Acts 13

Acts 13:1-52

Acts Chapter 13 Peter, with the exception of his part in the council held in Jerusalem (Acts 15), disappears from the inspired history before us. Another figure comes not merely into prominence, but into centrality even from this, the first chapter of what may be justly regarded as the second volume of the Book of Acts. Not from Jerusalem but from Antioch (already so remarkable for Christian zeal impressing itself strikingly on those without, as well as for the first corporate stand made or mentioned among the Gentiles), we hear of a mission by the Holy Ghost. ‘Now there were at Antioch in the assembly that was [there]1 prophets and teachers: Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius the Cyrenean, and Manaen foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And as they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said Separate Me “Barnabas and 2Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they let them go. They then, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down unto Seleucia and thence sailed away unto Cyprus, and when they were at Salamis, they announced the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they had also John as attendant. And having gone through the whole3 island unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a Jewish false prophet, whose name [was] Bar-Jesus, who was with the pro-consul Sergius-Paulus, an intelligent man. He, having called to [him] Barnabas and Saul; desired to hear the word of God.

But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name interpreted) opposed them, seeking to turn away the pro-consul from the faith. But Saul who also [is] Paul, filled with [the] Holy Spirit, 4with fixed look at him said, O full of all guile and all trickery, devil’s son enemy of all righteousness wilt thou not cease perverting the Lord’s right ways? And now behold [the] Lord’s hand [is] upon thee; and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell upon him a mist and darkness, and he went about seeking persons to lead him by hand. Then the pro-consul seeing what was done believed, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord’ (vers. 1-12). 1 ABD, more than six cursives, et al,, and almost all the ancient Versions do not read τινες ‘some’, or ‘certain’, as in the majority. 2 Text. Rec. has τε with slight authority, but τόν before Σαῦλον has large support. 3 ὃλην is authenticated by the best authority, though omitted in Text. Rec. with most MSS. 4 Text Rec. in ver 9 follows many in giving the copulative. None can deny a plurality of gifted men, five of high rank in full service of Christ, and this expressly in ’the church that was at Antioch.’ ‘Churches’ in the same place, each with its own minister, we see here as everywhere ignored. It is not meant that the faithful may not have met to break bread regularly in many houses here or there, as we know they did in Jerusalem; but none the less did they in that city as in every other constitute ’the assembly’ there. Unity prevailed, which only the Holy Spirit could form or maintain; not unity invisible or for heaven merely and admitting of actual diversity or even antagonism, but rather living and manifest unity on earth: which as yet the gifts, and the elders where they existed, subserved, instead of being the instruments of expressing their independency. It is also to be observed that these five prophets and teachers are named neither in worldly style nor in ecclesiastical rank; otherwise Barnabas had not been first, still less had Saul been last. They seem rather arranged in the order of spiritual birth - at any rate so far as they were known to the saints in Antioch. He who was Herod the tetrarch’s foster-brother is neither first nor last. But the gracious power of the Lord according to His word in Matthew 20:16 was soon to make first in the testimony of His truth him who here occupies the last place. ‘Whilst they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Separate Me [now] Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ The ministering to the Lord here must not be confounded with His service in preaching or teaching; it was no doubt mainly prayer and intercession. That the Lord’s supper was concerned is a crude and unfounded idea; for this supposes the fellowship of saints in the remembrance of Christ, and in its principle contemplates all saints, whereas the ‘ministering’ here was simply on the part of the fellow-labourers, it may be presumed, that the Lord might be pleased to direct and bless the work, and that each of them might be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work. This is confirmed by the fasting which accompanied their spiritual action toward the Lord, expressive as it of course is of the outward nature abased that the inner might be the more undividedly before Him, rather than of the chief public occasion of the church’s thanksgiving and united praise. It is probable that the Holy Spirit may have used one or more of the prophets to convey the mind of God as to the work to which He had summoned Barnabas and Saul. So it appears to have been in Timothy’s case (1 Timothy 1:18; 1 Timothy 4:14), though we see direct action in that of Philip (Acts 8:29). Here, whatever the channel, the word was not to the church, as Alford assumes, but to the fellow-labourers as a whole to separate those two for the special work before them. The language is very expressive of the Spirit’s personal interest and authority as One here below immediately concerned in the highest and most intimate degree. It is the Spirit Who says, ‘I have called them.’ Neither Barnabas nor Saul was now called for the first time authoritatively to the service of Christ; for, even the younger of the two had laboured notoriously and efficiently for years, both in the gospel and in the church. Ordination by brethren of a rank inferior to themselves would be the result gained by men who are precipitately anxious to extract that rite from the passage.

If there was any such thing in the case, the proceedings would be irreconcilable with all its acknowledged principles, and for episcopacy in particular. But the ‘separation’ here described is of a wholly distinct nature and with a different purpose, as the intelligent reader cannot but see if unbiased. Certain it is that Galatians 1:1 repudiates, with marked precision, what many ancients and moderns have erroneously founded on the interesting and instructive circumstance before us. Paul declares that he was apostle (not of men as source, nor by man as channel, but) by Jesus Christ and God the Father Who raised Him from the dead. It would have admirably suited his judaizing detractors to have argued that he owed his ministerial title to the three teachers at Antioch who laid their hands on him and Barnabas; but bold as his old adversaries were at Corinth or in Galatia or elsewhere, we are not told that they dared to go so far in their insinuations. Clearly his own statement precludes summarily and for ever all effort thus to lower his apostleship or, what comes to much the same result, to exalt ordination at the expense of the apostle Paul in this place or any other. The third verse confirms the remarks made on the early words of verse 2, for here we have again fasting with prayer. But though an initiatory ceremony assuming to convey holy orders is not here intended, yet do we see a holy and solemn tone sustained in striking contrast with that which prevails in some modern forms mistakenly built on it. The ‘charge’ and the ‘dinner’ suit well those for whom fasting and prayer offer no attractions. ‘Ember days’ may be formal enough, but at least resemble more and might be morally better. The Lord was the one object then, and the Holy Spirit wrought in power, and a service of self-abnegation to God’s glory was the blessed fruit. The outward acts flowed from the life within. So with the laying on of hands.

It was a general sign of identification, or of blessing given. In the case before us their fellow-labourers solemnly commended the honoured pair to the grace of God with this seal of their own fellowship in the work. ‘They sent them forth’ is here objectionable; because it might be, as it has been, interpreted to mean the mission to which they had authorized Barnabas and Saul. But the word chosen excludes such a thought and simply means ’let them go’ without a shadow of commission in it. The idea of mission is conveyed forcibly in the beginning of verse 5: ‘They then, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down unto Seleucia and thence sailed away unto Cyprus, and, when they were at Salamis they announced the word in the synagogues of the Jews; and they had also John as attendant. And having gone through the whole island unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a Jewish false prophet, whose name [was] Bar-Jesus, who was with the pro-consul Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man.’ Thus we see Saul, not only called by the glorified Christ from heaven, but now sent out with his elder companion by the Spirit from the city remarkable for being the first directly named assembly among the nations. Here took place the apostle’s ‘separation’ (comp. Romans 1:1) unto gospel work, though not his only. All was outside Jerusalem and the twelve. His call was heavenly, his mission toward the Gentiles and from the bosom of the first Gentile assembly; but the energy and direction were of the Holy Spirit, though his fellow-servants testified their communion with’ the two in their work. John Mark waited on them in person, and no doubt helped on the work in his measure.

To call him chaplain or deacon would be ridiculous, if such perversion could admit of such a feeling. It is humbling that godly men should descend so low. Let modern practice rest on its true basis: scripture is no warrant for it. We may notice the practice of the apostle which answered to the principle so familiar in his inspired words, ’to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.’ When at Salamis they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. It was indeed the only place of a religious sort where any such liberty existed. And such also was God’s order till Jerusalem was destroyed, or at least the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, when the ’no difference’ which the gospel declares found a yet more manifest and final application. But till then the door was open, and those who possessed a Jewish title were free therein to read or expound the scriptures. But it was at its capital, Nea Paphos (not exactly the spot so celebrated as the dissolute seat of Aphrodite’s worship), that the gospel came into collision, not with Jewish prejudice only, but with this intensified and embittered by religious imposture and sorcery. ‘And when they had gone through the whole island unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer (or magician), a Jewish false prophet, whose name [was] Bar-Jesus, who was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. He having called to [him] Barnabas and Saul sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is interpreted his name) withstood them, seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith.’ Salamis being on the east, as Paphos on the west, they had to cross the island as a whole; as the best copies say, though this is omitted in the common text. The interest of the Roman governor aroused the jealous opposition of the corrupt Jew who had had influence over a mind shocked with demoralizing idolatry but open to displays of power, not without some show of revelation. What could be more overwhelming to the Jewish impostor’s influence than the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ? But the pro-consul1 (not ‘deputy’ or legate, as in the Authorized Version) had a conscience in exercise and by grace an ear for the truth, which soon turned toward that which was of God, when the testimony reached his soul.

Bar-Jesus (= son of Jesus, or Joshua) called himself ‘Elymas’, the wise man, or magician which was a title apparently akin to the Oriental ‘Ulemah’. This wickedness drew out the solemn rebuke of Saul (henceforward called Paul)2 accompanied by a sentence from God which the Holy Ghost gave him not only to utter but to execute. The rareness of such judicial inflictions under the gospel makes their occurrence all the more impressive. 1 Wiclif and the Rhemish, guided by the Vulgate, say ‘pro-consul’; Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Version give the vague ‘ruler of the country’. It is of the more moment to be exact, as Cyprus under the Romans had been imperial and hence governed by a pro-praetor; but not long before it had been handed over by Augustus to the people, which involved government by a pro-consul, ἀνθύπατος instead of the former ἀντιστράτηλος. 2 We need not speculate on the question whether the apostle had always two names, a Jewish one and a Gentile or Roman; or whether the latter may have been now given at this epoch, if not incident, when he entered publicly on his work among the Gentiles. The apostle then, ‘filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his eyes on him, and said, O full of all guile and all trickery (villainy or craft), devil’s son, enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease perverting the Lord’s right ways? And now, behold, [the] Lord’s hand [is] upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell upon him a mist and darkness, and he went about seeking leaders-by-hand’ (vers. 9-11). Sergius Paulius was precisely in the state for such an intervention to affect him profoundly. And we too can mark the difference of God’s dealing here, as compared with the Samaritan who offered a deeper affront if possible by the proposal to buy the power of conferring the Spirit on others. For he had been baptized, and is warned of his awful state, but exhorted to pray and repent. Bar-Jesus becomes the striking figure of the Jews, blinded themselves, in their effort to turn aside the blind Gentiles from the light of life. Yet it is not for ever, but ‘for a season’; as God will give them in due time to look on Him Whom they once rejected unto death to their own loss and ruin meanwhile. ‘Then the pro-consul when he saw what was done believed, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord’ (ver. 12) This is worthy of all consideration. It was not the wonder which struck him most, but the truth he was taught. The miracle arrested him, no doubt, as well it might; but how many like Simon Magus may have been amazed, beholding signs and great powers wrought! Faith grounded on such evidence is only natural, and has no divine root. The senses are struck, the reason is convinced, the mind receives the testimony, and the mouth confesses it. But there is no life apart from conscience exercised about one’s own evil before God, and from Christ the object of the soul as the gift of God’s love to a guilty sinner in pure grace.

