23:6-11 The Pharisees were correct in the faith of the Jewish church. The Sadducees were no friends to the Scripture or Divine revelation; they denied a future state; they had neither hope of eternal happiness, nor dread of eternal misery. When called in question for his being a Christian, Paul might truly say he was called in question for the hope of the resurrection of the dead. It was justifiable in him, by this profession of his opinion on that disputed point, to draw off the Pharisees from persecuting him, and to lead them to protect him from this unlawful violence. How easily can God defend his own cause! Though the Jews seemed to be perfectly agreed in their conspiracy against religion, yet they were influenced by very different motives. There is no true friendship among the wicked, and in a moment, and with the utmost ease, God can turn their union into open enmity. Divine consolations stood Paul in the most stead; the chief captain rescued him out of the hands of cruel men, but the event he could not tell. Whoever is against us, we need not fear, if the Lord stand by us. It is the will of Christ, that his servants who are faithful, should be always cheerful. He might think he should never see Rome; but God tells him, even in that he should be gratified, since he desired to go there only for the honour of Christ, and to do good.

Verse 8. - Neither angel, etc. Is there any connection between this expression and that in Acts 12:15, "It is his angel" (see ver. 9)? For the statement regarding the Pharisees and Sadducees, see Luke 20:27.

For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection,.... Of the dead, being ignorant of the Scriptures, and the power of God; see Matthew 22:23.

neither angel nor spirit; the Ethiopic version reads, "nor Holy Spirit": but the sense seems to be, that they did not believe any such species of beings as angels, nor indeed any spirits whatever, which were immaterial or immortal; for as for the spirit or soul of man, they took that to be only the temperament of the body, and that it died with it, and did not exist in any separate state after this life: for so Josephus (x) says, that they deny the permanence of the soul, and rewards and punishments in the invisible state. And, according to the Talmudic (y) writers, they denied that there was any other world than this:

but the Pharisees confess both; the resurrection of the dead, and that there are spirits, both angels and the souls of men, which are immortal. Josephus, in the place before referred to, says, that they hold that every soul is incorruptible or immortal; and that they held the resurrection of the dead, is manifest from the Talmud (z), and other writings of theirs; the Syriac version renders it, "the Pharisees confess all these things"; to which agree the Arabic and Ethiopic versions.

(x) De Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 10. sect. 19. (y) T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 54. 1. & Gloss. in ib. & Pirke Abot R. Nathan, c. 5. (z) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 90. 2.

8. the Sadducees say … there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit—(See on [2099]Lu 20:37).

the scribes … of the Pharisees' part … strove, saying, We find no evil in this man, but—as to those startling things which he brings to our ears.

if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him—referring, perhaps, to his trance in the temple, of which he had told them (Ac 22:17). They put this favorable construction upon his proceedings for no other reason than that they had found him one of their own party. They care not to inquire into the truth of what he alleged, over and above their opinions, but only to explain it away as something not worth raising a noise about. (The following words, "Let us not fight against God," seem not to belong to the original text, and perhaps are from Ac 5:39. In this case, either the meaning is, "If he has had some divine communication, what of that?" or, the conclusion of the sentence may have been drowned in the hubbub, which Ac 23:10 shows to have been intense).

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