What? You are a Roman?

Good morning. As we proceed into this passage that Jim just read for us here, Acts 22, 22-30, I think there's some important things for us to kind of keep in mind and keep in our perspective. So here's the Apostle Paul. He's the same guy who wrote to the believers at Galatia and said, walk in the Spirit and you will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. Paul, who wrote to the believers in Corinth and said, you are called into fellowship with his son. He is the exact same man who wrote about beholding Christ.

And so as he's going into this difficult circumstance that he has been warned about ahead of time, multiple times, for many months at least. As he goes into this, he has not forgotten these things. He is continuing in fellowship with the Lord. He is continuing to walk in the Spirit in independence upon the Lord.

Also, one of the things we're seeing in this is we see in the description unbelievers, either the Jews or these Gentiles, the soldiers, and we're seeing Paul, and that's it. I think also keep in mind that when Paul had come into Jerusalem, he'd talked to lots of different believers, and he had been working right alongside four believers who had vowed to follow through with the series of sacrifices, that as this is going on, there is a growing multitude of believers who are praying for Paul. and who themselves are remembering, oh, I need to be in fellowship with the Lord. I need to trust the Lord through this. So I think as we go through it, just to keep in mind, here is Paul's mindset.

This is not some freak accident, and God, what are you doing? But rather, this is something that God had warned him about as a work of the Holy Spirit for many months in advance. He knew He knew that these things were about to take place and he wrote, as the study in Romans will eventually surface, I think, in chapter 15, that he was going to Jerusalem and then to Rome with the blessing of Christ and in the will of God. This was God's intended spiritual activity for him to be involved in. Okay? This was not some sort of a freak set of circumstances that he was exasperated with God about. Now, have you ever been in circumstances where you've been tempted to be exasperated with God? Right? God, what are you doing?

And one of the things that's important for us to recognize is Paul's mindset here And probably something for us to learn from is he's looking at it and he knows what God is doing, maybe not in all the details, but in the big picture, he knows that God has a purpose and a plan for everything that's happening. The other thing to point out for us is astounding, amazing things are ahead.

He is going to avoid some very very painful and also physically dangerous scourging in this passage by bringing up his Roman citizenship. And we'll be taking a look at that because he doesn't always just do that. He doesn't always come and say, hey, I'm a Roman and avoid all the different troubles. Interestingly, he could have, as we'll see on numerous occasions, but he didn't. In this instance, he does.

Why now? Why this time and not some other? Next, Paul is going to tell the Sanhedrin. Remember, he used to get letters from the Sanhedrin giving him permission to go persecute the Christians and bring them back, right? Now, about 24 years Later, after the time when this began, he is going to go back and speak before the Sanhedrin. This time it's a whole new generation of people. They're not people that he in great part recognizes, nor do they necessarily recognize him in full. He is going to tell them, I'm a Pharisee and I believe in the resurrection. The room will be set on fire from this.

We're going to discover also that Paul has a sister and a nephew in Jerusalem who will come to his aid and very soon before this chapter is out. Alright, so here is the Apostle Paul. He's come into Jerusalem. He's been told for months in advance repeatedly that he's headed for trouble there. He's going to be in chains and he is going to suffer some opposition and some difficulty here. He comes nonetheless and talks to the believers there. He reports on all the things that are going on.

He brings in relief funds along with others for the church in Judea and James sets him on a path of supporting and financing, doing the backing for the vows that are to take place among these four men and the fulfillment of the sacrifices daily. So right on schedule, they're following through that. They're going to go through seven days, so the plan goes.

And then things come apart on the fifth day. That's this day here when all of a sudden a false rumor about Paul bringing Prophemus the Ephesian, Gentile into the inner temple area. That false rumor sets everything ablaze. The Jews go running around Jerusalem looking for support for their central mob action in which they begin beating Paul with the intent to kill him.