This was true of Sergius, not of Simon. The one was amazed at the miracle, the other at least as much or more at the teaching which brought God before his soul and himself into His presence. This only is effectual. It is eternal life And this is just the difference between a true divine work in the soul and a mind convinced by evidence or earned along by tradition. The latter may be all well in itself, and be a reasonable homage to facts which cannot be got rid of fairly but which compel honest acknowledgment from all who bow to adequate proofs. Yet this may be and is where the soul has never met God in the conscience, where sin and even our own sins are not an unbearable burden, where the love is not trusted that gave His only-begotten Son and laid the burden on Him to suffer atoningly that the believer might have life, pardon, and peace. No displays of power, however wonderful, are so amazing in the eyes of faith as the grace of God in saving the lost through His own Son. This the governor was enabled to receive from God, and not a word more do we hear of the great man. The gospel gives to the greatest on earth; but it receives no glory from man.

One Man only it proclaims ’exalted in the highest’. In Him we may and ought to boast, for He is the Lord; and His grace in saving us, yea, in making us one with Himself on high to God’s glory, is the wonder of wonders. Henceforward, save perhaps under the shadow of Jerusalem (Acts 15:12; Acts 15:25), Paul has the chief place, as is indeed conveyed by the well-known phrase, not so used elsewhere in the New Testament (Mark 4:10, Luke 22:49), but familiar in the best writings of Greece (Plato Crat. 440 C.; Xenophon Anab. vii. 4, 16; Thucydides v. 21; viii. 63), οἱπερὶΠαῦλον (lit., ’those around Paul’), Paul and his company. ‘Now Paul and his company, having sailed from Paphos, came unto Perga of Pamphylia; and John departing from them returned unto Jerusalem. But they passing through from Perga came unto Antioch of Pisidia, and having gone into the synagogue on the sabbath-day, sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying Brethren (lit. Men-brethren), if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, speak’ (vers. 13-15). The defection of John here is remarked by the Holy Spirit. It was not a trifle in God’s mind, and the difference it occasioned afterwards, when Barnabas would have joined him again with Paul, proved serious for servants so ardently and justly attached. John had not faith and courage for the work opening before them and returned to Jerusalem where were his mother and the associations so dear to the natural heart. But on the other hand we must not exaggerate with those who affirm that a stumble is fatal. It may be so in a horse; but one might suppose that Christian men better knew both their own probable experience and the teaching of scripture expressly in this very case. Grace turned past failure to future profit, and at a later day the great apostle was as earnest to commend his ministry as he could not but blame the failure when in progress. We next see Paul and Barnabas at Antioch of Pisidia in the synagogue on the sabbath. It is remarkable what measure of liberty was enjoyed. After the reading of the law and the prophets, a message came to them from the synagogue-rulers to speak if they had any word of exhortation for the people. Can there be a more painful contrast with the habits of Christendom? Assuredly one might from scripture expect more liberty where grace rules than among those born and bred in the trammels of the law. Yet who ever hears of such an invitation nowadays?

So completely has the church departed from the enjoyment of that holy liberty, which is characteristic of the Spirit of the Lord. In this case too the visitors were but strangers, unknown to any, it would seem, save as grave godly-looking Jews. Routine governs in modern times on solemn public occasions, were the strangers ever so well known by report for their gifts and labours and life. It was Paul who rose to address the congregation. ‘And Paul stood up and beckoning with the hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God,1 hear. The God of this people chose out our fathers and exalted the people in their sojourn in [the] land of Egypt and with a high arm brought them out of it, and for a time of about forty years bore them nurse-like in the desert, and when He had destroyed seven nations in [the] land of Canaan, He gave them their land for an inheritance, in about four hundred and fifty years. And after these things He gave judges until Samuel the prophet and then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of [the] tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And having removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also bearing witness He said, I found David, son of Jesse, a man according to My heart, who shall do all My will. From his seed, according to promise, did God bring to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, when John had preached before [lit. before the face of] His entrance a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was fulfilling his course, he said, What suppose ye that I am? I am not [He], but behold, there cometh One after me the sandal of Whose feet I am not worthy to loose’ (vers. 16-25). 1 The place given to Gentile proselytes is here in the apostle’s address distinctly marked for the first time. It is all-important to observe the basis of fact on which the gospel hinges, no less than the hopes of Israel. It is not so in the religious systems of men. In India, for instance, all is but speculation and reasoning as in ancient heathenism, mere fable. So it is with the Buddhist and the Confucian systems. Nor is it different with Mohammedanism, as far as it puts forth any distinctive claim. Nowhere do men even pretend to a substratum of fact such as that on which repose both the Old and the New Testaments respectively.

Shake the facts and their foundations are alike gone. If the facts abide irrefragable, the most momentous consequences ensue both to faith and to unbelief. And although there are weighty differences in the history of the Old Testament as compared with the one commanding figure of Christ in the New, there is nothing more marked and unstinting than the seal of truth which the New everywhere puts upon the certainty of the Old in all the wonders it records. This is the more striking because the New Testament has no enemies more determined and deadly than the Jews, to whose custody the ancient oracles were committed. The witnesses of the New Testament, on the contrary, maintain a uniform and unhesitating testimony to the absolute truth of the Old Testament; which they prove to have no adequate result, apart from the appearing and work of the Lord Jesus. And we may add that there is no sufficient key to the present abnormal state of the Jews, without taking into account the rejected and suffering but risen Messiah; on which rock they have made shipwreck through unbelief, however else they themselves essay to explain their actual ruin as a people. Accordingly there come to view these solemn yet plain facts, which only prejudice can overlook or deny. On the one hand the real, living, priceless value not only of the New Testament but of the Old is found by sovereign goodness in the church of God. On the other hand, alas! the ancient people of God have ears but they hear not, eyes but they see not, and hearts which do not understand at all for the present; else conversion, healing, and glory would doubtless be theirs. For the light and the love of God, inseparable from Him Who sits at His right hand on high, are only enjoyed among those who were once dogs of the Gentiles, but are now, in pure mercy yet according to the righteousness of God in Christ, made free of the riches of His grace and the counsels of His glory in Christ the Lord. First the dealings of God from His choice of the fathers are at once connected with the exodus of the people from Egypt, and His nurture of them in the wilderness till He gave them to inherit the land. It is the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua in miniature, centring in Israel beloved for the fathers’ sake. The gospel confirms, instead of annulling, God’s love to Israel, though it announces ‘some better thing for us’ as in Hebrews 11:40. The reader will notice the beautiful expression of verse 18 weakened in the more favourite ancient MSS. BCcorr DHLP, et al., but happily preserved in ACpm. E, as well as in most of the ancient versions, as it seems truest to the Hebrew in Deuteronomy 1:31 which the apostle, beyond just doubt, had in view. Here Tregelles and Westcott and Hort1 part from most moderns as well as others of weight. 1 As usual, the note of the Cambridge Editors is ingenious, so much so as to overshoot the mark. But to bear in the sense of ‘carry is not the same as ’to be patient with’, and both Deuteronomy and the apostle are dwelling on God’s favour to His people, rather than on their bad manners, as Chrysostom long ago remarked. In verses 19, 20 there is a notable difference from the common words. It is not giving by lot which is the point, though in itself true, as (by the least and lowest possible testimony) in the received text, but causing them to inherit their land. But here there is a more united front among the editors of late; for, excepting Dean Alford, almost all accept ABC, et al., and the ancient versions save the Syrr. and Aeth. This connects the date of ‘about 450 years’ with the accomplishment of the promised inheritance (under law, which made nothing perfect). The common text makes it the duration of the judges. But it appears to me that the dative of epoch suits the sense of the critical text as distinctly as it disagrees with the common one. Both before and after this phrase the accusative is given to express a term of continuance, here only the dative. Now if the idea intended were the supply of judges for 450 years, the accusative would here also be the natural construction. At any rate, it is a date within which a certain action occurred, and not duration as in the other cases. If the oldest vouchers be accepted, it was in about 450 years that Israel was made to inherit this land, after the promise to ‘our-fathers’, i.e., from the birth of Isaac as the starting-point. Indeed so Junius and others take the common reading, not as the space for which judges were given but in which God had fulfilled His promise at least provisionally, till judges were given in the low estate of His people.

It cannot therefore be assumed that Paul assigns a duration of 450 years to the judges, and so invalidates the date (in 1 Kings 6:1) of 480 years from the Exodus to the founding of Solomon’s temple. More than one period of considerable duration has been added to the space of the Judges which really fell within other assigned dates. But it suffices here to note that the extended space for judges drawn from the verses before us is illegitimate. Ussher (Works xii. 70; xiv. 340) firmly holds to the integrity of both the Hebrew and the Greek in both these scriptures, rejecting the bold conjectures of Luther and others as wholly needless and of course improper. The apostle then rapidly sketches God’s deep and constant interest in His people till a king was given, but stops with David, the known type of the Messiah as his own psalms abundantly testify. From him easy transition is made to his promised seed, whom, he declares, God ‘brought'1 to Israel a Saviour, Jesus (ver. 23). Was not this like Him? Was it not assured in the law and the prophets as well as the psalms? Were the Jews not looking for Him? Did they not miserably need Him? 1 ‘Raised up’, as in the Text. Rec. supported by CD and many other authorities, has a weight far below what I adopt, and was due probably to the language of the preceding verse. Nor could it be said that God had failed to attest His long promised intervention by renewed testimony, the more impressive because the living voice of a prophet was unheard for more than four centuries after Malachi. And as all took John for a prophet, so did our Lord bear witness to him as more than a prophet, being Jehovah’s messenger before Messiah’s face to prepare the way before Him: Isaiah and Malachi had previously intimated it. So, before the face of His entering in, John preached a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel; nor was it moral only, in self-judgment before God, but saying unto them that they should believe on Him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus. It was avowedly a token of His manifestation to Israel (John 1:31). Of the Baptist’s meaning which they quite mistook, ready as human nature is to exaggerate man and to depreciate God, no ground for doubt was left by the forerunner: ‘And as John was fulfilling his course, he said, What suppose ye that I am? I am not [He]; but behold, there cometh One after me the sandal of Whose feet I am not worthy to loose;’ Here again were new facts which could not be disputed.

