Jesus guided Paul to testify to the truth before the high council (Sanhedrin) of the Jews, as the Lord himself, Peter, John, and all the apostles and Stephen had done. On this occasion, when Paul would declare the Christian faith before the meeting of the Sanhedrin, Ananias, the high priest, presided. Paul did not know this new, cunning leader, for Caiaphas, Hanan, and other Jewish elders at the time of Jesus and Gamaliel had all died. Few members of the council had known Paul in person when he cooperated with them years earlier, when they had commissioned him to persecute the Christians at Damascus.
The new generation in the Jewish council, however, knew the name of Paul well, and they disliked it intensely. Although normally unwilling to submit to an order from the Roman commander, in this case the council raced to interrogate the destroyer of Judaism in the whole world. If possible, they were intending to kill him. They did not come in their full dress, but as if accidentally, without yielding to the orders of the Romans. Paul could not distinguish the high priest from the others, for he was not wearing his official robes.
The apostle to the Gentiles did not appear before the highest court of his nation as a broken penitent, but stood as the bold ambassador of Christ, according to the will of God. He made his own conscience, and not the law, to be the standard for his words, and the foundation for the truth. Christ had purified his heart by His blood, and the Holy Spirit had comforted him from the pain of his anti-Christian zeal before his conversion.
At that time Paul had supposed he was serving God in all good conscience, according to the law, killing Christians with peace of mind. But after his meeting with the Living One he had been turned around, and was used to revive the consciences of millions, who then received eternal life from his gospel. Even today we find comfort from Paul’s testimony. The mystery of his life from the beginning on was that he did not live for himself, but for God alone. This was his true honor. He did not exalt his own name, but glorified the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit at all times, and lived in harmony with the Eternal One.
His decisive statement, made at the beginning of his defense before the highest council, signified that he was right in principle, and that they, the chief priest, persons of rank, and representatives of the people, were very wrong if they did not immediately submit to Jesus. Paul spoke to them in the power of God, standing firm in his Lord, as if the Holy One Himself were speaking directly to the Jewish leaders, engraving His words on their consciences, so that they might repent.
Immediately the cunning Ananias ordered his servants to strike Paul on the mouth, as a gesture of his indignation at what he had said, supposing that no man could have a good conscience, and that all human creatures were in themselves wrong. He wanted to break the pride of the deceiver from the first moment, and to disgrace him before the notable people and the Roman officers.
Paul boiled over, for he was not standing there for personal purposes, but for the name of Christ. By the insight of the Holy Spirit he foretold of God’s curse upon the hypocritical high priest, who had insulted him without interrogation, merely for the sake of the false religious dignity of the high council. Paul knew the details of the law. He responded to the chief priest with his own weapon, calling him a tottering wall, whose precarious position had been plastered over and disguised by a generous coat of whitewash. Paul was sorry for having spoken in haste when he learned that the one who ordered him to be struck was Ananias, the high priest. Paul’s prediction concerning him, however, soon came to pass, for Ananias died an ignominious death, being assassinated by popular zealots on charges of being a Roman collaborator.