The Pharisee Who Defended the Christians

A Pharisee rises before the Sanhedrin and saves the apostles from execution. The story of Gamaliel challenges some of Christianity's deepest assumptions about Judaism, religious authority, and the mysterious ways in which God works.

At a time when political and religious disagreements increasingly tempt us to identify enemies and demand punishment, Gamaliel offers another path: humility before history, restraint in judgment, and confidence that God remains the final arbiter of human affairs.

Transcript

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The word Pharisee is one of the ugliest words in the English language. It's usually used as a slur to describe someone who's mean spirited, who's uh who's a hypocrite, someone who's more focused on looking holy than acting holy. In Western culture, the word is especially derogatory because Western civilization has historically been Christian civilization oriented around the person and life of Jesus. And no one represents the anti-Jesus in the Western imagination, quite like the Pharisee. If Jesus is the great hero of the story, the Pharisee is the arch villain, the the Antichrist even. But behind the word lies a broader critique of Judaism. The Pharisees were, in fact, at least to a large extent, the progenitors of what we now know as rabbinic Judaism. In fact, any Orthodox Jew will tell you. And to the extent that modern Jews are understood to be the descendants of the Pharisees, and the Pharisees are understood to be the archvillains, modern Jews, in the right context, quickly become the villains. And the word is often invoked in critiques not only of modern Judaism, it's also used in critiques of modern Israel, where the crimes of individuals, individual Israeli Jews, rather than being ascribed to those individuals, are chalked up to a Pharisaic impulse that's supposedly shared by all Jews. Jews hate Christians. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. Jews want to destroy Christianity in Israel, in the Middle East, around the world. And unfortunately, that kind of thinking, which was a feature of Western culture, is becoming more and more common today. But there's a story in the Bible that explodes all of that, explodes that narrative. And this story offers a fascinating window into the earliest years of the church. It's a story about one of the most interesting figures in the New Testament, and his name is Gamliel or Gameliel, as we sometimes call him. And I think both Christians and Jews would benefit from remembering this person, who he was, what he did, when he did it, the effect that it had, and would also benefit from reflecting on this man and his actions and embracing the wisdom that uh that he displayed. Welcome back to Hebraica. I am Robert Nicholson, your host. I would be most grateful for those of you out there listening to rate, review, and share this podcast with someone you think would enjoy it. We meet Gomliel in Acts chapter 5. But before I tell you the story, I want to give you a little bit of context as to where we are in the New Testament. So at this point, the disciples have seen the risen Christ. They have they've received the Great Commission. They have come from Galilee to Jerusalem, where they are teaching and preaching, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God to pretty much anyone who will who will listen, and very publicly. I should point out that at this time the disciples are living fully Jewish lives as as we see them depicted in the text. They are visiting the temple regularly, they're even daily, where they they gather, they pray, they worship, they are keeping the mitzvot, they're keeping the commandments, they are observing the Sabbath, the Jewish festivals, they are from the outside indistinguishable from all the other Jews around them. And I mention that because we become so accustomed to thinking of Christianity and Judaism as these two totally different religions. Of course, we know Jesus was Jewish, the disciples were Jewish, but basically now at this moment in history, Christianity has been formed and is separated from the Judaism that preceded it. But at this point, there was no such thing as Christianity, certainly not in the way that we would know it. The book of Acts tells us later that the followers of Jesus were only first called Christians in Antioch, and they were probably called that by non-Christians, by outsiders, who used the word as a derogatory label. The word in Greek, it basically means the Christ followers or the or the Messianists. Of course, there was logic to that name. What we now call Christians were indeed Jews, but they were Jews who believed that the Messiah had come, which is why they were spreading that message all across the region. They were among several other Jewish sects that were active at the time: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the Essenes. Each of these sects was completely Jewish, but each of them had its own way of understanding the Jewish covenant, Jewish history, and the future of Israel. Now, the Roman Empire is ruling at this time, but the Roman Empire allows the Jews a measure of self-government, a measure of control over their internal affairs. And those affairs were overseen by a body called the Sanhedrin. This is a council of 71 elders. Think of it as a huge supreme court. And the members of that body were people who belonged to these different sects, especially the Pharisees and Sadducees, but not only. The Sanhedrin was the central judicial authority of the Jewish people. And the conflicts between Jesus and the religious