John is spoken of as a known witness, though none knew better than Paul that grace alone gives the truth efficaciously by delivering from the self-will which enables Satan to forge his chains of dark unbelief. But who knew better than he to press the value of a testimony which he too once had ignored like the rest, and would now commend as having proved its worth? Next comes Paul’s appeal, but an appeal grounded on fresh facts of the gravest and most affecting significance. ‘Brethren [Men-brethren], sons of Abraham’s race, and those among you that fear God, to us1 was the word of this salvation sent forth. For the dwellers in Jerusalem and their rulers, having ignored Him and the voices of the prophets that are read on every sabbath, fulfilled [them] by judging [Him]. And though they found no cause of death, they besought Pilate that He might be slain. And when they fulfilled all things written about Him, they took [Him] down from the tree and put [Him] into a tomb, but God raised Him from [the] dead, and He appeared for many days to those that came up with Him from Galilee unto Jerusalem, the which are now His witnesses unto the people’ (vers. 26-31). 1 ‘Us’ ABD et al. The mass support ‘you’; but ‘us’ includes the witnesses benignly. The you’ just before may have got repeated. The sending forth to Israel of ’the word of this salvation’ (for no less does the gospel carry) stands solemnly confronted by the stubborn ignorance of those who most boasted, the dwellers in Jerusalem and their rulers; who had the voices of the prophets read sabbath by sabbath, yet fulfilled them in unbelief, knowing neither themselves nor Him Whom they presumed to judge, the Judge of Israel smitten on the cheek, the Judge of quick and dead hung on the tree, the meek and most holy bearer of all curse from God and man on the cross. Yes, they blindly fulfilled all things written by God concerning Him, law, psalms, and prophets centring in Him Whom most of all they ought to have known Whom least they knew; for their eye was not single, and their body full of darkness consummated in the death of their own Messiah extorted from the reluctant Pilate, blind indeed and not without warning and moral witness, the contrary of the false witnesses that destroyed each other, but not so blind as they who said they saw, and so their sin remained and remains alas, to this day! ‘But God raised Him from the dead.’ Paul differs not from Peter in putting forward this foundation-truth of the gospel. What a fact proved by all conceivable evidence, that grace could, would, and did supply, of which such a thing admits suitably to God’s character and glory as well as man’s sin and folly! Nor is it only ’the great exception’ to rebuke the vanity, pride, and will of unbelieving man; but what a spring and supply of peace, light, joy and blessing to all who believe! Here, however, it is not the victory of righteousness, which God’s grace secures and gives freely to faith, that is set forth and that the apostle loved to enlarge as to the saints, but the demonstration of the world’s and especially of Israel’s blindness, when they had unconsciously fulfilled all that was written concerning Him till they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. ‘But God raised Him from the dead.’ It was not only the object of promise come, but also, when all through unbelief seemed lost in His rejection and death, God’s intervention in raising Him up from among the dead. To this answers nearly the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans, where the Lord Jesus is presented, first, as Son of David according to the flesh, then, as Son of God in power by resurrection of [the] dead according to the Spirit of holiness. Glad tidings in good sooth! glad tidings of a victory over all that sin could do up to death itself. The victory over evil is won in Satan’s last stronghold by God’s grace in Christ, that man may believe and be saved before He executes judgment on His persistently unbelieving adversaries. It is therefore no question of man’s desert, for righteousness he has none before God, but unrighteousness much in every way. God’s righteousness alone avails, God being righteous in His estimate of the efficacy of Christ, and above all of His death, on behalf of those who in themselves are wholly lost. But here the apostle points out the gracious care and wisdom of God in giving the risen Christ to be ‘seen’, and this not once or twice only, but ‘many days’. Now who could be valid witnesses of this stupendous fact? Comparative or absolute strangers to His person, or those most familiar with Him when alive? Unquestionably the latter; and to such accordingly He appeared when risen, to the slowest of all to believe Him alive again for evermore, in proportion to their deep grief and disappointment over His cross and grave. His enemies remembered His words that He was to rise in three days, and vainly sought to make all sure by sealing the stone that closed the sepulchre and by the watch, which only turned to their own confusion, when the guards trembled and became as dead men through fear of the angel after the Lord arose. But the very slowness of His friends to believe, inexcusable as it was, turned to account when He was seen ‘of those that came up with Him from Galilee unto Jerusalem, such as are now1 His witnesses to the people’.

The common text with more than one excellent MS. of antiquity omits the adverb, though it is really emphatic and important. They are at this moment, says the apostle, His witnesses to the Jews; and none the less does he insist on it because he was not one of them. Indeed with this class he contrasts himself and Barnabas; for grace provided another character of testimony if by any means the mouth of gainsayers might be stopped. Witnesses were raised up, who were wholly unacquainted with Him when here in the days of His flesh. Nay, Paul himself was bitterly hostile till He revealed Himself to and in His enemy, henceforth His devoted bondman, outside Damascus. What possible testimony other or more could be wisely given or desired?

Alas! unbelief of God is as deadly in its nature and working, as in its source its aims, and its results. 1 ‘Now’ is attested by AC, more than twenty cursives, and almost all the ancient versions. Hence even Tregelles goes with modern critics generally, and only Westcott and Hort bracket the word, presumably in deference to the Vatican. From verse 32 comes the application of the facts as to the Messiah, already given in verses 23-31, especially His death on man’s part, His resurrection on God’s, not without ample witness of His appearing subsequently among those who knew Him best. ‘And we (we, emphatic) declare to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God hath fulfilled this to us their children 1 having raised up Jesus, as also in the seconds psalm it is written, Thou art My Son: this day have I begotten Thee. But that He raised Him from [the] dead, no more to return unto corruption, He hath spoken thus, I will give you the faithful mercies of David; wherefore1 also in another [psalm] He saith, Thou wilt not suffer Thy holy (merciful) One to see corruption. For David, having in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was added to his fathers, and saw corruption. But He Whom God raised up saw no corruption. Be it known to you therefore [men-] brethren, that through this [Man] remission of sins is preached to you; and2 from all things from which ye could not in Moses’ law be justified, in Him every one that believeth is justified’ (vers. 32-39) l ‘To our children’ is the strange reading of the most ancient authorities. So the ‘first’ psalm (D, et al.) ver. 33, but this may be due to Jewish arrangement combining Pss. i. and ii. in one; and ‘because’ for ‘wherefore’ in ver. 35 2 ‘And’ is omitted by the most ancient authorities. Most of the late witnesses add ’the’ to ’law of Moses’. Here the apostle goes over the all-important points doctrinally. The coming of Christ was the accomplishment of the promise to the fathers their children had now the glad tidings of it in His person here below. The raising up of Jesus in verse 33 does not therefore go beyond the Child thus born, the Son thus given. And with this agrees Psalms 2:7, which refers not to His resurrection from the dead, as many have supposed, but to His birth, as the words simply express it, so that a further or mystic meaning here is not only uncalled for but mistaken. He, the Messiah, born of woman, born under law, was the object, accomplisher, and heir of the promises. For, how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea (2 Corinthians 1:20).

So to the Romans (Romans 1:2-3) the apostle describes himself as separated unto God’s gospel (which, he adds parenthetically, He had before promised through His prophets in holy scriptures) concerning His Son come of David’s seed according to flesh, just as it is treated here in the first place. But then he goes on, ‘marked out Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection of the dead’; just as here too he proceeds to cite Isaiah 55:3 and Psalms 16:10 as prophecies of Christ’s proper resurrection. Indeed it is surprising that any intelligent and careful reader ever understood the passage otherwise. For it is as certain as it is plain that, to God’s raising up the Messiah according to promise and the prophecy of the second psalm, verse 34 appends as another and still more momentous truth that God raised Him up ‘from the dead’. It is no mere reasoning on the verse before, no epexegetic explanation, but a further teaching of the highest value. Hence it is thus introduced, ‘And’ or ‘But that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return unto corruption, He hath spoken thus . . .’ Calvin accordingly is justified in his statement1 (Opera vi. Comm. in loco) that the word ‘raised up’ has a wider significance than where repeated just after. For it is meant that Christ was divinely ordained and as it were by God’s hand brought forth into light that He might fulfil the office of Messiah, as scripture here and there also shows us kings and prophets raised up by the Lord.

Acts 3:22; Acts 3:26, Acts 7:37, are clear cases of this usage of ‘raised up’ in the same Book; so that the Authorized Version in the wake of Tyndale is not safely to be defended in going out of the way to insinuate resurrection into verse 33. ‘Raised up’ is correct; ‘raised again’, might have been said, if the text had certainly pointed, as it does not really at all, to the resurrection. But ‘raised up again’ is unjustifiable. In any case the compound can only yield either ‘up’ or ‘again’, not both; and here we have seen on good and cogent grounds that ‘up’ is right, ‘again’ inadmissible, because rising from the dead is not intended in verse 33. 1 ‘Hic suscitandi verbum, meo iudicio, latius pates quam ubi paulo post repetitur. Neque enim tantum dicit Christum resurrexisse a mortuis, sed divinitus ordinatum et quasi menu Dei productum in lucem, ut Messiae parses impleret; sicut passim docet Scriptura, excitari a Domino reges et prophetas.’ It would not have been necessary or advisable to spend argument on the question, if Dean Alford and Canon Cook, following Hammond, Meyer, and others, had not unwittingly played into the hands of enemies who ridicule this very misapprehension of Psa 2:7, for which not Paul but his expounders are responsible. It has also been noticed that the addition of ’now’ in the English Version of verse 34 is not only needless but misleading, as it might imply a previous turn to corruption. Here too Tyndale misled all the public Protestant versions since his day, even to the Revised one. Psalms 2:7 is quoted then for Christ as Son of God in this world. It is neither His eternal Sonship, as some of the earlier Christian writers conceived, nor His resurrection, as the misapprehension of Act 13:33 was used to teach. His birth in time as Messiah is the point, ‘Thou art My Son: this day have I begotten Thee.’ Psalms 16:10 is cited (ver. 35) in proof not of His Sonship as man and Messiah here below, but of His resurrection, and therefore stands in close and logical connection with verse 34. Peter had already used this Psalm similarly in Acts 2:24-32; and it is strange that any who believe the Christian revelation can allow a doubt that Christ’s resurrection is the just and only meaning of the tenth verse of the psalm. I do not speak of their modesty in preferring their opinion to Saint Paul’s, if they count it becoming to slight the apostle Peter. The question is, is there such a thing as inspiration in any true sense? The application of Isa 55:3 in verse 34 is no less certain if we bow to apostolic authority, but not so easy, though, where seen, most instructive. But only the death and resurrection of the Messiah could make the covenant everlasting; only so could the promised holy or merciful blessings of David be made inviolable. Thus they are, as the LXX translate, τὰὅσιαΔαυεὶδτὰπιστά. Thus only could the soul even of the Jew live, or the door of grace open widely enough to take in a Gentile. Hence it will be seen that the chapter in Isaiah begins with the call of God to ’every one that thirsteth’. He Who was lifted up on the cross will draw all, not Jews only; and a risen Messiah, though He thereby gives the utmost sureness to Israel’s promises, cannot be bounded in His grace any more than in His glory, but will certainly have all peoples, nations, and languages to serve Him with an everlasting dominion. It is difficult in any rendering short of a paraphrase to mark for the English reader the close link between the ‘Holy One’ in Psalms 16:10 and the ‘mercies’ in Isaiah 55:3. Verse 1 of Psalms 89 compared with verse 19 as in the Authorized Version may help: very far different is the Revised Version of the Psalm here which can only darken. But the reader should know that the true force in verse 19 is. ‘Then speakest Thou in vision of Thy Merciful (or Holy) One’, Who is the personal concentration of the sure mercies of which the Psalmist sings in verse 1. They are ’the mercies’ of David no doubt, but, what is of all consequence, of Jehovah also; and so this psalm also everywhere speaks of David, and therefore confirms the truth in question. Christ beyond controversy is here in the mind and word of the Spirit of prophecy. Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel (in this case quite a distinct word and thought), speaks of Christ as His Holy or Gracious One.

It is not the same truth which the same apostle asserts in Romans 1:4: Christ declared or determined Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection. The same power of the Spirit in which He ever walked superior to all evil was proved by resurrection. In Acts 13:34 it is the holiness of grace and mercy manifested and operative in Him risen from the dead. After His baptism of suffering, known by Him as by none else, straitening was over, Jewish barriers righteously gone, the floods of grace could flow for ever and overflow. The apostle of the uncircumcision, in verses 36, 37, reasons pretty much as he of the circumcision in Acts 2:29-31; and both with unanswerable power. But one man, the Messiah, was, while tasting death, to see no corruption. David in his own generation served the counsel of God, but saw corruption: as did all his descendants, save that One of Whom he in the Spirit prophesied. Scripture cannot be broken. One man alone does and must fulfil the condition: Who was He but Jesus, the Christ? As a fact the witnesses attested His resurrection on the fullest evidence, apart from the predictions. All proofs centre in Him. God’s glory and love are His infinitely; so are man’s salvation, blessing, holiness, service in every true way and to the highest degree of which the creature is capable. And thereon the apostle, though of course limited by the state of his audience, brings out the message characteristically beyond what Peter had done to hearers more informed than those of Pisidia. ‘Be it known unto you therefore, brethren, that through this Man remission of sins is preached to you; and from all things from which ye could not in Moses’ law be justified, in Him every one that believeth is justified’ (vers. 38, 39). Was it not, is it not, grandly, yea divinely simple? What does a sinner supremely need? Forgiveness of sins. This the gospel proclaims: it is no question of a promise only. Remission of sins through Christ dead and risen is preached.

