“The Invisible Hand”
Acts 22:22-23:11
July 27, 2008
From Wikipedia: “The invisible hand is a metaphor coined by the economist Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations and other writings, Smith demonstrated that, in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest tends to also promote the good of his community as a whole through a principle that he called “the invisible hand”. He argued that each individual maximizing revenue for himself maximizes the total revenue of society as a whole, as this is identical with the sum total of individual revenues. Smith used the term ’invisible hand’ only three times, but the metaphor later gained widespread use.”
This definition of “the invisible hand” is well-known to many, but may I suggest that the lives and destinies of followers of Christ are guided as well by an “invisible hand”, if you will, the hand of a sovereign God. It’s easy to get caught up in the details of Paul’s life, the goings-on in the early church, etc., and miss the deeper story, which is the invisible hand of God working behind the scenes accomplishing His purpose. The thing that we have to remember is this: God works through the good and the bad, even through sinful circumstances, to accomplish His will. We’ll see that operative in the life and ministry of Paul today.
I. The Invisible Hand in Paul’s Citizenship
22:22-29
Remember last week we said that, at least for a few moments, Paul was able to defend himself before his fellow Jewish countrymen; when he began speaking in the Aramaic dialect, that which they themselves considered their “heart language”, they quietened down to hear what he had to say. That didn’t last long, though. What set Paul’s Jewish hearers off was when Paul insisted that God had called him to take his message directly to Gentiles; this was enough for them to call for his head. See, what he was declaring, as we said last week, is that the ground at the foot of the cross is level, that both Jews and Gentiles could equally come to God for salvation, that in taking the gospel directly to Gentiles without making them Jews first, Paul was declaring “equal access” to God by faith in Christ.
Note the response: the whole cloak-tossing/dirt-throwing deal involved signs that they considered blasphemy to have been committed. On a side note, we can at least affirm the seriousness they attach to the name of God, a seriousness that I fear sometimes doesn’t characterize even professing Christians these days. I would remind you that among the most egregious sins you can commit is to take the name of God on your lips without in your heart giving it the considered reverence that it demands. Uttering the name of God as our first response to some surprise, taking that name in vain, as Exodus suggests, is an offense to God’s holiness. These men, though misguided, did act as they did out of what they believed to be a transgression of God’s holy name, a blasphemy committed by Paul. We’d do well to take the name of God as seriously ourselves.
But because he could not understand what was going on, the Roman tribune decided to torture Paul in order to get at the truth once and for all, his earlier graciousness turning to brutality as his patience began to wear thin. The instrument of torture was to be the Roman flagellum, a particularly nasty piece of work: it consisted of strips of leather embedded with bone and metal, and attached to a handle. Many men died under the lashes of this particular device; those who did not would almost certainly be left crippled for life. And if you saw “The Passion of the Christ”, you saw a grotesque example of this horrid practice, as Christ was flogged prior to His crucifixion.
Fortunately for Paul, this was a punishment that could not be inflicted on a Roman citizen, at least prior to conviction of a serious crime. This prompted Paul’s question; while he had many times proven himself willing to suffer for the cause of Christ, there was no reason to suffer needlessly, and so Paul pressed his rights as a Roman citizen not to be subjected to flogging.
This got the tribune’s attention immediately, as he received word from the centurion binding Paul for the flogging, as there would be a significant penalty for the tribune if he had flogged a Roman citizen. Better to be safe than sorry! He could hardly believe that someone who looked like Paul, as haggard a character as he, could actually be a Roman citizen, and thus he tells Paul of how much he’d paid to get his citizenship (the implication being that things were going to pieces these days if someone so rough as Paul could also purchase a citizenship!). But Paul tells him that his citizenship is natural; Roman citizenship was passed from father to son. This changes everything; the Roman tribune shudders to think that he’d nearly treated Paul with this severe punishment. Now, instead of beating the truth out of the prisoner, the Roman tribune takes legal steps to get answers.
Do you see the sovereign hand of God working in Paul’s life before he was even born? God so ordained events in Paul’s life that someone in his family line, his father or grandfather, was able to secure Roman citizenship, pass it down the line to Paul by blood, and spare Paul a life-threatening beating.
God was sovereignly working before you were born.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16
Do you understand, do you really grasp, that there are no accidents in your life, that nothing surprises our God, that in fact every day of your life, every facet of your life, was written in God’s book before you were born? You may not like everything about yourself or your circumstances, but be sure of this: God is in control, and no temptation that comes your way is stronger than your ability to overcome it; no problem is so large that He cannot solve it; no night so dark that He cannot bring His light to light your way. God was sovereignly working before you were born!