And so then we have the Romans intervene. We pointed out last time Acts 21 33 says the commander came up and took hold of him that is Paul and Ordered him to be bound with two chains and from that moment on He was under arrest under the Romans and for the next roughly five years He would be under Roman custody he would be a Roman prisoner for the next half a decade and Just think about that. Okay, if we said, okay, today you're going to be under Roman custody and now five years are going to go by. That's a long period of time. He's going to be under Roman custody for that length of time.

So Paul is carried away, and you could in one sense say rescued from the Jewish mob. He is carried away by the Roman soldiers. By the description of things, there could have been as many as 200 Roman soldiers picking him up, carrying him away, getting the Jews away.

The Jews are not, at this point in time, going to take to fight it and oppose it, at least physically, even though emotionally they would very much like to have done so. The Apostle Paul appeals to the commander to be allowed to talk to the Jews. And he does talk to them, gives them the story of his own coming to knowing the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Even after having been a principal persecutor of the Christians, he himself becomes one.

And they're listening very carefully up to one point, and that's what Jim just read for us. He says, I was sent by the Lord to the Gentiles. That's it. Now, they all of a sudden are going from listening carefully to being very, very volatile and upset.

The location, which you have on the top of page one of your handout, also on the screen here, here is looking at the temple site, looking down on it from the east, looking toward the west, and what you see there is the basic temple courtyard And then inside of that is the inner temple. This inner temple area is the one that they had accused Paul of bringing Trophimus into. This outer courtyard is where they have brought Paul and where they begin beating him. They'd violated the Law of Moses several times over to do that.

And then what begins to take place now and in today's passage is in this Fortress Antonia. there over on the right side and the upper area as it's labeled. This Fortress Antonia was outside the temple courtyard but directly connected to it. There were stairs leading from that courtyard directly into the fortress The fortress area had a great number of Roman soldiers stationed there and they had towers. The tallest tower was about a hundred feet high and it was about 25 feet higher than the other towers. So that's likely where the report comes from down to the commander from that place at Fortress Antonia full of Roman soldiers.

So here's Acts 22, 22-23. They listened to him up to this statement, which as Jim explained, this was the Jews listened to him. And they raised their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth. In other words, get him dead, for he should not be allowed to live.

And as they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, So their response is extreme. They would like Paul dead. Obviously, they've lost jurisdiction. They, in fact, are not going to have it again, but they're going to express themselves nonetheless. This was, for the Jews, a maximal expression for someone who had no power. express themselves physically, they express that he should die, and not mildly. He should be completely removed from the living and the earth. They also just cried out with a lot of, you know, noises probably unintelligible, like grrrs and ahhhh and exasperation of various kinds. Next, they threw off their cloaks, their outer garments, they take off their cloaks. And remember, the Apostle Paul, at the stoning of Stephen, what did he do? He watched over the cloaks that they had taken off. So taking off the cloaks is getting ready to do what? To carry out a stoning, okay?

So that's the thing. It's not going to happen, but it's an expression. That's what we would like to do next, okay? The other thing is they threw dust in the air. Now, a couple things we've got to talk about with this. One, why is there dust here in the temple courtyard?

It is an active construction site. They had, during this period of time, up until the completion of the improvements, as many as 18,000 workers. So this was an active upgrade and there were rocks and there was dust all over the place from the ongoing construction. They didn't make a great deal of effort to keep it clean, so grab some dust because it's construction debris.

That's what the message is here. The other thing is, the Jews, they did things with dust, right? So here's the apostles, they would shake the dust off their feet. They'd take their sandals and, you know, clap them. And in this case, they'd take the dust and throw it up in the air, If you are a disgust and you're a Jew, you use dust.

That's the way it works. Now, Acts 22-24. So the commander ordered him to be brought into the barrack stating that he should be examined by scourging so he might find out the reason why they were shouting against him that way. So here's the commander. He's Roman.

He probably didn't understand what Paul said in Aramaic. He just knows, boy, these people are upset. They're still upset. And after Paul talked to them, that didn't solve anything. Get him out of here. Let's get him up in the barracks and find out what's going on.