establishment, as we read about them in the Gospels, in the end were conflicts with this Sanhedrin. And it that's the body that officially condemned him and sent him before Pontius Pilate. After the resurrection, conflict between the Sanhedrin and Jesus' disciples only intensified, especially as more and more people in and around Jerusalem began to embrace their message. So by the time we reach Acts chapter 5, the disciples have been hauled before the Sanhedrin. They had just been arrested in the temple complex where they had been teaching and preaching. And they were arrested on charges of stirring up the people. Now, as far as we can tell, most members of the Sanhedrin, certainly many of them, looked upon these messianist Jews as a threat, as a threat to theology, to public order, to their own authority, and they are hot. They are inclined to meet out the harshest possible punishment that's available under the law. But then the story takes this remarkable turn. And here I want to get to the actual story, as it's recorded by Luke in the book of Acts. And it's a bit long, but if Hebraica emphasizes anything, it is the biblical text. And I think it's important that we understand what actually happened. So we'll read from Acts chapter 5, starting in verse 12. It says, The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people, and all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's colonnade. That's a that's a section of the Temple Mount complex. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats, so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered, also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed. Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. Go, stand in the temple courts, he said, and tell the people all about this new life. At daybreak they entered the temple courts as they had been told and began to teach the people. When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin, the full assembly of the elders of Israel, and sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officer the officers did not find them. The officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported. We found the jail securely locked with the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside. On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were at a loss, wondering what this might lead to. Then someone came and said, Look, the men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people. At that the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force because they feared that the people would stone them. The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. Peter and the other apostles replied, We must obey God rather than human beings. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead, whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as prince and savior, that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. But when they heard this they were furious and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gomliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed the Sanhedrin, Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do with these men. Some time ago Theudus appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case I advise you, leave these men alone, let them go, for if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men. You will only find yourselves fighting against God. His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged, then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. Day after day in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. Why exactly Gomliel was thinking this way, why he stood up to defend these rabble rousers remains unclear. We don't know exactly. Twenty centuries later, all we can do is speculate. But taking the text at face value, there are several lessons that can be learned. First, this commonplace notion that Christianity and Judaism have always been two separate religions is misleading at best. At the beginning, they were not two religions. They were two communities within the same Jewish world. It took generations before they diverged enough for those who were alive at the time to see them as distinct. Second, the story of Gomliel's intervention overturns this simplistic narrative that many of us have inherited about the Pharisees, namely, Pharisees bad, Christians good. No one was more of a Pharisee than Gomliel. In fact, one of his own students, Shaul of Tarsus, better known to us Christians as the Apostle Paul, pointed to his education under Gamliel as proof of his Jewish credentials. Writing in one of his epistles to defend his bona fides, Paul proudly declared that he was educated at the feet of Gamliel. And yet Gamliel, like several other Pharisees during Jesus' own lifetime, think of Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, broke ranks with some of his more hostile colleagues. And the question is, why? Why did he do this? Why did he stand up in front of the Sanhedrin and make this intervention? And here we get to the third lesson, the most important lesson. In Gomliel's case, his argument rests on a profound confidence in God's active involvement in history in the Mishnah, which is the great compilation of the Jewish oral tradition that was completed a couple of centuries after Gamliel's death. He is called Rabban, a term of very high reverence. And he's credited with this saying, appoint for yourself a teacher, remove yourself from doubt, and do not make a habit of tithing by guesswork. Later commentators interpreted this maxim as Gomliel's warning against hasty judgment, imprecise judgment, immature