II. The Invisible Hand in Paul’s Sin
22:30-23:5
But what about when I blow it? What about my sinfulness? God knew that, didn’t He, that I’d get it wrong over and over again, that my motives would be wrong sometimes when my words and attitudes and actions were right, or that sometimes I’d want to do right but say something hurtful; i.e., that I’d sin? How does God work even when I sin? We see the answer in Paul’s life.
The Sanhedrin was the 71-member “Supreme Court” of ancient Israel; this is the “council” referred to here. Though the Roman tribune had no right to interfere in the midst of a council hearing, he did have the right to command that one take place.
Paul begins his defense. Paul uses the term “brothers”; as he scans the room, sees some men who had run with him in the same social circles many years previously. He remembered a joke one of them had told that had had them in stitches. He recalled a moving experience that he shared with another, meals and laughter with others, poignant talks with still others. Some of these men had begun down the same path as Paul, his Pharisee friends, zealous for the law of God as he had been—and yet, with the coming of the Christ encounter, Paul’s life had moved in a different trajectory. Still, he called them “brothers”.
Paul then makes a bold claim, that his conscience is clear before a holy God. This is clearly something Paul is very concerned with; he soon makes this claim before Felix himself (Acts 24:16); keeping “short accounts” with God and men is very critical for Paul. For Paul, though, his ultimate righteousness was a clear conscience, but rather the work of Christ on his behalf (Philippians 3:9). Interesting that his clear conscience was about to quickly, but only momentarily, become sullied!
A different “Ananias” is identified here; remember that the man who had touched Paul’s eyes and given them sight, who had delivered God’s mandate for Paul’s life, was also named “Ananias”. This Ananias, the high priest, was according to FF Bruce, “one of the most disgraceful profaners” of the office, a man who held the position for 11-12 years, a greedy man who seized for himself some of the tithes that ought to have gone to support the common priests. He was greedy, treacherous, and ruthless.
There are several questions that emerge from this passage:
What enraged Ananias? Likely, because of the claim of Paul that he could be both a good Jew and a committed follower of Christ.
Why did Paul cry out as he did? Because he had not been found guilty, and yet had been ordered to be smacked in the mouth, a clear violation of the law; of course, this corrupt high priest didn’t let a little thing like the law of God stop him. Paul was a passionate guy, and in this instance, his passions got the better of him, though what he said was an accurate description; a “whitewashed wall” was a wall that was tottering but had been painted over to make it appear strong and sturdy, a façade which obscured the ugly truth that lay behind it. This was a quite fitting description of a “high priest” who was anything but priestly!
Why did Paul not recognize Ananias to be the high priest? It is a matter of conjecture. Some argue that Paul’s eyesight wasn’t good, and thus he didn’t pick up on the fact of who was speaking (Galatians 4:13-16; 6:11). Others would argue that Paul knew full well that Ananias was the high priest, but that his speech was so unbecoming to a high priest that Paul is employing a bit of sarcasm here. Or, since this was not a regular meeting of the Sanhedrin, but rather one convened by the tribune, the high priest had not gotten into his ordinary garb to preside over the affair, and since Paul hadn’t been around Jerusalem much and didn’t know Ananias by sight, his lack of identifying clothing left Paul unable to know his identity. It makes little difference, though I do believe that Paul spoke impetuously here, and that in his words are a sincere apology for his rash action. The Bible tends not to gloss over the sins of its chief characters, but to his credit, his apology is immediate and sincere, backed up with Scripture.
God sovereignly works even when you fall short.
Several truths:
• God doesn’t write Paul off because of his hasty remark.
• Truthfully, the remark was a prophecy; though I’m not sure Paul meant it to be one, he had spoken truth, as Ananias would indeed be struck by God!
And we wonder what God can do when we sin, when we make lapses in judgment or fail in some terrible way. Answer? God can do what God pleases when God pleases as God pleases, and His will shall not be frustrated by our disobedience and sin; if it were, God would accomplish very little, because as Scripture teaches, we all sin in many ways. How do you know you are not beyond usefulness to God? How do you know that your sin hasn’t permanently disqualified you? Breathe against your hand. Feel anything? Then your sin has not disqualified you! Philippians 2 says it’s God Who is working in you to will and to do His good pleasure!
III. The Invisible Hand in the Unusual Means of Paul’s Defense
23:6-10
Instead of being cowed into submission by Ananias’ attack, or shamed into silence by his own impetuous impropriety, Paul continued with his defense. Pharisees were the Jewish religious conservatives of Paul’s day; Sadducees were the liberals. Paul himself was a Pharisee (we do remember that Christ spoke disparagingly of the Pharisees, because they had ripped the heart out of the teaching of God through a rules-oriented approach to faith rather than a heart-oriented approach. Nonetheless, the Pharisees did believe in the resurrection of the dead, and did take what we’d call a conservative approach to the Bible.). Paul placed himself on the side of those who believed in the resurrection; it’s interesting that Paul grounds his belief in the resurrection of Christ in his general belief that dead people would themselves be raised from the grave (I Corinthians 15). The hope of Israel was tied up with resurrection to eternal life.