So here's the commander. He's made this order to the Roman soldiers, which we have said may have been even as many as a couple hundred Roman soldiers are all there, and their task is get Paul up in there. And so next he's going to find out the reason. So they go into the Fortress Antonia. We find out later, this is Acts 23 and 24, His name is Claudius Lysias. He is referenced several different times by that name. He ordered Paul into this fortress.

It was classical, normal for the Romans to beat people, and the philosophy was either beat the truth out of them or kill them. We'll see what happens first, right? So this scourging, again, it was not pepper spray. They didn't tase anybody. This scourging was a very severe event.

A person would almost certainly end up with permanent scarring, probably some disabilities, and might even just die from it. The bottom line is if they didn't get what they thought was the truth out of you, they kept beating. And so if people either refused, they might go all the way to death. Or if people didn't have anything to say, they might be just beaten to death anyway. So, this scourging, this Roman flagrum, as it was called, would be the treatment.

It was typically pieces of leather cord or just plain wire, and they would often have some kind of metal at the end. It might even be lead pellets, so you get plenty of weight, so it comes with the effect of a slow-moving bullet. And they would just keep beating and beating and beating until they thought they had gotten the truth out of the person.

This fortress typically housed at least 600 soldiers. There are sometimes more. The soldiers would not necessarily all be in the fortress all the time because they would have them moving about, making various kinds of motions about Jerusalem and going outside if necessary. But nonetheless, hundreds of soldiers there. They're centurions, since it mentions centurions in plural. There would be at least two of them were involved here.

That's why we say probably somewhere around 200 soldiers is possible in terms of going out and retrieving Paul from the Jews. This was likely the very same place where Jesus had been beaten before his crucifixion, just 24 years earlier. When we were in Jerusalem, Nancy got some pictures of the floor there in this very fortress. And so it may very well have been that same place or very close to it. So here's Acts 22, 25.

But when they stretched him out with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? You know if you've been in the Romans elective or one of the prior electives, they do lots of questions there, right? Well, Paul's got some questions of his own. And here he's going to ask a stunning and powerful question. He says, first of all, is it lawful? Are you guys within the law or not?

That was the first part of it. In the Roman Empire at this time, there was an entire set of laws in place that gave special rights and protections, privileges to those who were Roman citizens, oftentimes just simply called in short, Romans. And we'll talk more about that. It's amazing the set of rules that went along with that and the protections that went with it. It was illegal to beat or scourge a Roman citizen without a full trial. The typical penalty was death for everyone who was involved in the beating or scourging.

Excuse me, were you the guy with the flagrum, the whip? Yeah, well you're going to die. Excuse me, were you the centurion in charge? Yeah, well you're going to die. The commander? He's going to die too. Everybody involved in the chain is going to die. And it's a very shameful death.

So the centurion standing by would certainly know about these rules and about these rules powerfully protecting Roman citizens. So here are some of the ways that Roman citizenship would be evidenced. One is there would be a wax on wood double tablet. It would look very much like this. and this would be a non-military Roman citizenship such as Paul would have or as we saw early with Silas having this non-military citizenship. It would be evident to everyone who was a citizen in places like Rome, the big cities, and where the society was already well established. And for those who were traveling or for those who were in far-flung places far away, it was tougher to tell who was a Roman citizen and who was not.

Roman soldiers would get this bronze military diploma which would grant citizenship after a certain time of military service, typically about 24 years or upon completion of military service. And among the various privileges that they would get after that period of time is this citizenship. So that would be another way. There were other ways of gaining citizenship besides birth, as Paul had, or this military diploma.

Here's Acts 22, 26. When the centurion heard this, he fell asleep. No. He went to the commander and told him, and I imagine possibly even trembling, or with some excitement and enthusiasm, saying, What are you about to do? Equivalent to, What were you thinking? Right? This man is a Roman, at which point blood pressures go way up, heart rates go pounding.

That's the nature of this expression. This wasn't a, after you get a cup of coffee, let's talk about this. No, this is a panic, because we just went from planning on beating this guy to planning our deaths. That's the way this has come along. What were you thinking? This guy's a Roman. Are you out of your mind? That's the nature of this centurion's expression. He had asked the centurion a question. The centurion responds with, what are you about to do to the commander? The centurion knows that this is shamefully fatal.

