1Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.”
As I read this statement of Paul made to the religious leaders of his day I am baffled. These leaders had tried to have Paul arrested and their hope was he would be killed in the process. There is something in this statement that leads the leader of the group to order that Paul be hit. It might be that when Paul says to have fulfilled his duty before God, he is saying something that the leader thought was an impossible statement for a human being to make. Paul’s now recognized that his citizenship was in a heavenly kingdom. And in that heavenly kingdom he had faith, and faith is all that is needed. Every citizenship has obligations connected to it. For the Jews of Paul’s day strict adherence to the Law and the traditions was necessary and no one could say they fulfilled all the obligations. Paul knew his duty as a citizen of heaven. He had fulfilled that duty by having faith in Jesus. The Jews had their citizenship tied to an earthly system of do’s and don’ts. It was designed by God so that they could never fully fulfill their obligations. When they realized their inability, they were supposed to cry out to God and ask for mercy. But, instead, they tried to fulfill this system with even greater intensity. But trying harder to meet an impossible standard does not make the impossible possible. The Law was never meant to make us right before God. So when the leader hears Paul say he has fulfilled his duty it is too much for him. When we became Jesus-followers we did so by trusting what He did on our behalf. We were not accepted by what we did or could do. We were accepted because of what Jesus did. Now that we are believers we are still accepted, not because of what we do, but because of what Jesus did. We have fulfilled our obligations to God because Jesus fulfilled them for us. Nothing we do makes us more acceptable to God. As a believer, we are completely accepted. Period!
The Arnold Journey 