The Pharisees had some things right, but notice what had happened to the conservative tradition of the Pharisees: it has morphed into traditionalism. Let’s go down this road just for a moment. Tradition has been defined as the “living faith of the dead”, whereas traditionalism has been called the “dead faith of the living”. Tradition is a good thing; traditionalism suffers from a “hardening of the categories” to such a degree that it baptizes forms and structures and allows for no new methods or understandings. We see this in the Pharisees, and we see it abounding today as well in churches, for instance, where certain ways of doing things are, perhaps subconsciously, held up as the be-all-and-end-all for all time. We can easily transfer our love and devotion for God to some secondary things; the Pharisees loved their laws and rules and traditions more than they loved God!
Paul lobs a verbal hand grenade into the midst of the assembly. The Sadducees were the majority party in the Sanhedrin, and Paul’s words made them madder than ever; the Pharisees, on the other hand, used his words to determine that, you know, maybe this Paul character isn’t so bad a fellow after all. Perhaps Paul got this revelation from an angel or a spirit; maybe they shouldn’t be so hard on him after all. This led to a full-blown ruckus such that nothing resembling order or reason was going to be gotten out of this assembly. And so Paul would not be literally ripped to shreds, the tribune decided that this had been a bad idea after all and ordered the soldiers to get him out of their so as to save his life.
Notice how God saves Paul:
• Pharisees come to Paul’s aid
• Roman soldiers again come to Paul’s rescue
God sovereignly works sometimes in surprising ways.
Question: what shape is your “God-box”? Let me ask it a different way: what can God not do, according to you? Yes, there are some things He can’t do: He can’t lie; He can’t sin; He can’t deny His fundamental nature or character. I get it. But beyond that, what in your mind can God not do? Can your God use somebody who doesn’t fit your notion of the kind of person God can use? Can your God do something that you’ve never seen before? Can your God bring something beautiful out of something awful? Can your God teach an old dog new tricks—or an old sinner new ways? What shape is your God-box? Maybe you ought to just tear up that God-box you’ve created, because God isn’t going to stay in the little box of your, or of my, creation!
IV. The Invisible Hand in Paul’s Encouragement
23:11
Imagine Paul now in his quarters, under guard and under arrest. He’s wondering if he’ll ever get to Rome to preach the gospel there. He’s wondering what will become of his life and his mission. He was human, as he proved in speaking too sharply to the high priest; likely he was dejected and discouraged at the recent turn of events. Had he held out some hope that some of the Sanhedrin might, hearing his message of Christ, turn to faith? This hadn’t apparently happened. Was it even the right thing to go to Jerusalem after all; had all of those brothers who’d been warning him been right? Was he just obstinate, and had his obstinacy gotten him into this trouble? What did His Lord think? And it is just at this time that the risen Christ appears to bring him cheer and courage. This is not the first time Christ would appear to Paul at just the right moment!
God sovereignly gives us what we need when we need it.
He knows what you need. Maybe He doesn’t always give us what we want—though sometimes, He does that as well. But He always gives us what we really need. Paul was at a low point, and Jesus appeared miraculously to him.
Now look at Paul’s testimony of God’s sovereignty, written by Paul after he’d made it to Rome (Philippians 1:12, 14): I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
God wasn’t through with Paul; despite difficult circumstances; despite Paul’s sin; despite all that had gone on, God wasn’t finished with him, but rather encouraged him to press on, which he did, of course.
In 1926, Raymond lay dying of typhoid in the jungles of Ecuador, a twenty-something missionary who’d given his life to reach people in a mountain village. Transported to a hospital in Guayaquil, the doctor there noted that his feet were already cold, and that he was not long for this world. Lacking a black dress for the funeral, his young bride had her wedding dress dyed black; another missionary friend picked out an appropriate coffin, and arrangements were made and a time set for Raymond’s funeral.
41 years later, as he was addressing the student body of Wheaton College, college president V. Raymond Edman collapsed and passed into the presence of the Lord, proving the truth that though his doctor, wife, and close friends had given him up for dead, no servant of our sovereign God ever dies a premature death; God’s servants are immortal until their service for a sovereign God is done—because the invisible hand of that sovereign God is always working in and through His children to accomplish His purposes!
Table Talk
Take a few moments around the table to consider the places where your story of God’s “invisible hand” tracks with Paul’s story.