You see, what's going to happen is not just, okay guys, get the swords out and, you know, stab these guys. They're going to shame them badly before they kill them. That's what's going to happen. This is going to be like, you know, okay, put the diapers on and now fill them. to avoid being crude here, now fill them, now we're going to kill you.

So this is shamefully fatal. Everyone involved in this absolutely unthinkable shameful act will be slaughtered. Shamefully. This is a gross insult to the Roman Empire that they're about to carry out. Act 1628, this was where the Philippian jailer, similar set of rules. What happens if a jailer lets people escape? You're done, and you're done shamefully. How dare you? You dirty little rat, and that's two R's in dirty and two T's in rat. Right? So, how dare you let that happen?

So what was the Philippian jailer going to do? He pulled his sword out and then says, what must I do to be saved? Because otherwise I'm toast, right? I'm ending it now because I do not want to go through the shame that they're going to put me through for having let prisoners escape. It gives you an idea. Similar set of rules here. How dare you stain the honor of the empire that way?

Acts 22, 27, and 28, the commander came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman? To Paul. And Paul said, yes. The commander, Claudius Lysias, answered, I acquired this citizenship with a large sum of money. And Paul said, but I was actually born a citizen. Citizenship in those days would have been recorded in Rome, which is the city of citizenship, and also in this major city where Paul was born, Tarsus.

So you'd have it recorded in both those places. And the list of citizens kept in those places was called the Book of Life. So, amazing. The Book of Life, that's the list of living and honored citizens. Living and honored citizens. Their names were kept in the Book of Life. One of the things to remember, these citizens, they had a great class and category of privileges and rights and protections. In some cases, it was you get to see entertainment that nobody else gets to go to. And so it might be that on the positive side.

We often see Romans pictured in the toga. Only Roman citizens were allowed to wear a toga. If you were not a Roman citizen, it was illegal and the outcome could be very bad for you if you wore a toga without being a citizen. Another example, citizens could not marry non-citizens. If you were a citizen, you could only marry another citizen. The marriage would not be recognized otherwise. So there was a whole set of rules that went along with this, and privileges and rights, and it was actually in most of the Roman Empire easy to tell who was a citizen and who was not by who they hung around with, by how they dressed, and what things they were allowed to go into and what not. And so it was very easy to tell in most of the empire, but for travelers and for people in the far-flung ends, like Paul was here, of the Roman Empire, it was much more difficult. And so the commander would naturally make the assumption, oh, he's not a citizen, especially since he's a Jew. The citizenship was also evidenced by this document.

Now, Nancy was saying, boy, recording this in wax, I wouldn't feel real good about that. Wax can melt. Yes, it can. It melts at 145 degrees. Beeswax does. But that was something that ordinarily you'd keep the thing cool enough that wouldn't be a problem and even out in the sun, it wasn't enough to melt it and so it would be recorded and stay there and so that would be your personal evidence aside from the listings in the Book of Life in Rome and whatever your home city was.

That would be your evidence that you were a citizen. The other thing that kept people from making a false claim is the death penalty was brought to those who made a false claim. So if Paul, for example, was not actually a Roman citizen and brought it up and it was discovered, no, you're not in fact a Roman citizen, they say, well, you're going to die anyway, right? Because you made a false claim of Roman citizenship.

So in the case of Claudius Lysias, he actually admits here, not using quite the word, but actually admits he'd paid a bribe to a Roman official to get his name. And it just happens to have been true in this period of time, during the reign of Emperor Claudius, that people bribing officials was fairly common.

And so it fits the time. As a matter of fact, it didn't fit before and it didn't fit afterwards. It only fits this particular time, which also tells us that Luke is writing the truth. One more thing, only a half century later and the advantages of Roman citizenship were greatly reduced. So by two different counts, this is shown to be a true account. This is the real deal.