It is a free gift of grace, as is eternal life in Christ: the two wants of a sinner are there alone found, and are by Him freely given. To all it is preached; there is no limit to the grace of Christ, any more than to the efficacy of His blood. Among those that hear the gospel it takes effect only upon all that believe. For faith glorifies the Saviour God, as it abases man the sinner; and repentance accompanies it, real if faith is, shallow or deep in like manner, or alas! as unreal as may be the faith. But faith owns God’s grace in Christ, and so His righteousness revealed in the gospel. Of faith therefore is the blessing that it might be according to grace; and thus alone can either man be assured of it or God be glorified thereby. But there is more than remission of sins, that most deeply needed, in itself inestimable but initiatory, boon of the gospel: ‘And from all things, from which ye could not in Moses’ law be justified, in Him every one that believeth is justified.’ How boldly the apostle can speak! and this, not because his preaching or the style of it was any peculiarity of his position in the church, but in honour of the Saviour’s victory over every hindrance and all evil. To speak timidly might be well, if it were simply a question of man addressing or of men addressed. But the preacher of the gospel is not only free but bound to forget himself by grace in his magnifying of Him Who died and rose, in order that divine mercy might triumph for the worst, and this without money and without price for the sinner: Christ has paid the penalty - paid it long long ago. Here Moses’ law is wholly unavailing, whatever the pride, the unbelief, or the ignorance, of the Jew might think. There is no possibility of justification by that law, holy as it is, and the commandment holy and just and good. Law is all in vain to save.

It can give neither life nor pardon, neither holiness nor power. It puts a restraint on, and so alike discovers and provokes, lust; it is the power of sin, and works out wrath, it is thus a ministration of condemnation and death. What possible deliverance can it bring to the needy and lost sinner? Negatively indeed the law is used by grace to break him down, to deepen his distrust of self even when converted, and to cast him wholly on Christ outside and on high, Who gives him to know that he died with Himself, that he might walk and serve under grace, as being alive to God But the grace of God in the gospel justifies the believer ‘from all things’. Indeed, if it were not so, how could the sinner’s condition be met in a way worthy of God? If justification were partial, it might no less satisfy man, yea far more readily, than that free and full display of divine goodness in Christ which alone is the truth. Nothing is so excellent, so holy, so strengthening, so God-glorifying as the revelation of His grace in Christ, and this undiluted as well as unadulterated. But it seems extreme to some minds, lax to others, and dangerous to more. Consider Him in and by Whom the gospel came.

He was wholly misunderstood and unintelligible to the ‘wise and prudent’. As the mass believed not on Him, so many from among the rulers did not confess Him through fear; for they loved the glory of men rather than the glory of God. Even John the Baptist was more reasonably right in their eyes than his Master and Lord; as those that refused Him Who came in His Father’s name will by-and-by receive him that comes in his own. Nothing is so condemnatory of fallen man, and especially when he glories in his character or in his religion, as grace; nothing so foreign and even repulsive to his mind and to his self-righteousness. For it levels all mankind, high and low, learned and ignorant, loose or moral, superstitious or profane, in one indiscriminate grave of sin and ruin Godward - of spiritual death, whole it proclaims to faith, and only to faith, a present, full, and everlasting redemption. This is offensive to man’s thought and title who can soon find reasons to argue himself into unbelief and rejection of God’s word, as if it were but the opinion of fallible and mistaken man, and thus makes manifest his unremoved heart-enmity to God. The work of grace however goes on, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. Conscience-stricken souls, hearts pining after God long slighted and sinned against, are won by the name of Jesus, and gladly receive that remission of sins which is preached to them, and adore as they take in the wonder of mercy in Jesus in Whom every one that believes is justified from all things, from none of which could he be justified in Moses’ law or in any other way. Justification for a sinner is essentially a Pauline expression; being of faith, not of law, it was open to a Gentile as well as to a Jew. It was a word eminently suited to that great messenger of the gospel of God’s grace. And here we have it tersely in the first discourse of his which Luke reports or at least summarizes. So deals God’s righteousness which is now manifested apart from law: God just and justifying the believer as he is, the ungodly as he was (Romans 3:26; Romans 4:4).

How truly divine! No wonder man as such misses the truth: Christ is the only key that opens all. But the apostle does not conclude without a warning, appropriately drawn, for the Jews that listened with reluctant ears, from their own volume of inspiration. ‘See therefore that what is spoken of in the prophets come not on you,1 Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye will in no wise believe if one declare it to you’ (vers. 40, 41). It is especially Habakkuk 1:5 which is in substance cited, with perhaps Isaiah 29:14 and Proverbs 1:24-31 in view. Unbelief is the same evil scorn of God’s word, whether of old or by-and-by, and never worse than now when grace beseeches men as they are to be reconciled to God. And whatever the work to be done in the future, none can ever match what God has wrought already, the basis on which the gospel is proclaimed to every creature. The coming execution of judgment by the Chaldeans was sufficient to arrest any soul that heeded the warning voice of the prophet Habakkuk; and a destruction was then about to fall on Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans, as the Lord had predicted (Luke 19:43-44; Luke 21:20; Luke 21:24). But what is either providential work of God or any other than can be gleaned from the harvest of judgment in the future when compared with that which in His rejection and atoning work befell our Lord Jesus? 1 BD, some cursives, and a few Latin MSS. reject ἐφ᾽ὑμᾶς. And as the grace to sinners is immeasurable in the work which cost God and His Son all things in unsparing vengeance on sin - our sins, so is the wrath of God not yet executed, but revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? says the same apostle writing to the Hebrew confessors of Christ. Is there less sin, less danger, for those who in Christendom have grown up in the constant iteration of the same gospel, and are now exposed as men never were to the apostate infidelity of the day, which finds its life in nature and sets up physical law as the idol of its worship, if first along with Jesus soon to supersede Him, as none can serve two masters. It must be God, or the creature, not both, even if God were not, as He ought to be, a jealous God, as He is the true, and therefore necessarily intolerant of all spurious rivalry. Such was the discourse with which the great apostle of the Gentiles opened his missionary labours in the Pisidian Antioch (only about fifty years ago identified as Yalobatch by an intelligent British traveller). The result was cheering. And as they were going out (for the service was over, not interrupted as some have singularly imagined), the hearers besought that they might have these words spoken to them the next sabbath, the great occasion for such a discourse. Later, when the gathering was broken up, many of the Jews and the proselytes, attracted and impressed beyond the rest, followed Paul and Barnabas (for henceforth, at least away from Palestine, Paul has the precedence); as they on their part spoke more freely to them than the synagogue could permit, and urged them to abide in the grace of God. Gentiles there were none as yet to hear, beyond the proselytes but the ensuing sabbath beheld them drawn by the report in crowds; and the effect was as marked on them for good, as on many Jews for evil, as we shall see. Verse 42 has suffered not a little from both copyists and from commentators. The ordinarily received text instead of ’they’ (aujtw’n), has, with some cursives, the interpolation ἐκτῆςσυναγῶγηςτῶνἸουδαίων, which may have been due to the public lessons of early days, though more common in the passages taken from the historical books than in selections from the Epistles. But this addition, though unauthorized, does not contradict (though it may alter) the sense, like τὰἔθνη, ’the Gentiles’, which is made the subject of the sentence, to the confusion of the passage as a whole, and without the least to commend it in itself. The verse is quite general. ‘And as they were going out, they kept beseeching that these words might be spoken to them on the following sabbath. Now when the synagogue broke up, many of the Jews and of the worshipping proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who (οἴτινες) speaking unto them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And on the next sabbath almost all the city was gathered together to hear the word of God'1 (vers. 42-44). 1 Many ancient authorities, as is well known, concur in reading ’the Lord’ for God’. Dr. J. Bennett conceives that the critical reading of verse 42 points to the sense that they (i.e., Paul and Barnabas) entreated that the same things should be spoken to them (again). But this is quite a mistake. The true reading leaves us open to the people’s thus entreating the apostles; which appears to me much more simple and becoming as well as ‘delightful’. Even Calvin, who understands the sense to be that Paul and Barnabas went out while the Jews were yet assembled, holds that they (the apostles) were then requested . . ., though he was misled by the misreading to think it was the Gentiles who made request.

But what could have brought ’the Gentiles’ to the synagogue on the first sabbath? It is easy to understand that they flocked there on the second, and doubtless this it was and yet more their heed, as well as the free grace proclaimed, which roused the envy of the unhappy Jews. But even this premature introduction of the Gentiles though unfounded does not yield so strange and repulsive a meaning as that Paul and Barnabas (!) entreated that their discourse should be spoken on the next sabbath. That souls struck by the truth might beseech that ’these things’, blessed yet so startling, so momentous yet solemn, should be spoken to them again, is very intelligible, as it is the unforced sense of the true text. Tyndale completely missed the point of time intended, for he took εἰςτὸμεταξὺσάββατον of the intervening week - ‘bitwene the Saboth dayes’. But this was from oversight of the later usage of μεταξύ which signifies ‘after’, not ‘between’ only, as Kypke, Ott, and others have noticed with illustrations. Calvin was quite wrong therefore in censuring here the Vulgate and Erasmus who were right; and still more is Beza to be blamed, because he was a better scholar than the great theologian he followed, and he ought to have known how thoroughly Josephus, Plutarch, and Clem., Rom. 44 (twice), justify the text of the Authorized Version against the marginal alternative. Dr. J. Lightfoot plainly confirmed it from his vast Rabbinical learning. As verse 42 lets us know the general interest in what had been announced which prompted the desire to hear all again, so verse 43 adds that, on the break up of the congregation, many of the Jews and of the worshipping or devout proselytes followed the preachers thereon, who not only spoke to them but urged them to abide in the grace of God, which the gospel declares and they professed to receive. What can one think of a man like Calvin doubting whether it was not these young converts who exhorted Paul and Barnabas that they should not faint but stand firmly in the grace of God! He does not however (as Dean Alford thought) incline so strongly to this interpretation as to decide for it against the common and only correct view, that the gracious speech and confirmatory exhortation came from the apostles to those on whose hearts God’s grace had just dawned Again, in the beginning of verse 44 stands the expression on the ‘coming’ sabbath, vouched by both the most ancient uncials of highest character and the mass of cursives, and so not only adopted by Erasmus, the Complutensian, Colinaeus, R. Stephens, the Elzevirs, but also by Tischendorf eighth edition), Tregelles, and by Westcott and Hort. On the other hand at least two of the great uncials with several good cursives testify to the exactly technical word which differs by a letter less, for ’next following’, ’ensuing’. Acts 18:21 used to be cited for the former, till the critics omitted the clause; but there is no doubt that the rival reading is a standing usage of the inspired writer (Luke 13:33, Acts 20:15; Acts 21:26), as it is in the language generally. No wonder therefore that Alford, Bengel, Green Griesbach, Lachmann, Scholz, and Wordsworth accept it as right: an instructive instance, by no means uncommon, where a few copies are more accurate than the weight of both antiquity and number combined. ‘But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted the things spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, For you it was necessary that the word of God should be first spoken; but since ye thrust it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn unto the Gentiles. For thus hath the Lord enjoined us, I have set thee for a light of Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the uttermost parts of the earth’ (vers. 45-47). How base as well as evil and malignant is jealousy, religious jealousy above all as here! In general they had hailed the joyful sound when it first reached their ears, even though closed with a most serious warning; and ‘many’ had gone farther than the entreaty to have the truth spoken again. For many of the Jews, as well as of the devout proselytes, followed the apostles who exhorted them to abide as they had begun. But ’the crowds’ were too much for religious prejudice which was hitherto dormant and awakened the most malignant feelings in antipathy and abuse. Such is flesh in presence of grace and truth, and at the sight of hearts attracted and consciences touched. Had the gospel been powerless, the Jews had retained their equanimity, where the long preaching of Moses had never so wrought, its immediate effect in winning such large attention was intolerable.

