In the previous chapter, we read how Paul explained to the captain that he was a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia. He went on to ask the captain for permission to speak to the very multitude that only moments before had sought to kill him, and when permission was granted.
Paul gestured with his hand to gain the attention of the audience, and a hush fell over the crowd. Paul began to speak to them in Aramaic, and so, this chapter is a continuation of these events. Remember that most of Paul’s audience was primarily Jewish; that’s why he addresses them as ‘brethren and fathers’, Acts 22:1 / Acts 7:2.
Also remember, Paul’s accusers had said he taught against the Jews, taught against the Law of Moses and the temple and brought Greeks into the temple, defiling the holy place, Acts 21:28. When Paul starts to speak in Aramaic, everyone becomes silent, Acts 22:2. Note that the footnote says he spoke in Hebrew.
Bruce, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Aramaic was not only the vernacular of Palestinian Jews, but was the common speech of all non-Greek speakers in western Asia, as far east as (and including) the Parthian empire beyond the Euphrates.’
Remember, Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would tell them what to say in moments like these, Matthew 10:16-20 / Mark 13:9-11. Paul’s response to their first accusation was that Paul himself was a Jew.
He was born in Tarsus, but he was reared in the city of Jerusalem as a pupil of the highly respected Jewish teacher, Gamaliel, Acts 5:34. He had been taught the law, which was handed down from the Jewish fathers, in a most precise way, Acts 22:3 / Philippians 3:5.
In fact, he had become a zealot for God, just as had his accusers, Acts 22:3. His zeal had reached the point where he persecuted those following Christ’s Way by binding, imprisoning and ultimately assisting in their deaths, Acts 22:4 / Acts 9:1-2.
What Paul does next is what any good lawyer would do in a courtroom situation, and that is call in the witnesses. As witnesses to his zeal, Paul mentioned the high priest and the council of the elders, Acts 22:5.
He tells the angry mob that he had personally received letters from the high priest and elders to give him authority to go to Damascus to bring Christians, those who are of the Way, from that city in chains to Jerusalem to be punished, Acts 22:5 / Acts 9:2.
It’s much easier to talk to people when we have been in their shoes. Paul understood these people because he was just as zealous about their beliefs as they were. He had walked in their shoes and fully understood where they were coming from.
Because Paul sees himself as a sinner in need of salvation, and because he could relate to his Jewish audience because he’s been where they are, Romans 3:23. It’s no wonder that he goes on to share his testimony about his encounter with the risen Lord Jesus.
Paul began to share with them about the unique bright light and conversation with the voice from heaven that he had while on the Damascus road. Remember, Luke had already reported this to Theophilus in Acts 9, but here Paul adds the fact that the bright light was seen at noon when it outshone the sun at its brightest, Acts 22:6.
In many ways, not only was Paul blinded by the light, but we were also all blinded by that same light, 2 Corinthians 4:4. We all need to be able to talk about our road to Damascus to unbelievers because we’ve all been there.
When we were merrily walking along life’s road, when all of a sudden we ‘heard’ someone speak about God, Romans 10:17. And then we were blinded by the bold truth that we are sinners and in need of rescuing from our sins. Blinded by the truth that we can’t make it to heaven on our own, we need Jesus to help us.
Blinded by the truth that our lives were in a mess, and no one could help except God Himself. Blinded by the bold truth that no one would forgive us for the things we had done in the past except God Himself.
Paul fell to the ground, and the voice asked why he was persecuting Him, Acts 22:7. And to accurately answer the question, Saul as he was known at that time, had to know who was speaking and Jesus then clearly identified himself to him, Acts 22:8. Remember that the only sense in which Saul, or Paul, persecuted Jesus was in that he persecuted the church or Jesus’ body, Acts 22:8 / Acts 9:4.
Paul continues and tells them that his travelling companions were afraid and did not hear the voice of our Lord in the sense that they did not understand it nor obey it, Acts 22:9.
McGarvey, in his commentary, says the following.
‘It is common among all classes of men to say (of a speaker) I did not hear, not meaning they could not hear the sound of the speaker’s voice, but that they could not hear what he said.’
But Saul fully understood and asked what the Lord would have him do. And so Jesus tells him to go into the city to be told what was planned for him, both in reference to his own salvation and that of many others, Acts 22:10 / Acts 22:8 / Acts 9:6. And so off they went, with Paul’s companions leading him to Damascus because he was blind, Acts 22:11 / Acts 9:9.
Constable, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Paul next related the events of his conversion and stressed the supernatural revelation God had given him. This revelation accounted for the radical change in his life. This account of Paul’s conversion harmonises with the other two accounts of it that Luke, Acts 9:3-19, and Paul, Acts 26:12-18, gave us in Acts.’