Paul had been a Roman citizen from birth, we don't know how. One possibility is, imagine Paul was of what craft? We say a tent maker, and in the bigger picture actually a leather worker, and also working with coarse fabrics. He would have learned that from his father, right? His father would have done that, and guess what the Roman soldiers passing through Tarsus, which was that's how you get on land If you're going to go from the area we now call Turkey into the eastern Mediterranean, you're going to go through Tarsus. And if you're passing through there, you might need tents and other leather works. So Paul's father might have made a deal and said, okay, I'll make you your tents. My son gets citizenship. Right? Oh, yeah. Okay. So that may have been what took place.

Either way, Roman citizenship was very rare among the Jews and assumed not to be the case. Claudius Lysias assumed Paul was not a Roman citizen and on general grounds he was on good firm soil with that. Acts 22 29, therefore those who are about to examine him immediately let go of him. The commander also was afraid when he found out he was a Roman because he had put him in chains.

So get the picture here. Everybody in the room, they're running. I want to get out of here. I want to get away from this because I don't want to have anything to do with this. The faster I can get away from this, the better. I don't want to die, right? This will be the end of me. I'll have a shameful death. So in that discovery that Paul is a Roman citizen, everyone quickly distanced themselves from Paul and even from the Roman commander. I'm going to get away from this guy. I never heard this order. I never did anything. I never saw anything. And I'm out of here.

Claudius Lysias, who was the commander, was said in this passage to be afraid. Here's a guy who's a Roman commander. This is a battle-hardened man who has been in charge of crucifixions and all kinds of nasty stuff. And what is he here? He's afraid. He's afraid. He's fearing for his very life.

It was not legally required that he took the chains off of Paul, but he did not want Paul to be inclined to turn him in. He didn't want Paul to be inclined to turn him in. So we're going to take the chains off for a bit here. Sorry about that. Very, very sorry. A thousand pardons, please. So that's kind of the mindset here.

Acts 22.30, but on the next day, wishing to know for certain why he had been accused by the Jews, he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the council to assemble and brought Paul down and set him before them. One of the things to look at, who ordered the chief council of the Jews to assemble? Claudius Lysias, the Roman commander, could order them. So who's in charge here really?

Rome. The Roman commander says, you will meet and you're going to meet today. It's going to happen today. You're going to meet and I'm going to bring this guy in front of you and we're going to get this thing settled. The purpose here was to get the truth. Remember, he was going to get the truth out of Paul by beating him. That wasn't going to happen. He's a Roman citizen. So, you guys in the Sanhedrin, you need to tell me what's going on here. The Jewish mob wasn't giving him any answers. He wasn't able to beat Paul, so now we're getting in front of the Sanhedrin to get this thing figured out. How well did that work? Well, we're going to see that next time.

In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul, in chapter 11, said that he was in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death, five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods once I was stoned. You know, none of that would be allowed for a Roman citizen. Why didn't the Apostle Paul claim his Roman citizenship much more often every time hmm so one of the questions that we have do we maximize the rights that we have and we in this country of course very aware of me I've got my rights right constitutionally and otherwise do we maximize the rights that we have and always press them to the max should a believer always opt to maximize his or her rights or privileges?

Or should we do the other extreme? We set them completely aside. We have no rights and privileges. Do we do one or the other? What we see from the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament is we are neither to hold out for all of our rights and privileges, nor to deny them consistently. Either of those would be simple and easy. Guess what?

The Bible does not describe that as the way Christians ought to operate. Instead of carrying out a consistent policy of always pursuing my rights and privileges in the culture, or of setting them all aside and just letting anybody do whatever they want to me, neither one of those is what we see as an example here, even with the Apostle Paul.

And so I guess we're going to have to learn God's Word. I guess we're going to have to pray and walk in fellowship and see what the Lord wants us to do. God's values and God's principles rank above what is legally allowed or required of the law of the land. What does God want? goes ahead of what Uncle Sam wants.

But it really doesn't matter where the land is located. And by the way, the Roman Empire was not a bunch of nice guys. They were pretty much nasty people, really nasty. But one of the things that we have is a best-kept secret in the book of Philippians.

