NOTES for Act 26:8

The apostle Paul asks this question of King Agrippa, who is half-believing like the majority of people now living on earth. Such people think that God evidently exists, but their ideas about what He is like, what relationships with Him can be, and what this means for human life are often very far from true godliness.

How precisely Paul formulates his rhetorical question, one that does not require an immediate answer but forces thought, to one of such people. He does not call the existence of God into question, nor does he prove it. More than that, he does not ask King Agrippa's opinion about God's omnipotence; otherwise he would have asked: "Do you consider it impossible..." No, for God all things are undoubtedly possible. But one can boldly regard it as incredible that God would do something contrary to His plan, His will. If death is created by God, if that is His plan for the human lot, then resurrection of the dead is completely incredible. But Scripture affirms that death is the consequence of the fall (Gen. 3), and through the prophets, Paul's question to Agrippa in v. 27 is not accidental, God reveals that He does not desire human death: "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but that the sinner turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33:11). And for God it is altogether normal to set right what we have mangled, and therefore the resurrection of the dead cannot be considered incredible at all.