But the hatred of grace, ruinous to those guilty of it, only enlarges the field of work, as it also liberates the messengers from an overcareful waiting on the men of tradition and its narrow channels. Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, instead of being shocked into silence by Jewish blasphemies, pointed out how faith denies not but defers to law in its own place, and, now that the ancient people of God were ignorantly spurning the best blessings of grace, announced this matchless road open to the needy and long despised Gentiles (ver. 46). The application of Isa 49:6 in the following verse is as striking as richly instructive. The theme of the prophet is the Messiah rejected by Israel, Who has this consolation vouchsafed by God: His humiliation opens the door to wider glory. This the slighted servants of Christ appropriate to themselves. Infinite grace, under like circumstances, warrants the men of faith: what was said of Christ is no less true of the Christian. ‘Thus hath the Lord enjoined us.’ It is a principle of far-reaching application, which faith knows how to guard from irreverence, however much of direction, comfort, and strength may be reaped from it. The reader may see another instance no less bold in the use made of Isa 1:7-9 in Romans 8:33-34. The spirit of obedience, we may add, finds an injunction where no other eye could discern one. Here first Gentiles as such come into prominence: others in this country who had heeded the apostles were proselytes from among them. Scripture was express as to the principle. ‘And the Gentiles, on hearing, rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained unto life eternal believed. And the word of the Lord was carried abroad through the whole country. But the Jews excited the women of rank that worshipped, and the chiefs of the city, and stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and sent them out of their borders. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and [the] Holy Spirit’ (vers. 48-52). The tide of blessing in God’s grace was now turned to the Gentiles. Christ is a light for revealing them now, as He is the glory of God’s people Israel. The nations had been long hidden as well as outside; they are now disclosed to view, the direct object not of law as Israel once, but of divine mercy in the gospel. The righteousness of God is unto all, though it takes effect only upon all that believe. So here they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained unto life eternal believed. The evil and the ruin are man’s: all the good is of God’s grace exclusively, and the believer enjoys it in His sovereign mercy. Thus the word of the Lord was carried abroad through all the country. And this roused a more systematic effort of opposition as usual on the part of the Jews, who urged on the devout women of position and the chief men of the city against the apostles with such a flood of persecution as to cast them out of their borders. As these ladies had been drawn into Judaism to their immense relief from the uncleanness as well as debasing follies of heathenism, one can understand how the sex would be peculiarly open to exciting influence against the testimony which left the law in the shade and they would know how to reach the first men of the city, as being of their own rank and in all probability nearly connected with themselves, so as to get the preachers expelled. But the apostles, bowing to the persecution, acted on the Lord’s word not only in fleeing to another city, but in shaking off the dust of their feet against their persecutors; while joy in the Holy Spirit filled the disciples, left behind as sheep in the midst of wolves.

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We now enter on the missionary journeys, as they are called, of the apostle Paul. The work, under the Spirit, opens to the glory of the Lord. Not merely are Gentiles met in grace and brought into the house of God: He had already wrought in their souls individually — this we have seen before, in Peter’s mission to Cornelius and his household; but grace goes out henceforth in quest not of Jews only but of Gentiles, as the special sphere which was assigned to Paul by God, and this also in co-operation with the other apostles; for thus they had agreed. But there are preliminary circumstances of no little interest and moment, which the Spirit of God has been pleased to give us before the record of these journeys. I have read at the beginning, of chapter 13 the principal scene of this kind. Saul of Tarsus had already been called, but here we have a formal act of separation. This is the true description of it in scripture. It was in no way what men call “ordination.” This he takes particular pains to deny in explicit terms. It was not only that man was in no sense the source of ministry; for this would be, no doubt, disavowed by the godly everywhere; but he employs the strongest words in showing that it was not by men as the channel.

As there are cases where man is the channel of conveying both a gift and authority, we can see how artfulness or ignorance can readily enough embroil the entire subject, and thus prepare the way for the building up of the clerical system. There is no ground for it in scripture. Ministry there is, and as a distinct though connected thing, an official charge: both are beyond question. These two things are clearly recognized by the Holy Ghost. Here we have nothing of official charge. So far as the apostle Paul had both a gift and a charge, and he had both (and the apostleship differs from the gift of a prophet as well as the rest in this, that it is not a gift only but a charge), all had been settled between the Lord and His servant.

But now it pleased God at this particular epoch to call forth Barnabas, who was a kind of transition link between the twelve, with Jerusalem for their centre and the circumcision for their sphere, and the free and unfettered service of Paul among the Gentiles. It pleased Him to separate these two chosen vessels of His grace for the work to which He was calling them. Let us look for a moment at the state of things at Antioch before we pass on. “And there were in the church” (or assembly) “that was at Antioch [certain]* prophets and teachers.” What is commonly called a stated ministry was there. All should give full weight to facts which if denied or overlooked would only weaken the testimony which God has given.

• The best uncials, cursives, and ancient versions, omit τινὲς, “certain.” It is the continual effort of those who oppose the truth of the church, and who deny the present ruined condition of it, to insinuate against such as have learnt from God to act on His own word, that they set aside ministry, and more particularly what they call “stated ministry.” They do nothing of the kind. They deny an exclusive or one-man ministry. They deny that abuse of ministry which would shut out of its own circle the operation of all gifts but one, which is jealous of every other save by its own will or leave, which has no sufficient confidence in the Lord’s call or in the power of the Holy Ghost given for profit, which consequently makes a duty of both narrowness and self-importance through a total misunderstanding of scripture and the power and grace of God. Not for a moment do I deny that all who are in any definite measure taught of God as to His will in the service of Christ must disavow clericalism in every shape and degree as a principle essentially and irreconcilably opposed to the action of the Holy Ghost in the church. But it is important to affirm that none understand the action of the Spirit who expose themselves and the truth (which is still more serious) to the deserved stigma of denying the real abiding-place of ministry. This is not in anywise the question. All Christians who have light from God on these matters acknowledge ministry to be a divine and permanent institution. It is therefore of very great importance to have scriptural views of its source, functions, and limits. The truth of scripture, if summed up as to its character, amounts to this — that ministry is the exercise of a spiritual gift. This I believe to be a true definition of it.

The minds of most Christians are encumbered with the notion of a particular local charge. Such a charge is altogether distinct from ministry: it is only confusion to suppose that they are the same thing, or inseparable. Ministry in itself has nothing to do with a local charge. The same person, of course, may have both: this might or might not be. A man, for instance, as we find in the case of Philip and others might have a local charge at Jerusalem, and there we saw the church choosing, because it was that kind of office which had to do with the distribution of the church’s bounty. This is the principle of it. What the church gives the church has a voice in. But the Lord gave Philip a spiritual gift, and there the church bows and accepts, instead of choosing. In point of fact the particular gift that Philip received from the Lord was not one that properly finds its exercise within the assembly, but rather without: he was an evangelist. But this establishes what I have been asserting; that is, that you may have a person without a charge who has a very special gift, and this for public ministry. The elders or bishops, of whom we shall hear more by-and-by, had a still more important charge. It was the office of oversight, or of a bishop, that was found in every fully-constituted assembly where there could be time for the development of that which was requisite in order to it. But whether there were charges or none, whether the due appointment was or was not, the Lord did not fail to give gifts for the carrying on of His own work. Now those persons who possessed gifts exercised them, as they were bound to do; for here was no question of appointment, and indeed their exercise had nothing, whatever to do with the leave, permission, or authority of any, but solely flowed from the Lord’s own gift. This was properly ministry in the word. But there never was such an idea broached, still less acted on, as the exclusive ministry which in modern times has been set up, as if it were the only right thing in theory or practice. In point of fact it is thoroughly wrong, not only not defensible by the word of God, but flagrantly opposed to it. Here, for example, we have the picture of an assembly drawn by the Spirit. It is the more instructive, because it cannot be pretended that here, as in the church at Jerusalem, there were elements which savoured of the anterior or Jewish state of things. It was among the Gentiles. It was where Saul himself laboured; but then there were other servants of the Lord beside Saul, — as Barnabas, and Simeon, and Lucius, and Manaen. Nor are these mentioned as if they were the only persons who there exercised the gifts of prophecy and teaching: no doubt they were the more important men. “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul” (for he is still called Saul, which was his Hebrew name) “for the work whereunto I have called them.” It was the Lord that called them. But there is more than this: the Holy Ghost can also set apart among the servants to a peculiar service. This is emphatically brought in when it was a question of Barnabas and Saul. Not, of course, but that the Holy Ghost had to do with the action of a Peter, or a John, or of any others that have come before us in the previous accounts of this book; but it is expressly said here — and not without an admirable reason, and of the deepest interest to us, because God is here preparing the road and instructing His servants as to His ways, more particularly in the church among the Gentiles. Hence, the Holy Ghost comes into a very decided and defined prominence here: “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” The Holy Ghost is in the church; He is personally acting, and not merely as giving power, but in distinct and special call. It is, no doubt, subordinate to the glory of the Lord Jesus, but, nevertheless, as a divine person must who does not abnegate His own sovereignty, so it is said “as he will.” “And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” This was not to confer authority, which would set one scripture against another. Galatians 1:1 denies such an inference. We shall find, before we have done with the history, what the character of this action was, and wherefore hands were laid upon them: the end of Act 14:1-28 explains it to us. It is said there (verse 26) that they sailed to Antioch (which was the starting-point), from whence “they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled.” Such, then, was the object and meaning of the hands laid on Barnabas and Saul. It was not the presumptuous thought that men, who were really inferior to themselves spiritually, could confer upon the apostles what they did not themselves possess to the same extent; it was but a fraternal recommendation to the grace of God, which is always sweet and desirable in the practical service of the Lord. “So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost:” nothing can be more distinct than the place that the Spirit of God has assigned Him, nothing more emphatic than the manner in which the inspired writer draws attention to the fact in these commencing verses. All now depends upon His power: He is on earth, the directing power of all that is carried on.

That power does not belong to the church, which has indeed responsibility in the last resort in the judgment of evil, but otherwise never can meddle with ministry except to the dishonour of the Lord, its own hurt, and the hindrance of ministry. On the the other hand, ministry never can meddle with what properly belongs to the church. They are two distinct spheres. The same person, of course, may be a minister while he has his place as a member in the body of Christ. But as he is not permitted to use his ministry to override the church in any respect, but rather to subserve its right action, helping it on as far as may be in his power by the Holy Ghost, so on the other hand the church can in nowise rightly control that ministry which flows not from the church, but directly from the Lord. The present state in nowise alters or modifies the principle: on the contrary, it is an immense comfort that as ministry never did flow from the church, so the present broken state of the church cannot overthrow the place and responsibility of those who minister in the word. The fact is they are quite distinct, although co-ordinate, spheres of blessing. Barnabas and Saul go forth, then, to Cyprus, the native place of Barnabas; and coming there they preach the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. There is great care, and so much the more because Saul was apostle of the Gentiles, to go to the Jews; and it is lovely to see the ways of God in this respect. Above all others Luke, as we know, brings out the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in His grace towards the Gentiles. Nevertheless there is no gospel so eminently Jewish as Luke’s in its commencement, — not even Matthew’s. We have no such scene in the gospel of Matthew, and still less in Mark’s or John’s, — no such scene of the temple both of the exterior and interior. We have no such account of the godly Jewish remnant.

