Acts 26:6

For the hope of the promise - This does not appear to mean, the hope of the Messiah, as some have imagined, but the hope of the resurrection of the dead, to which the apostle referred in Acts 23:6 (note), where he says to the Jewish council, (from which the Roman governor took him), of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question: see the notes there. And here he says, I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise, etc., and to which, he says, Acts 26:7, the twelve tribes hope to come. The Messiah had come, and was gone again, as Paul well knew; and what is here meant is something which the Jews hoped to come to, or attain; not what was to come to them; and this singular observation excludes the Messiah from being meant. It was the resurrection of all men from the dead which Paul's words signified; and this the Jews had been taught to hope for, by many passages in the Old Testament. I shall only add, that when, in the next verse, this hope of the promise is mentioned as what the Jews did then hope, καταντηοαι, to come to, it is the very same word which Paul, in Philippians 3:11, uses to express the same thing: If by any means, (says he) καταντησω, I might attain to, the resurrection of the dead. Bp. Pearce.

And now I stand - I stand before the tribunal. I am arraigned.

And am judged - Am tried with reference to being judged. I am undergoing a trial on the point in which all my nation are agreed.

For the hope - On account of the hope; or because, in common with my countrymen, I had entertained this hope, and now believe in its fulfillment.

Of the promise ... - See the references in the margin. It is not quite certain whether Paul refers here to the promise of the Messiah or to the hope of the resurrection of the dead. When he stood before the Jewish Sanhedrin Acts 23:6, he said that he was called in question on account of holding the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. But it may be observed that in his view the two things were closely united. He hoped that the Messiah would come, and he hoped therefore for the resurrection of the dead. He believed that he had come, and had risen, and therefore he believed that the dead would rise. He argued the one from the other. And as he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and that he had risen from the dead, and that he had thus furnished a demonstration that the dead would rise, it was evident that the subject of controversy between him and the Jews involved everything that was vital to their opinions and their hopes. See Acts 26:8.

Made of God - Made by God. See the marginal references. The promises had been made to the fathers of a Messiah to come, and that embraced the promise of a future state, or of the resurrection of the dead. It will help us to understand the stress which Paul and the other apostles laid on the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead to remember that it involved the whole doctrine of the separate existence of the soul and of a future state. The Sadducees denied all this; and when the Pharisees, the Saviour, and the apostles opposed them, they did it by showing that there would be a future state of rewards and punishments. See the argument of the Saviour with the Sadducees explained in the notes on Matthew 22:23-32.

Unto our fathers - Our ancestors, the patriarchs, etc.

26:6 And now - This and the two following verses are in a kind of Acts 26:6 ,7,8parenthesis, and show that what the Pharisees rightly taught concerning the resurrection, Paul likewise asserted at this day.The ninth verse is connected with the fifth. For Pharisaism Acts 26:9 ,5impelled him to persecute. I stand in judgment for the hope of the promise - Of the resurrection. So it was in effect. For unless Christ had risen, there could have been no resurrection of the dead. And it was chiefly for testifying the resurrection of Christ, that the Jews still persecuted him.