Alone, but with the Lord

At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: J pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me.

When I first spoke in my defence no one supported me, but

they all left me in the lurch; may it not be reckoned against them! But the Lord stood beside me. ALREADY St. Paul is taking here that other tone of which we spoke just above. Is he not consciously echoing a certain dying voice which never, in all his life, could he have forgotten, the last prayer but one of Stephen (Acts vii. 60), while the stones were beating out his soul, and ‘the young man named Saul’ was keeping the clothes of the slayers; ‘ Lord, lay not this sin to their charge’? The once stern Sanhedrist, he who ‘was consenting’ to Stephen’s death, is now the aged labourer and sufferer for Stephen’s blessed Lord, only waiting the signal to follow Stephen ‘without the gate’ to die. In this his last hour of need that awful form of suffering falls on his wounded heart — desertion, the abandonment of him by all who might have supported his heart by legal skill or faithful sympathy. And he meets it only with this prayer, ‘May it not be reckoned to them!’

Alexander the smith was the ruthless foe of the Gospel; his crime will be punished. These were weak wills and faint hearts; may they be gently handled by their Judge!

Alone, but with the Lord

‘When I first spoke in my defence.’ The evident 2 Tim. iv. allusion is to the opening of his trial at Rome, the 16, 17. prima actio, the first proceedings. St. Paul’s was The Course no doubt a highly important case in the eyes of the imperial officials. This man was a leader of long standing among the Christians, who were now widely believed to be the most profane of atheists, (for who ever saw their Gods?) and the most dangerous enemies of society and of the state. This man, many would remember, had been in the Roman courts before; his case had occupied them, at intervals, for two whole years. To be sure he had been released; but although legal proofs of guilt had failed, had not strange things been said about his profound fanaticism? Had not a dangerous magnetism played around him, a power to draw other men into absurd and monstrous beliefs and hopes? With so much smoke there must be fire enough to kindle even a literal conflagration! So the fanatical leader must be deliberately and severely examined, day after day, charge after charge; a whole world of conspiracies might be detected in the process.

The prima actio accordingly was taken, and now Prima Actio. it was over. St. Paul had spoken in his own defence; for no principle of faith or love bade him hold his tongue under accusations which involved not only his own good name but that of his Lord and of the Church. And then the case was adjourned. In the dialect of Roman law there was an ampliatio. Ampliatio. The prisoner was remanded.

‘No one supported me.’ The Roman system allowed the accused the use of ‘advocates,’ that is to say, skilled lawyers ‘called to the side’ (ad-vocatt)

2 Tim. iv.
16, 17.

The Apostle
without an
Advocate.

‘ But the Lord.’ of the man at the bar. The term included alike solicitors and barristers, as we should distinguish them; and when, in his first imprisonment, the Apostle had sought such help, as we may assume he did, doubtless he found it ready to his hand, for that time was not a reign of terror, and he was an interesting figure, perhaps almost a popular figure, in Roman circles. But all was altered now. To take the part of this man now as his legal ‘advocate’ might cost barrister or solicitor his whole prospects; indeed it might cost him a silent removal, by the secret agents of the despot, from society, from life. He would have seemed to take open part with a man suspected of disloyalty.

So the help of men of law was asked in vain; it was not convenient, it was not possible, in this particular case, even when former acquaintanceship was appealed to. The old, broken, apparently wrecked and disappointed man, must needs do for himself what he best could, in this his uttermost hour, with all the world against him.

He ‘was a man of like feelings’ with us. To be forsaken thus was very bitter to his human heart, a heart which must have found itself not a little hungry just then for sympathy and help.

‘But the Lord stood beside him.’ Wonderful ‘but’! It points us to an infinite counterpoise to that dreadful weight of desolate forsakenness. He was not alone. JESUS was with him, in the court-house, at the bar, before the unjust judges. In His company, St. Paul could think and act in the power of a great tranquillity. How, in that power, he could also speak, we shall presently see.