judgment. Whether or not that maxim sheds light on what we're reading here in the book of Acts, we don't know. But the spirit is remarkably similar. Gomliel no doubt believed the Sanhedrin had the right and indeed the responsibility to guard against false teaching, to protect the Torah and the people of Israel. But he also understood the danger of excessive zeal, of bad timing, and of expending enormous energy confronting threats that God himself would dismantle if they were truly false. He reminds the council of these failed messianic movements which had risen and fallen within their own lifetime. And he says, if this Nazarene movement belonged in that category, it would meet the same fate. But if God was behind it, the Sanhedrin would be powerless to stop it. It seems that in Gomliel's mind, there was just too much ambiguity surrounding this man, Jesus of Nazareth, and his disciples. Too much ambiguity to justify unleashing the full punitive power of the Jewish people's highest court. God would either vindicate this movement or he would destroy it. But in either case, the final judgment belonged to him. As I've pointed out in previous episodes, the defining characteristic of the Hebraic tradition is this radical focus on the God of Israel, this theocentrism and radical trust in that God's sovereignty over history. It is an unfailing conviction that his purposes, however mysterious they may be, will prevail, and they'll prevail despite the efforts of those who try to oppose them. Now, let's be clear: Gamliel's intervention in defense of the disciples was not, as far as we know, rooted in love for Jesus or belief in the gospel. There were traditions in later centuries that Gamliel was actually a secret believer, but we really have no evidence in that regard. It seems that Gamliel stood up because of two things. One, his love for Klali Israel, for the people of Israel, this principle of Ahavat Israel, promoting love and harmony within the body of the Jewish people, and in this total reliance on the highest authority, on the one who judges in righteousness, especially in doubtful matters. So, how does any of this relate to our world today? In moments of crisis when it feels like the world is falling down around our ears, there is a temptation to lash out, to identify the heretics, be they religious or political, and mark those people out for punishment. But Gomliel's wisdom points in a different direction. He recognized the limits of human knowledge, and he trusted that where certainty was lacking, God himself would sort it out. And didn't the history of Israel prove how mysterious and even counterintuitive God's purposes could be? It would have been so easy during the Babylonian exile to call for raising an army against. King Nebuchadnezzar and to feel that that was in fact what God wanted. It would have been so easy during the Roman period to build a whole movement around anti-Roman resistance, as many in fact did. Those were the zealots. But in retrospect, we can see that such efforts would have actually resisted rather than advanced God's purposes in those particular moments. God used both Babylon and Rome to accomplish ends that few people could understand at the time. And so I say to those Christians who are quick to judge Gamliel's descendants or to attribute sinister motives to the Jewish people, I offer the example of Gamliel himself. Who is to say that God is not still using the Jewish people? Even Judaism itself, the ingathering of the Jewish exiles in the Jewish homeland. Who's to say that God is not using all of that to accomplish his sovereign purposes in history? Gamliel was humble enough to admit that he didn't know. And because he didn't know, and because he trusted God, he erred on the side of restraint. And I think it would behoove Christians to extend that same restraint to his descendants, to the Jewish people. Today, Gamliel's recognized as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and he's venerated in different ways in other parts of the body of Christ, which is entirely fitting. He stuck his neck out in a big way in this moment. And we should be grateful for him and we should honor him. He should be remembered as a bridge figure, someone who stood at a key moment when the Jewish people was experiencing the surge of belief in this Messiah figure, Jesus of Nazareth. He should be remembered as someone who understood that faithfulness to God sometimes requires restraint instead of certainty. He's someone who didn't wield power against those whose guilt hadn't yet been established. And when I look at Gomliel, I see somebody who saw the bigger picture. It was vague, it was hazy, but he understood that there was a bigger picture. And that concerns of the moment, however disturbing they were, and I'm sure they were deeply disturbing, were not the end of the story. Gamliel staked everything on the reality of a living God. Call it Gamliel's rule. In moments of uncertainty, trust God enough to leave room for him to act. I want to say I'm really enjoying recording these podcast episodes, and I'm especially glad to read the comments that people have been sending me. It's a humble operation, keeping it very simple, but I trust that uh if God is in it, it will in fact grow. And this commonwealth of Jerusalem will become more and more self-aware. So again, rate, review, share. These are the tasks. And uh if you have that extra moment, send me a message, Robert at rotw.com. Would love to hear from you. And uh we'll welcome your ideas about uh where we can take the show. Until next time, many blessings to you all. Thanks for listening.