Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER XXV.
PAUL’S APPEAL TO CÆSAR.
1-12. Festus, the successor of Felix in the governorship of Judea, like Lysias, the kiliarch of
Jerusalem, shows up a very beautiful character in all of his dealings with Paul, but one thing
preventing him from releasing him at once, and that was Paul’s appeal to Cæsar, which I trow was
providential. An evangelistic tour in Rome, the world’s metropolis and capital, had been the life-long
ambition of Paul. Though I traveled that same route, going from Jerusalem to Rome in twelve days,
three years ago, in Paul’s day, without steam engines or mariner’s compass, it was a greater
undertaking than the circumnavigation of the globe at the present day. Paul had no money with
which to prosecute a voyage of two thousand miles [the way he went]. By appealing to Cæsar he thus
providentially compelled his enemies to defray all of his traveling expenses. Oh, how God makes
the wrath of men to praise Him! At the very time when angry Herod was killing all the boy babies
of Bethlehem, to cut off Jesus lest he dethrone the Herodian dynasty, behold Jesus has gone far away
into Egypt on the back of a donkey! At the very time when Pharaoh, who symbolizes the devil, was
killing all the boy babies born among the Hebrews, in order to cut off some mighty man that might
rise in the coming generation and lead them out of bondage, behold! he had Moses, the very one who
was to do the mischief, flourishing like a king in his own palace, and pouring out his own money to
hire his mother to nurse him, charging her all the time to give that child every possible attention and
to feed him on the very fat of the land. When Festus, immediately after his inauguration at Cæsarea,
went up to Jerusalem, and the Jewish magnates appealed to him, charging his predecessors with
delinquency in duty, and urging him to popularize the very beginning of his administration by
inflicting capital punishment against Paul, he assures them the matter shall receive his immediate
attention, saying to them,
5. “Let those who are influential among you coming down prefer charges, if there is anything
criminal in the man.” In a few days Festus returns to Cæsarea and the high priest, accompanied by
his cohort of ecclesiastical notables, comes down from Jerusalem and stands up in prosecution of
Paul, as on former occasions, utterly incompetent to bring against him a solitary charge, criminal in
Roman law, but simply allegations of disharmony with the ecclesiasticism of which the Romans
knew nothing and cared less. Pursuant to the persistent and vociferous clamors of the Jews, when
Festus asked Paul if he was willing to go up to Jerusalem and be tried by him there, he then appeals
to Cæsar, claiming his right as a Roman citizen to stand at the highest tribunal of the empire,
protesting that no one shall take his life merely to gratify the Jews, whom he has in no way injured.
12. “Then Festus, speaking with the assembly [i.e., privately taking council with them],
responded, Thou hast appealed to Cæsar; unto Cæsar thou shalt go.” Here we have a finale of the
aspirations, contemplations and prayers which had struggled in the bosom of Paul a quarter of a
century. Now, behold! victory is in sight. The wrath and power of the empire are pledged to send
Paul to Rome.