We have no such care in showing the obedience of Joseph and Mary to the requisitions of the law as in the first two chapters of the gospel of Luke. The fact is, that what is shown first in the gospel, then in the Acts, is “to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.” And so we find in the service of these blessed men who now go forth. They had, by the way, also, we are told, John to their minister. We must not make an ecclesiastical institution out of this. No doubt the expression might to ignorant minds convey some such notion. Nor do I pretend to say what might have been the motives of those who translated it so as to give such a colour to the passage. Manifestly, however, the thing were absurd; because it would be, not a ministry to others, but to Paul and Barnabas. Clearly therefore Mark’s service lay here, I suppose, in searching out proper lodgings, and getting people to hear the apostles preach, and that kind of care which a young man would be expected to bestow on those whom he was privileged to accompany and attend in the work of the Lord. On this occasion they met with the deputy of the island, Sergius Paulus, who was besieged by the efforts of a certain sorcerer that sought to exercise and retain influence over the mind of the great man. But the time was come for falsehood to fall before the truth. When he therefore attempted to turn his old arts against the gospel, and those that were the instruments of bringing it to the island, God asserted His own mighty power. For when Elymas withstood Barnabas and Saul, Saul, “who also is called Paul” (the Spirit of God taking this opportunity of bringing forward his Gentile name in a mission that was to be pre-eminently among the Gentiles, although beginning with the Jew according to the ways of God), being then filled with the Holy Ghost, sets his eyes on the evil worker, gives him his true character, searches him through and through, and, more than this, pronounced a sentence, a judicial sentence, from the Lord, which was at once accomplished. As we are told, “Immediately there fell upon him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.” It was the sad sign of his guilty race, the Jews, who, by their opposition to the gospel of the grace of God, and more particularly among the Gentiles, are now doomed to the same blindness after a spiritual sort. “Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.” Beautiful contrast with Simon Magus! What astonished Simon Magus was the power displayed; what astonished the deputy was the truth.

The admiration of Power is natural to man, and particularly to fallen man. He, conscious of his weakness, covets the power that he would like to wield, having still the consciousness of the place to which he was called, but from which he has fallen; for God put every creature under him, and although through sin he is fallen from his estate, he has in nowise abandoned his pretensions, and he would fain have the power that would enable him not to hold up only, but to reverse if possible the sad consequences of the fall. Delight in the truth, a heart for that which God reveals, flows only from the Holy Ghost; and this was the happy portion of the deputy. He believed, and believed after a very different sort, with a divinely exercised conscience by the power of the Spirit,. instead of a merely intellectual credit receiving upon evidence that which approved itself to the judgment of his mind. Next we read of Paul and his company, for from this moment he takes the chief place, and others are designated because of their companionship with him. Was this place in anywise contrary to the will of the Lord? Was it not thoroughly according to it? We all know that there is sometimes a little jealousy of any such spiritual influence. I cannot but think, however, that the feeling is owing more to the natural independence of the mind, than the simplicity that delights in the working of the Holy Ghost and the sanctioned expression of God’s holy word. I say, then, that Paul and his company “loosed from Paphos, and came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John, departing from them (for he was not at all in faith up to the level of the work — at any rate of Paul), returned to Jerusalem,” his natural home. The others proceed on their way to Antioch in Pisidia, and there they are found on the sabbath-day in the synagogue. “And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the ruler of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.” What a painful contrast with that which is found in Christendom! Even among the poor Jews, spite of all the coldness and narrowness of their system, there was then a greater openness of heart, and a simplicity to receive whatever could be communicated than one sees where there ought to be the rivers of living water, — where there should reign the cherished desire among all that belong to the Lord, that the best help at all cost be rendered to every saint of God, as well as to every poor perishing sinner. However, here among these Jews, the rulers were anxious to get all the help possible from others for the understanding of the word of God, and for its just application. Although they knew nothing whatever of Paul and Barnabas (except, of course, that they were Jews, or looked like them), they called on them forthwith to address all. “And Paul beckoning. with his hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God.” There were proselytes as well as children of Jacob. Many Gentiles had renounced idolatry in all the great cities where Jews were found at this time. Undoubtedly, so far, Judaism had prepared the way for the Lord among the nations of the earth, in whose midst Jews were scattered. Disgust had grown up in the Gentile mind. The abominations of Paganism had risen up to a fearful height. At this very time there were not a few who though Gentiles were not idolaters (and you must bear this in mind), and really did fear God. To all these Paul addresses himself: “The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it.” The history is pursued until he comes to David, as the object, of course, was to bring in the Son of David; for the apostle, led of the Lord, speaks with that considerate skill which love does not fail to use, formed under the Spirit of God. Thus having brought in the Messiah, we are shown how He had been announced by the Baptist. There was no collusion about it. John had first preached, before His coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. As he fulfilled his course, he acknowledged that he was not the Messiah. Thus God gave an admirable witness of the Messiah that was just at hand.

It was no question of a great man, or great deeds, but of God’s accomplishing His purpose. Had a particle of ambition influenced John, he, with an immense following among the people, might readily have set up to be the Messiah himself. The truth was, that he was not the Bridegroom but His friend, and the fear of God shut out these base desires, and he felt it his joy and his duty to do the will of God, and be the witness of Him that was coming. Thus Paul announces the Messiah himself. “Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.” Next he brings boldly forward the awful position in which the Jews had put themselves. “They that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.” Along with spiritual blindness there was as usual the grossest want of common righteousness. “And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.” God was against them, and as for the man whom they had crucified, He “raised him from the dead: and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus.” It is not warrantable to say “raised up Jesus again.” You may read it either “raised up Jesus,” or “raised Jesus again;” but you cannot give both. The word cannot at the same time include both, though it may in certain cases, according to the context, mean either. The proper rendering here is “raised up Jesus.” This is the meaning required by the facts. It refers to Jesus given to the Jews as the Messiah according to the prophets. It is also the commonest thing possible for the word to apply to resurrection. But then in itself it takes in a much wider range than simply resurrection.

The word “raised up” requires “from the dead” to make it definitely mean resurrection. But this is not the case here, till we come to verse 34. I therefore believe that resurrection is not meant in the earlier text at all, but raising up Jesus as the Messiah, as it is also written in the second Psalm: “Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee.” This is confirmed, and I think proved by the next verse, where we have the additional statement. “And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead.” Thus we have two distinct steps: — verse 33 affirms that God had fulfilled the promise in raising up the Messiah in the earth for His people; verse 34 adds that, besides this, He raised Him up from the dead. This is important, because it serves as a key to the true application of the second Psalm, which is often, and I believe mistakenly, applied to the resurrection. The reference is to the Messiah, without raising the question of actual bodily resurrection, which is first introduced distinctly in Psalms 16:1-11, though implied in Psalms 8:1-9. So, in the Apostle’s discourse, the resurrection from the dead is founded not upon the second Psalm, but on a well known passage in the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 55:3), and also in the sixteenth Psalm already referred to. But here the apostle (instead of pointing out that God had made the rejected Jesus to be Lord and Christ, which was Peter’s doctrine, and, of course, perfectly true) uses it according to his own blessed line of truth, and urges on their souls, that “through this man is preached unto, you the forgiveness of sins; and by him” (not the Jew alone, but) “all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Thus early, vigorously, and plainly did the apostle proclaim this great truth — no doubt for all among the Jews who bowed to it, but stated also in terms that should embrace a Gentile believer even as an Israelite. The law of Moses could justify from nothing. “All that believe are justified from all things,” The whole is wound up by a solemn warning to such as despise the word of the Lord, and this founded on or rather cited from more than one of their own prophets. (Compare Isaiah 29:1-24 and Habakkuk 1:1-17) “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” This stirred up the Jews: it was a new element, and kindled their jealousy at once. We have had the irritation and the murderous opposition of the Jews in Jerusalem. We can understand that they disliked what they considered a new religion, which claimed to come with the highest sanction of the God of Israel, more particularly as it made them feel to the very quick their own sins, their present and past resistance of the Holy Ghost, as well as their recent slaughter of their Messiah. But a new feature comes out here which the Spirit of God lets us see henceforth in all the journeys and labours of the apostle Paul; that is, the hatred which the unbelieving Jews felt at the preaching of the truth to the Gentiles. “When the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy.” The scene now lay outside among the nations whom they despised, If the gospel were a lie, why feel so acutely?

It was not love or respect for Gentiles. But Satan stirred up, not now simply their religious pride but their envy, and, filled with it, they “spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.” The law had never wrought such a change among men. It might correct the grossness of idolatry and condemn its folly, thereby some here and there might fear God; but it never did win hearts after such a sort. Thus the evil of their own hearts was brought out among the Jews, and the more in proportion as the might of the grace of God proved itself in attracting souls to the Lord. “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you.” How wondrous and how beautiful the ways of divine love! “But seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life” — how solemn to judge oneself unworthy of everlasting life, as every unbeliever does! — “lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” This was spiritual wisdom; but was it simply instinct? It was not. There may have been those that turned to the Gentiles from no deeper or more defined reason, as we saw last night. There were those who perceived that the gospel was too great a boon to be confined to the ancient people of God, that it was adapted to the universal need of men, and that it became God’s grace to let it forth to the Gentiles; and they acted on their conviction, and the Lord was with them, and many believed. But it was not spiritual instinct here: it was a still holier and lowlier thing, yet higher and more blessed. It was intelligent obedience, where it might not be supposed that one could find a sufficiently clear direction. But the eye of love can discern; it is ever on the alert to obey from the heart. “For so,” says he, “hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles.” What had this to do with Paul and Barnabas? Everything. Beyond controversy Christ is directly in view of the prophet, and perhaps some would be disposed to shut up the words only to Christ; but not so the Holy Spirit, who therefore extends its bearing to Paul and Barnabas. Did not Paul afterwards write “to me to live is Christ”? Christ was all to them. Christian faith appropriates to itself what was said to Him.

