Acts 26:22

Having therefore obtained the help that is from God, I stand unto this day testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses did say should come; how that the Christ must suffer, and how that he first by the resurrection of the dead should proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles.

Help that is from God ... In view of the marvelous deliverances Paul had already received, protecting him against the skill and cunning of his powerful enemies, even his foes must have been willing to admit that God had helped him.

Nothing but what the prophets and Moses did say should come ... MacGreggor noted that the Jews refused to receive Isaiah 53 as Messianic, therefore denying that the Christ was prophetically represented as a sufferer,[30] which is of course true; but in this very blindness to what their prophets so emphatically foretold lay the secret of their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. As to the question whether or not the prophecies of Isaiah, and others, actually foretold Jesus' suffering, Christ taught that they did; Stephen affirmed it; Paul believed it; the primitive church accepted it; and any Christian may read it for himself in the glorious chapter of Isaiah 53.

This insistence of Paul that the new institution was, indeed and truth, fully identified with that divine institution set forth typically and prophetically in the Old Testament is evident in all of his writings. See full study of this in my Commentary on Romans, pp. 6ff.

He first by the resurrection ... There is a genuine sense in which Christ's resurrection was first, despite instances of raising dead in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. As Milligan said, "He was the first that rose above the power of death. Lazarus died again."[31] Hervey cautioned against a misunderstanding of this verse, saying:

Christ was the first to rise, and he will be followed by them that are his. But it is not true to say that he was the first to give light to Jews and Gentiles and will be followed by others doing the same.[32]

[30] G. H. C. MacGreggor, op. cit., p. 328.

[31] Robert Milligan, op. cit., p. 406.

[32] A. C. Hervey, op. cit., p. 267.