In Damascus, a devout, God-fearing man named Ananias came to Paul, restored his sight and told him that God had appointed him to know His will, see the Righteous One and hear His voice, Acts 22:12-14 / Acts 22:8.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Paul here recounted the twin miracles of his own supernatural blinding and of the restoration of his eyesight by Ananias, another remarkable sign. In this manner, Paul was further ‘qualifying the witness,’ looking to the testimony of Ananias he was about to quote.’
He further said God planned for him to be a witness to all men, Luke 2:30-32 / Luke 3:6, and told Paul to be baptised in order to have his sins washed away, Acts 22:15-16 / Acts 9:18 / 1 Corinthians 6:11 / Titus 3:5 / Ephesians 5:26 / 1 Peter 3:21.
What does ‘calling upon His Name mean? Acts 22:16. In Christianity today, the phrase, ‘calling upon the Name of the Lord,’ has become used by many as a phrase by which a person can be saved without doing anything else.
As a result, after admitting they are sinners, many people now believe they are saved simply because they called on Jesus to save them. Let’s go ahead and see if we can understand what this phrase actually means.
The first time the phrase is used in the Old Testament is by the prophet Joel, speaking of what people will do in the future in order to be saved, Joel 2:32. And the first time it’s used in the New Testament is by Peter as he quotes Joel’s words in the very first Gospel sermon ever preached in Acts 2:16-21, which tells us that Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled during this time.
When we carefully read Acts 2, after informing those present that ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’, we see the response of those present, they asked, ‘What shall we do?’ Acts 2:37, they were asking, what must they do to be saved?
In what way do we call upon the Lord? If calling on the Name of the Lord simply meant confessing your sinfulness and inviting Jesus into your heart, then surely, Peter would have told them to do just that, but he didn’t.
Notice what those present on that day did, even before they asked the question, ‘What must we do?’ They heard the Gospel, Acts 2:14 / Acts 2:41, and they believed the Gospel, Acts 2:37, and they repented of their sins, Acts 2:38 / Acts 2:41. So what we see here are faith, repentance and baptism. This was how they called upon the Name of the Lord.
The apostle Paul had been taught the Gospel and demonstrated faith and repentance, Acts 22:6-10. Again, if calling upon the Name of the Lord simply meant confessing your sinfulness and inviting Jesus into your heart, then surely, Ananias would have told Him to do just that, but he didn’t.
Again, what we see in Acts 22:16 is faith, repentance and baptism, Acts 9:18. This was how Paul called upon the Name of the Lord. A little later, Paul goes on to write about how God saves people from their sins when he writes to the Romans. Notice also that he quotes from Joel 2:32, just as Peter did.
It’s such a shame that many people just read Romans 10:13 without reading it in its context. A careful reading of the text shows us that calling on the Name of the Lord involves hearing and believing the Gospel, Romans 10:14.
It involved a change of heart, which is repentance, and it involved publicly confessing faith in Jesus as the Christ, Romans 10:9-10; it involved obeying the commands of the Gospel, Romans 10:16 / Romans 10:19-21.
If calling on the Name of the Lord simply meant confessing your sinfulness and inviting Jesus into your heart, then surely, Paul would have told them to do just that, but he didn’t.
After saying, ‘everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved,’ he goes on to ask a series of questions that tell us what this phrase means, Romans 10:13-17.
In other words, to call upon the name of the Lord means we must hear the Gospel, believe the Gospel and obey the Gospel. When someone calls upon the name of the Lord, they are simply obeying God’s plan of salvation to hear God’s word, believe that Jesus is the Son of God, repent and be baptised.
As I mentioned earlier, there are thousands of people in the religious world today who believe they are saved because they’ve called upon the name of the Lord. Sadly, saying the name ‘Lord’ won’t save anyone, Matthew 7:21-23, it won’t save anyone unless it’s accompanied by obedience to the Gospel, Matthew 29:19-20 / Mark 16:16 / Luke 6:46.
Notice that Paul fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking to me, Acts 22:17. This trance happened when he was taken up to the third heaven, which is paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell, 2 Corinthians 12:1-4.
Paul then told the multitude that he returned to Jerusalem and was praying when the Lord told him to leave quickly because they would not receive his testimony, Acts 22:18. Paul then proceeds to speak about how he approved the death of Stephen, Acts 22:20 / Acts 8:1.
Even though Paul argued with the Lord, telling Him the Jews knew of his zeal, the Lord told Paul to depart because He would send him to the Gentiles, Acts 22:21 / Acts 9:15-16 / Acts 9:26-29 / Galatians 1:18-19. It appears that the crowd were perfectly willing to listen to Paul until he mentioned the taboo subject of the Gentiles, Acts 22:21 / Acts 2:38-39 / Acts 9:15.
Walker, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The despised word ‘Gentiles’ was a red flag to those wild, savage bulls of hate.’
If there were ever an eloquent and confident speaker with a reason to run away, the apostle Paul would always come to mind. But as we read here, eloquence and confidence in speaking aren’t going to help anyone if your audience has already made their minds up, 2 Corinthians 4:4.