What a place is this! what a power in His name! No doubt it was heretofore a hidden mystery that man should be so associated with a Christ rejected by (and so separated from) the ancient people of God. But what said He to the man despised and set at naught by them? This was the very time when the Messiah, lost to Israel, becomes, in a new and intimate way, the centre for God to associate fully in grace with Him. Thus what belongs to Him belongs to them, and what God says about Him is direction for them. “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.” There was no rashness or presumption, but the soundest wisdom in this. Was it only for the Apostles? Is there no principle in this of all importance for us, my brethren? Does it not prove distinctly that it is not merely where we get a literal command that we may and ought to discern a call to obedience? The apostles, as men of faith, were bold about it: “For so hath the Lord commanded us.” Yet, I suppose, not two souls besides in the whole earth would have seen a command to them. Unbelief would have asked proof, and have been ill-satisfied; but faith, as evermore, is happy and makes happy. “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

And the name of the Lord was published throughout all the region.” But the Jews were not to give up their envy. The greater the blessing, the more their hearts were vexed with it. “The Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women.” They were more open, doubtless, to their efforts; and so were “the chief men of the city.” As faith looks to God and the truth, unbelief flies to influence of one kind or another, — of females on the one side, and of great men on the other. Thus they raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts. “But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.” As the enemy makes good the occasion of evil, so God turns the wickedness of the adversary to the blessing of His own. The apostles pass thence into another place; they are, as ever, unwearied in their love. There is, perhaps, no feature more noticeable and instructive than the fact, that nothing turns away the heart of Paul from the poor Jews. He loved them with an unrequited affection; he loved them spite of all their hatred and their envy. Into the synagogue he went again here (as in each new place that he visits), and so spake, “that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews”. (they were generally just the same to Paul in one place as in another) “stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren. Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

But the multitude of the city was divided: and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles. And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them, they were ware of it, and fled.” They thus bowed to the storm. Nothing at all of what men call heroism marked the apostles; there was what is very much better — the simplicity of grace: patience is the true wisdom, but God only can give it. They go accordingly elsewhere, and there preach the gospel. At Lystra, which they visited, the case came before them of a man crippled in his feet, “impotent in his feet,” who had never walked. Paul, perceiving that he had faith to be healed, beholds him steadfastly, and bids him stand upright on his feet. The Lord at once answering to the call, the man leaped and walked. “And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” Accordingly they called Barnabas (who, it is evident, had the more imposing presence) Jupiter; and Paul, because he was the more eloquent of the two, they designated Mercury. “Then the priest of Jupiter”, — for the city was famous for its devotedness to the so-called father of gods and men, — “brought oxen and garlands into the gates and would have done sacrifice.” “Which when the apostles,* Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? we also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein.”

• So the Spirit of God calls them both; and it is an important point to observe; it is not restricted to the twelve. Here we find the Holy Ghost acted in this manner. We have apostleship entirely apart from the twelve tribes of Israel. And not merely is Paul apostle, but Barnabas was recognized also. What is notable, I think, especially for all those engaged in the work of the Lord, is the variety in the character of the apostolic addresses. There was no such stiffness as we are apt to find in our day in the preaching of the gospel. Oh, what monotony! what sameness of routine, no matter who may be addressed! We find in scripture people dealt with as they were, and there is that kind of appeal to the conscience which was adapted to their peculiar state. The discourse in the synagogue was founded on the Jewish scriptures; here to these men of Lycaonia there is no allusion to the Old Testament whatever, but a plain reference to what all see and know — the heavens above them, and the seasons that God was pleased from of old to assign round about them, and that continual supply of the fruits of His natural bounty of which the most callous can scarce be insensible. Thus we see there was the ministration of suited truth, as far as it went, of what God is, and what is worthy of Him, opening the way for the glad tidings of His grace.

How different from the vileness of a Jupiter or of a Mercury, a god devoted to corruption and self-will, and another god devoted to stealing! Was this the best religion and morality of the heathen, making gods just like themselves? Such certainly is not the true God. Who can deny all to be vanity even in the minds of the most civilized and refined of the Gentiles? The true God, although He had suffered all nations to walk in their own ways in times past, nevertheless did not “leave himself without witness in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” This was no more than an introduction for that which the apostle had to say; it was the truth so far rebuking the folly of idolatry. It was in no way the good news of eternal life and remission of sins in Christ; but it was that which either vindicated God, or at least set aside what was undeniable and before all eyes the debasing depravity of their false gods and pagan religion. “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” “And having stoned Paul” — how like his Master! How sudden the change! About to be worshipped as a god, and the next thing after it to be stoned and left for dead! Alas! here also the Jews instigated the Gentiles. “Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.” Such is the victory that overcomes the world; such the power and perseverance of faith. They go on undaunted, yea, confirming the souls of the disciples in various places, “exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” Impossible for the world to overthrow those who bear the worst it can do, give God thanks, and wait for His kingdom. But here take note of another part of their service — the confirmation of the souls of those who had already believed. It is not simply bringing souls in, and then leaving them to other people; the apostles would stablish them in the faith as they were taught. But this was not all. “When they had ordained them.” Let me take the liberty of saying that “ordained” is a very misleading term, which conveys an ecclesiastical idea without any warrant whatever. Not that “ordained” is an interpolation here as in the first chapter of Acts, but certainly the meaning given is fictitious. The true force of the phrase is simply this, “they chose them elders.” In more ways than one it is important; because, as a simple choice takes away “ordination,” and with it that mysterious ritual which the greater bodies like, so on the other hand the apostles’ choosing for them elders takes away all that gives self-importance to the little churches. For it is neither the smaller bodies choosing for themselves, nor an imposing authority vested in their great rivals, but a choice exercised by apostles; that is, they chose for the disciples “elders in every church.” I am well aware that persons of respectability have not been wanting who have tried to make out that the Greek word means that the apostles chose them by taking the sense of the assembly. But this is mere etymological trifling. There is not the slightest warrant for it in the usage of scripture. It is not requisite for a man to be a scholar in order to reject the thought as false. Thus the word “them” refutes it for any intelligent reader of the English Bible. It is not merely that apostles chose.

If it be said that the people must have chosen for them to ordain, the answer is, that the people did not choose at all. This is proved by the simple declaration that the apostles chose for the disciples. Such is the way to fill up the sentence — “They chose them elders.”* To make out the meaning of what Presbyterians or Congregationalists have contended for, it should have been said that they chose by them, or some phrase meaning that they chose by the votes of the assembly. Here there is no ground whatever for such a sense, but on the contrary that the apostles chose elders for the rest. “They chose them elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, commending them to the Lord, on whom they believed.”

• It is scarcely necessary to refute at length the notion of the fathers, and of some moderns like Bishop Bilson (Perpetual Government of Christ’s Church, p. 13, Eden’s edition, Oxford, 1842), that χειροτονήσαντες here means ordaining by imposition of hands. That the word was so used in later times by ecclesiastical writers is true; that this is its meaning in scripture is palpable error. It is to confound χειροτονία with χειροθεσία (or its equivalent, ἡἐπιθεσιςτῶνχειρῶν). On the other hand the idea that χειρονονήσαντες means that the apostles conceded to the disciples the power of selecting by vote, whilst they reserved to themselves the right of approval and institution, is still harsher and’ in short unexampled in all Greek writings profane or sacred, ancient or medieval. In the earlier Greek authors who write of their public affairs, the word often occurs in the sense of choosing by suffrage (as opposed to lots); later on it meant appointment irrespective of votes. But it is never used, so far as I know, to express that some appointed on the ground of election by others.

And I am glad to say not merely that a candid Presbyterian like Prof. G. Campbell treats Beza’s version (per suffragia creassent) with the utmost severity as “a more interpolation for the make of answering a particular purpose,” but that the Presbyterian divines of 1645 in the “Jus Divinum” point out the flagrant inconsistency of such an interpretation with the express language of the text. None but Paul and Barnabas chose (whatever the manner); and they chose for the disciples, not by their votes, which would be incompatible with their own choice. Compare Acts 10:41, 2 Corinthians 8:19. In the former case God chose beforehand the witnesses, but others gave no votes; in the latter the churches chose brethren to be their confidential messengers, but they never thought of collecting the suffrages of other people.

Scriptural usage in every instance is simply choice. It is vain to deny or parry the importance of this decision of scripture on the subject of presbyters. Not infrequently there is an attack made on those who really desire to follow the word of God, by men who ask, “Where are your elders? You profess to follow scripture faithfully: how is it that you have not elders?” To such I would answer, “When you provide apostles to choose elders for us, we shall be exceedingly obliged for both.” How can we have elders appointed according to scripture unless we have apostles or their delegates? Where are the men now who stand in the same position before God and the assembly as Paul and Barnabas? You must either have apostles, or at the very least apostolic men such as Timothy and Titus; for it is quite evident that merely to call people elders does not make them such. Nothing would be easier than to bestow the title of elders within a sect, or for the law of the land to sanction it. Any of us could set ourselves up, and do the work in name, no doubt; but whether there would be any value in the assumption, or whether it would not be really great sin, presumption, and folly, I must leave to the consciences of all to judge. Thus we know with divine certainty that the elders were chosen for the disciples by the apostles in every church. Such is the doctrine of scripture, and the fact as here described. It is evident therefore, that unless there be duly qualified persons whom the Lord has authorised for the purpose, and in virtue of their most singular relation to the assembly, — unless there be such persons as apostles, or persons representing apostles in this particular, there is no authority for such appointment: it is mere imitation. And in questions of authority it must be evident that imitation is just as foolish as where it is a question of power. You cannot imitate the energy of the Spirit except by sin, neither can you arrogate the authority of the Lord without rebellion against Him. Notwithstanding, I do not doubt that this is often done with comparatively good — let us conceive the best — intentions on the part of many, but with very great rashness and inattention to the word of God. Hence those are really wrong, not to say inexcusable, who assume to do the work that apostles or their delegates alone could do, not such as content themselves with doing their own duty, and refuse a delicate and authoritative task to which they are not called of the Lord. What, then, is the right thing? All that we can say is, that God has not been pleased, in the present broken state of the church, to provide all that is desirable and requisite for perpetuating everything in due order. Is this ever His way when things are morally ruined? Does He make provision to continue what dishonoured Him? So far from contrariety in this to the analogy of His dealings, it seems to me quite according to them. There was no such state of things in Israel in the days of the returned captives, as in the days of the Exodus, but Nehemiah was just as truly raised up of God for the return from Babylon, as Moses was for the march out of Egypt.

Still the two conditions were quite different, and the mere doing by Nehemiah what Moses did would have been ignorance of his own proper place. Such imitation would have possessed no power, and would have secured no blessing. It is a precisely similar course that becomes us now. Our wisdom is to use what God has given us, not to pretend to the same authority as Barnabas and Paul had. Let us follow their faith. God has continued everything, not that is needful only, but far over and above it for the blessing, if not for the pristine power and order, of the church of God. There is not the slightest cause but want of faith, and consequent failure in obedience, that hinders the children of God from being blessed overflowingly even in this evil day. At the same time God has so ordered it, that no boast is more vain than that of possessing all the outward apparatus of the church of God.

In fact, the louder the vaunt, the less real is the claim to ornaments of which God stripped His guilty people. None can show a display of order and charge so settled and regular, as to bear a comparison with the state of the church as it was founded and governed by the apostles.* *“But it is a characteristic of the Church system” (says Mr. Litton in his “Church of Christ,” p. 636, speaking of sacramentalists) “to be most peremptory and exclusive in its decisions where Scripture supplies the slenderest foundation for them.” Far from thinking that it is not good and wise, I admire the ways of the Lord even in this deprivation of ground for boasting. I believe that all on His part is thoroughly as it should be, and really best for us as we are. Nor is it that we should not feel the want of the godly order as of old; but I need not say that if we feel the want of elders, the value of apostles was incomparably greater. Apostles were far more important than elders, and very much more the means of blessing to the church of God. But the right appointment of elders necessarily lapses with the departure of the apostles from the earth. It is not so with gifts, nor therefore with ministry; for all this is essentially independent of the presence of the apostles, and bound up with the living action of Christ the head of the church, who carries out His will by the Holy Ghost here below. Now we enter upon another and an important chapter in its way, that is to say, the efforts of the Judaisers, who were now beginning (not to hinder the apostle’s work merely, but) to spoil the doctrine which he preached. This is the particular point we may see in Acts 15:1-41. Accordingly the source of this trouble lay not among unbelieving Jews, but among such as professed the name of the Lord Jesus. “Certain men which came down from Judea, saying, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. When, therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem.” Jerusalem, alas! was now the fountain of the evil: it was from the assembly in Jerusalem that this pest emanated. Satan’s effort was to pollute the doctrine of the grace of God, who allowed that the authority and the power too of Paul and Barnabas should be entirely ineffectual to stop the evil. This was turned to good account, because it was far more important to stem the tidal in Jerusalem, and to have the sentence of the apostles, elders, and all thoroughly against these evil doers, than simply the censure of Paul and Barnabas.

