Acts 26:32

And Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.

Thus a Herod testifies to the innocence and sincerity of the apostle Paul; and, although there is no evidence that Agrippa was ever any more than half-persuaded to be a Christian, this favorable verdict from him is nevertheless of great significance.

This writer does not hesitate to find in this wholesome verdict rendered by Agrippa II the reason for the providential blessing of God which attended this ruler's life. He was confirmed in his kingdom after the Jewish war and lived on until the year 100 A.D. (see under Acts 25:13).

By contrast look at those officials who either persecuted Paul or denied him justice:

Ananias "the whited wall" was out of office in two years, and murdered by his own people within a decade.

Felix was recalled within two years; and he and his family perished in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Drusilla perished with her husband Felix and her son in the same eruption.

Bernice fell into public disgrace in Rome.

Festus died within two years of denying Paul justice.

The Sanhedrin was destroyed forever by the Jewish War ending with the sack of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in A.D. 70, only about a decade after the events related in these chapters.

Nero (who later executed Paul) died wretchedly, and in disgrace. On and on the list might go; but Herod Agrippa II alone continued until the second century. He alone fearlessly gave an unequivocal verdict of Paul's innocence. See any connection? This writer thinks that he does!

In further pursuit of this theme, reference is made to the writings of Lactantius,[38] who devoted twenty pages to the record of the judgments, punishments, disasters, miseries and sudden death which came upon the great heathen persecutors of Christianity, giving in detail all the horrors that befell such men as Nero, Domitian, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian etc. All of this was in direct and circumstantial fulfillment of what Jesus assuredly promised his apostles:

And shall not God avenge his elect? (Luke 18:7). History answers that God did indeed do so. We conclude this line of thought with the words of Dummelow:

The words of Jesus' prophecy (Luke 18:7) were literally fulfilled in the calamities which overtook the Jews and the chief heathen persecutors of the Christians.[39]

Here is concluded the record of Paul's five defenses made in Jerusalem and Caesarea; and with his appeal to Caesar, his case was transferred to Rome. This involved him in a long and dangerous voyage which was unfolded by Luke in the next two chapters.

The thing that stands out in all of Paul's defenses was the speaker's innocence and sincerity in preaching the unsearchable riches of the crucified and risen Saviour.

[38] Lactantius, Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, published in The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publisher, 1951), Vol. VII, pp. 301-302.

[39] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 763.