To understand the Jews’ reaction to Paul’s words, we really need to understand the Jews. A Jew could not stand the Gentiles; in fact, the Jew saw the Gentiles as unclean.
If a Jew were walking down the street and he saw a Gentile coming toward him, the Jew would cross the street to avoid being anywhere near him. Luke tells us that the Jews’ hatred of the Gentiles was so great that the very mention of them enraged the audience and moved them to call for Paul’s death, Acts 22:22.
Bock, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The bulk of Jerusalem has reacted now against Jesus, Peter, John, Stephen, and Paul. For Acts, this is a final, key rejection of the gospel.’
They began to throw their garments and dust in the air, Acts 22:23, perhaps in preparation to stone the apostle. And so the chief captain had Paul taken into the castle and prepared to flog him until he told the truth, Acts 22:24 / Matthew 27:26 / Acts 9:15-16 / 2 Corinthians 11:24-25.
Boice, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This was not the normal Jewish flogging, which was bad enough, but the dreaded Roman flagellum. It was a beating so severe that in some cases it resulted in the death of the victim.’
They planned to have Paul flogged and interrogated, Acts 22:24, but Paul, being the educated man that he was, knew his rights, and he knew the law. So he asked if the law would allow them to flog an uncondemned Roman citizen, Acts 22:25.
The centurion in charge of the flogging didn’t want to break the law, so he immediately told the chief captain, who, in turn, asked if Paul was a Roman, Acts 22:26 / Acts 21:33. And so, after Paul said yes, the captain said that he had bought those privileges for a great sum of money, Acts 22:27-28.
Dummelow, in his commentary, says the following.
‘It is evident that the chief captain had not bought his citizenship under Claudius (41-54 A.D.), who sold it for a merely nominal sum.’
Bruce, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Something of this sort may have been in the tribune’s mind as he said, It cost me a very large sum of money to obtain Roman citizenship, the implication being that the privilege must have become cheap of late if such a sorry-looking figure as Paul could claim it.’
But Paul didn’t pay for the privilege of being a Roman citizen. Paul said he was born into Roman citizenship, Acts 22:28.
Longenecker, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The verbal claim to Roman citizenship was accepted at face value; penalties for falsifying documents and making false claims of citizenship were exceedingly stiff. Epictetus speaks of death for such acts.’
And so, before making a terrible mistake by having Paul flogged, everyone quickly withdrew, but the captain was still worried because he had bound a Roman citizen, Acts 22:29. Why was he worried?
Well, not only did he understand that the Roman law prohibited Roman citizens from being flogged without a trial, but he also understood that the law prohibited Roman citizens from being bound without being charged first, Acts 16:37-39. Citizenship had its privileges, and God used those privileges to protect Paul until God got Paul where he needed to be, which was Rome, Romans 15:23-32.
Longenecker, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Roman law protected Roman citizens from the scourge (Lat. flagellum) before they went on trial and even if they were guilty.’
Make no mistake about it, Paul was a Roman citizen, but he understood where his real citizenship lay. He says to the church in Philippi, ‘our citizenship is in heaven,’ Philippians 3:20. He says, ‘is’ in heaven, present tense, in other words, heaven is our present possession.
The Philippians could understand that when we remember that Philippi was a Roman colony. It was six hundred miles from Rome, and a lot of people had never been to Rome, but they were Roman citizens. They dressed like Romans, they ate like Romans, they spoke the Roman language, they lived the Roman culture, and they obeyed the Roman laws.
But what Paul is saying is, ‘we too are citizens of a city we haven’t seen yet, talk like heaven people, dress like heaven people, obey the laws of heaven, live the culture of heaven.’ In other words, he says, ‘he wants us to live here like we’re already there, let our walk reflect where we’re going’.
Paul told the officials, ‘after’ they had been beaten in Philippi about his citizenship, and everyone panicked and asked them to leave the city, Acts 16:16-40.
But here, Paul pulls out his ‘get out of jail free card’ again and tells the Sanhedrin about his citizenship, and they, too, panic. The chief priests and all the council were commanded to come together, while Paul was standing before them, Acts 22:30.
Boice, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The Roman commander ‘must have thought that once he had a concrete accusation, he would be able to decide what to do.’
Constable, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This was at least the sixth time that the Sanhedrin had to evaluate the claims of Christ. The first occasion was when it met to consider reports about Jesus, John 11:47-53, and the second was Jesus’ trial, Matthew 26:57-68 / Matthew 27:1-2 / Mark 14:53-65 / Mark 15:1 / Luke 22:66-71. The third meeting was the trial of Peter and John, Acts 4:5-22, the fourth was the trial of the Twelve, Acts 5:21-40, and the fifth was Stephen’s trial, Acts 6:12-7:60.’
Sadly, this is another example of how chapter breaks really don’t work at times. To read what Paul said before the Sanhedrin, we need to move on to the next chapter.