His innocence fully established and acknowledged by his judges, the
purposes of God must still be accomplished. His appeal to Caesar must carry
him to Rome, that he may bear testimony there also. In his position here he
again resembles Jesus. But at the same time, if we compare them, the
servant, blessed as he is, grows dim, and is eclipsed before Christ, so
that we could no longer think of him. Jesus offered Himself up in grace; He
appealed to God only; He answered but to bear testimony to the truth-that
truth was the glory of His Person, His own rights, humbled as He was. His
Person shines out through all the dark clouds of human violence, which
could have had no power over Him had it not been the moment for thus
fulfilling the will of God. For that purpose He yields to power given them
from above. Paul appeals to Caesar. He is a Roman-a human dignity conferred
by man, and available before men; he uses it for himself, God thus
accomplishing His purposes. The one is blessed, and his services; the other
is perfect, the perfect subject of the testimony itself.
Nevertheless, if there is no longer the free service of the Holy Ghost for
Paul, and if he is a prisoner in the hands of the Romans, his soul at least
is filled with the Spirit. Between him and God all is liberty and joy. All
this shall turn to his salvation, that is, to his definitive victory, in
his contest with Satan. How blessed! Through the communications of the
Spirit of Jesus Christ the word of God shall not be bound. Others shall
gain strength and liberty in view of his bonds, even although, in the low
state of the church, some take advantage of them. But Christ will be
preached and magnified, and with that Paul is content. Oh how true this is,
and the perfect joy of the heart, come what may! We are the subjects of
grace (God be praised!), as well as instruments of grace in service. Christ
alone is its object, and God secures His glory-nothing more is needed: this
itself is our portion and our perfect joy.
It will be remarked in this interesting history, that at the moment when
Paul might have been the most troubled, when his course was perhaps the
least evidently according to the power of the Spirit, when he brought
disorder into the council by using arguments which afterwards he hesitates
himself entirely to justify-it is then that the Lord, full of grace,
appears to him to encourage and strengthen him. The Lord, who formerly had
told him at Jerusalem to go away because they would not receive his
testimony, who had sent him warnings not to go thither, but who
accomplished His own purposes of grace in the infirmity and through the
human affections of His servant, by their means even, exercising at the
same time His wholesome discipline in His divine wisdom by these same
means-Jesus appears to him to tell him that, as he had testified of Him at
Jerusalem, so should he bear witness at Rome also. This is the way that the
Lord interprets in grace the whole history, at the moment when His servant
might have felt all that was painful in his position, perhaps have been
overwhelmed by it, remembering that the Spirit had forbidden him to go up;
for, when in trial, a doubt is torment. The faithful and gracious Saviour
intervenes therefore to encourage Paul, and to put His own interpretation
on the position of His poor servant, and to mark the character of His love
for him. If it was necessary to exercise discipline for his good on account
of his condition and to perfect him, Jesus was with him in the discipline.
Nothing more touching than the tenderness, the opportuneness, of this grace.
Moreover, as we have said, it all accomplished the purposes of God with
regard to the Jews, to the Gentiles, to the world. For God can unite in one
dispensation the most various ends.
And now, restored, reanimated by grace, Paul shews himself in his journey
to be master of the position. It is he who counsels, according to the
communication he receives from God, he who encourages, he who acts, in
every way, on God's part, in the midst of the scene around him. The
description, full of life and reality, which Luke his companion, gives of
this voyage, needs no comment. It is admirable as a living picture of the
whole scene. Our concern is to see what Paul was amid the false confidence,
or the distress of the whole company.
