Christianity, and he knows the dialogue between Christians and Jews. Verse 22 says, “Since Felix was well informed about the Way, he adjourned the hearing, saying, “When Lysias the commander comes down, I will decide your case.”
In fact, the city of Caesarea was loaded with Christians, and one of the most vocal of them was Philip the Evangelist who lived there. And so Paul says, “I’m a Christian and I’m the only true worshiper of God standing here. These are the heretics.” He says, “So I worship the God of my ancestors.” That was the historic title for the God of Israel. God is called, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Romans 2:28-29 says, “For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. 29 On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not the letter. That person’s praise is not from people but from God.” The only true Jews in the world are the Christian ones. In Romans 9:6 Paul says, “Not all who descended from Israel are Israel.”
Do you want to know what Paul’s view of Old Testament inspiration was? Yes, he believed every bit of it. You know what he’s implying? That they don’t, and he was right. If you believed the Old Testament law and the prophets, you’d have to believe in Christ. You know what has happened today with most Jews? They’ve rejected Christ. They have to also reject the Old Testament.
If you reject Christ as your Messiah, you’ll have to give up the whole idea of a Messiah because there is nothing else that fits it. And there’s a few scattered Orthodox Jews just standing there, bobbing up and down saying their prayers, cranking out the letter of the law, never getting behind it to even worry about what it means. In their blindness, they adhere to the Old Testament, but very few.
Did the Old Testament teach a resurrection?” Of course it did! Isaiah 26:19, Job 19:26, Daniel 12:2, and elsewhere the Old Testament taught a resurrection. But the Jews said, “The only binding truth in the Old Testament is what Moses said out of the first five books.” That’s why, Jesus quoted Exodus 3, because He knew that was the only thing that they would adhere to. Let’s bow in prayer.