People will point to Philippians 3.20 and say, see, our citizenship is in heaven. But citizenship is not once. In the book of Philippians, it's three times. So let's read through them.

Philippians 1.27 says, only conduct yourselves, which sounds like just kind of behave yourself, right? But it is a word that it's citizen behavior. What citizenship do you have? You have heavenly citizenship. Only with heavenly citizenship conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. So that's the first time that citizenship, our citizenship, is mentioned in Philippians. And it's a behave yourself here as people have a citizenship there.

Next in Philippians 3.20, for our citizenship, and we have the Greek words there quoted next to it on the slide in your handout, you can see by the look of it that they are at least related, and that's on purpose. Our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I, as believers, our citizenship is there in heaven. Matter of fact, let's put it this way. It's home. It's home.

Finally, we have Philippians 4.3. We mentioned earlier that the Book of Life was the list of living citizens.

Philippians 4.3 goes like this. Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women. That's Euodia and Syntyche. who have shared my struggle and the cause of the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life." The list of living and honored citizens in heaven. So that's three times in Philippians that our citizenship is brought up, not just once.

As we go through this passage, the rest of this chapter and beyond, we're going to see Jesus himself is going to stand alongside Paul by the very next night. How many of you would like to have Jesus stand by you by tomorrow night? Would that be good? Would you like to have Jesus come stand by you and assure you and comfort you? Yeah, that's great. But guess what? We have something even better. We are in him and he is in us. That's better than right nearby.

But that's what Paul gets. Paul is going to be headed in a very short period of time, hours really, back to Caesarea where he had just been. That is going to be his home for about two years, continuing on five years of Roman occupation. He's going to stand before two different Roman governors, and one of them very uniquely, he's going to stand in front of the only Roman governor so far as we know in all of Roman history who was born a slave.

He's going to stand in front of it. He is also, during that period of time, stand before a husband and wife who are also brother and sister. But nonetheless, he's going to stand before some amazing people. The guy who was born a slave will also be looking for a bribe from Paul. So he's going to stand before some really disgusting people. Now why would God do this? Why would say, Paul, as you've been a Servant to Me in Jerusalem, I'm going to send you to Rome, and meanwhile, you've got to go stand in front of some really disgusting people.

Because during that same time, He's going to tell him, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He's going to tell him, you're seated with Me in the heavenlies. Christ is going to tell him, you have a heavenly citizenship. Now, teach that to people. And he's going to go beyond that and say, set your mind on things above.

You won't find that in Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Oh, excuse me. Ephesians is where you're first going to see it, right? We're going to see where the Apostle Paul will learn of his heavenly blessings, seedings, and citizenship. The Roman citizen would hold up their Roman citizenship and hope that they would avoid suffering and hope that they would avoid death using their Roman citizenship. That would give them special privileges. We have a citizenship as well, but guess what? Our citizenship says you've already died.

Galatians 2.20 You have been crucified with Christ. So you're worried about death? Don't worry about it at all. Your death has already occurred. You've been crucified with Christ.

So the Roman citizen was looking to avoid death and avoid pain and difficulty. The believer in Christ has already been there and passed that and done that. The Roman citizen was looking to have high privilege in the world and hoping not to lose it by virtue of the citizenship. We as believers have a high standing, having been seated with Christ already, and it can't be taken away.

Everybody who was a Roman citizen died. We have already died and we already have that citizenship that can't be lost or taken away. The Roman citizen had to relinquish all other citizenships in order to have that Roman citizenship. You could not have Roman citizenship in any other.

For us who are in Christ, we have a citizen in heaven. It is our home. There isn't any other. Oh yes, we'll have places here, and that's good, but that citizenship that we have in heaven, it's the only one. We don't have an alternate, and that's just fine. Let's pray.

Lord, we do give you thanks. We thank you as we look at these wonderful blessings that we have. We thank you as we see the Apostle Paul going through great difficulty. We know that you had your purpose in it for him, and you have the same purpose for us as you go through these things. We thank you for that marvelous, astounding, amazing heavenly citizenship that we have. Because we are in you, and you in us. We just pray in Jesus' name, Amen.