It could not but be that Paul and Barnabas should oppose those that set aside their doctrines; but the question for the Judaisers was, What about the twelve? Thus, the carrying of the question to Jerusalem was a most suitable and wise act. It may not be that Paul and Barnabas at all designed it as such — I do not suppose they did: no doubt they endeavoured to put it down among the Gentiles, but they could not do so. The consequence was that perforce the question was reserved for Jerusalem, where Paul and Barnabas go up for what Paul knew involved the truth of the gospel. “And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles; and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.” Thus, you see, going upon this painful controversy, their hearts were filled with the grace of God. It was not the question they were full of, but His grace. “And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things which God had done with them.” There again is uttered what filled their hearts with joy, — an important thing. For I am sure that often, where there is any duty of a painful kind, and where the heart of any servant of the Lord, no matter how rightly, gets filled with it, this very earnest pressure becomes really a hindrance. Because such is man, that, if you become thus over-occupied with it, others will infallibly put it down to some wrong object on your part; whereas on the contrary, others do not so oppose where you trust the Lord simply, only dealing with the matter when it is your duty to deal with it and passing on. Meanwhile, your heart goes out to that which is according to His own grace; and there is so much the more power, when you must speak on that which is a matter of pain. It was thus according to the grace and wisdom given to these beloved servants of the Lord. When the question came before them, “there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed.” This is a new feature, it will be observed; that is, it is not merely the envious unbelieving Jews, but the working of legalism in the believing Jews. This is the serious evil that now begins to show itself. They insist “that it was needful to be circumcised, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” In fact they thought that Christians would be all the better for being good Jews. This was their object and their doctrine, if such it can be called. “And the apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing,” etc. All this leads us into the interior of those days, and proves that the idea of everything being settled just by a word is only imagination; it never was so, not even when the whole apostolic college were there. We find the liveliest discussions among them. “And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men [and] brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” Peter we hear on this occasion preaching Paul’s doctrine, just as we saw that Paul might among the Jews preach somewhat like Peter: — God it put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” — not “they shall be saved,” nor “they shall be saved even as we.” This is probably what we might have said, but it is not what Peter said. “We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, — we Jews shall be saved — even as they [the uncircumcised Gentiles].” How sweet is the grace of God, and what an unexpected blow to the pretensions of the Pharisees that believed! And this too from Peter! If Paul had said it, there would have been less to wonder at. The apostle of the Gentiles (so they were prone to think) would naturally speak up for the Gentiles, but how about Peter? what induced the great apostle of the circumcision so to speak? and this in the presence of the twelve in Jerusalem itself? How was it that without the plan of man, and contrary no doubt to the desires of the wisest, the failure of Paul and Barnabas to settle the matter, conciliatory and gracious as they were, only turned to the glory of the Lord? It was the evident hand of God to the more magnificent vindication of His grace. “Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying (for he now takes the place of proposing or giving a judgment), “Men [and] brethren, hearken unto me: Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: so that the residue of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord who doeth these things known from eternity.” Thus we see that in James’s mind what Peter and Paul and Barnabas had pressed was according to the declarations of the prophets, not in conflict but agreement with them. He does not say more than this; he does not mean that such was their fulfilment; nor is any special application set before us. They teach that the Lord’s name should be called on the Gentiles, not when they become Jews. That they should be blessed and recognized, therefore, was in accordance with prophecy. There were Gentiles as such owned of God, without becoming practical Jews by being circumcised, — Gentiles upon whom the name of the Lord was called. This was the argument or proof from Amos; and it was conclusive. “Wherefore my sentence is (or, I judge), that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turning to God: but that we write to them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from the thing strangled, and from blood.” This, in the latter part of it, is simply the precepts of Noah, the injunctions that were laid down before the call of Abram, and, again, that which was evidently due to God Himself in regard to the human corruption that accompanies idolatry; so that things were then left in a manner alike simple and wise. There could be no right-minded Gentiles who would not acknowledge the propriety and necessity of that which the. decree insists on. “Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, having chosen to send men from among them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren.” It will be observed, by the way, that there were leading men among the brethren. Some seem jealous of this; others of hostile mind talk as if it contradicts brotherhood; but according to scripture, as in the nature of things, it is manifestly right. It is only crotchety people who have made a mistake. There must not be any allowance of jealousy where God speaks so plainly. This would be indeed to quarrel with the mercies of God among us. The letter was written, if I may so say, under the seal of the Spirit of God, from “the apostles, and elders, and* brethren,” to the brethren of the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia. On its contents I need not enlarge: they are familiar to all. *There is very grave authority (, A, B, C, D, etc.) for dropping καὶ, “and,” and so throwing together οἱπρ. ἀδ. “the elder brethren” (in the sense, however, of “the elders”). “Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren (i.e., at Antioch) with many words, and confirmed (i.e., strengthened) them. And after they had tarried there a space, they were let go in peace from the brethren unto those that sent them.” (I give more exactly than in the common text.) It was important to have the presence of men who were themselves competent witnesses of what had been debated and decided at Jerusalem. This was far more than being the mere and cold bearers of a letter. They knew the motives of the adversaries; they were familiar with the spiritual interests at stake, beside knowing the feeling of the apostles, and of the church at large. These men accordingly accompanied Paul and Barnabas. But this led also, in the wisdom of God, to an important point in the journeyings of the great apostle; for Paul and Barnabas, it is said, “continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.” (What largeness and love! How different from the days when an exclusive title protects unfit or haughty men, and money difficulties hamper both teachers and taught!) “And some days after Paul said to Barnabas” (the younger takes the lead), “Let us go again and visit the brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.” Paul loved the church; he was not only a great preacher of the gospel, but he was deeply interested in the state of the brethren, and he valued their edification. Barnabas proposed to take with them John, who was also called Mark; Paul, however, would not agree to it. “But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other.” The Spirit of God takes good care to record this; it was needful that it should be noted. It should act as a warning; and, on the other hand, it would also prepare the minds of the children of God for the fact, that even the most blessed men may have their difficulties and differences. We must not be too much cast down if we meet with anything of the kind. I do not make this remark in any wise to make light of such disagreements, but alas! we know that these things do arise. But there is more for our instruction “Paul chose Silas.” This is a weighty practical consideration. There are persons, I am aware, who think that in the work of the Lord all must be left absolutely without thought of one’s own or concert to the Lord Himself. Now I do not find this in the word of God. I do believe in simple-hearted subjection to the Lord. Assuredly faith in the action of the Holy Ghost is of all importance, both in the church, and also in the service of Christ. Yet there is not liberty alone but a duty of conferring together on the part of those who labour.

There may be spiritual wisdom in what is often called “arrangement.” So far from regarding it as an infringement of scripture, or of what is due to the Holy Ghost, I believe there are cases in which not to do so would be independence, and a total mistake as to the ways of the Lord. It is quite true that Paul would not have an improper person forced on him in the work. He had come to the conclusion that, though Mark might be a servant of the Lord and of course have his own right sphere, he was not exactly the labourer that was suited for the mission to which the Lord was calling himself. Consequently his mind was made up not to take Mark with him. Barnabas, on the contrary, would have Mark with them, and at length so strongly urged this as to make it the necessary condition of his own association with the apostle. The consequence was that the apostle preferred even to forego the presence of his beloved friend and brother and fellow-servant, Barnabas, rather than have an unsuitable person forced upon him. 1 have little doubt that the brethren in general judged, and this spiritually, that Paul was in the right and Barnabas therefore wrong. For the apostle chose Silas and departed, as we are told, “recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God,” without a word about the brethren recommending Barnabas and John. Not that one would in the least doubt that Barnabas continued to be blessed of God. And as for John (Mark), we are expressly informed of his ability in the ministry at a later day. The apostle takes particular pains to show his respect and love for Barnabas after this in an inspired epistle (1 Corinthians 9:1-27); and what is yet more to the purpose, he makes the most honourable mention of Mark in more than one of his later epistles. (Colossians 4:1-18 and 2 Timothy 4:1-22) How good of the Lord thus to let us see the triumph of His grace in the end! And what a joy to the loving heart of the apostle to record it! At the same time the entire history furnishes a most important principle in the practical service of the Lord. We ought not to be in anywise bound by an esprit de corps; where His testimony is concerned, we must be prepared to break with flesh and blood — to say to a father and mother, I have not seen them, neither to acknowledge one’s brethren, nor to know one’s own children. Nor must we think overmuch about the trial; for beyond a doubt many will be grieved by that measure of faithfulness to the Lord which condemns themselves. This we must bear as a part of the burden of His work. On the other hand, need it be said that nothing is more uncomely than a rudely personal and slashing habit with others in carrying out the will of the Lord? There is in it neither grace, nor righteousness, nor wisdom, but self and self-deception; for it looks like zeal — this fire of Jehu.

At the same time there is such a thing as looking to God to have an exercised judgment, as to your associates no less than your work. The Lord alone can give the single eye with self-judgment which enables us in the Spirit to discern aright whom we ought to decline, and whom to choose, if companions offer or should be sought in the work. In Acts 16:1-40 we enter on some fresh points of interest. We have before us the first appearance of Timothy, who was afterwards to figure so much in the history of Paul and the service of the Lord. Here too we find a principle of no small moment for our guidance, and the more so as Paul did that for which, one can conceive, a great many might judge him. It is wonderful how apt people are, and especially those who do not know much, to judge such as know far better than themselves. There is nothing so easy as to form a judgment, but whether there be adequate grounds and a sound conclusion are other questions. Here the apostle is said to have taken Timothy (whose mother was a Jewess and his father a Greek, himself a disciple of good report among the brethren) to go forth with him.

But, singular to say, Paul circumcises him. What consternation this must have made amongst the brethren, especially the Gentiles! It was just after the battle of Gentile independence of circumcision had been fought and won. They surely must have thought that Paul was losing his wits himself to circumcise Timothy! Not even a Jew would have gone so far. Could it be that the apostle of the uncircumcision had at length succumbed to the adversary? or that he was swayed by his early prejudices so as to forget all his own past testimony to the cross and death and resurrection of Christ? Now I do not hesitate to say, that so far from Paul being under legal prepossession in this act, on the contrary he never did anything in his course that showed him to be more completely above it. To circumcise Timothy was precisely what the law would not have done. It is well known that, if there was a mingled marriage (i. e., between a Jew and a Gentile), the law would have nothing to say to the offspring. Legally the Jewish father could not own his own children born of a Gentile mother, or vice versa. (See Ezra 10:1-44) Now Timothy being the fruit of such a marriage, there could be no claim, even if there was license, to circumcise him; and (just because there was no such claim, he being on the one side sprung of a Greek, though his mother was a Jewess, because it could not be commanded) Paul condescends out of grace to those who were on a lower ground, and stops their mouths most effectually. Grace knows how and when to bend, no less than to be as unflinching as a rock; but this is precisely what even believers in general are least able to understand. Righteousness (that is, consistency with our relationship) is not all.

God is gracious, and so may we be by His grace, and thus feel how such as are really on a true and real ground of grace, and in a position according to the word of God, can have the truest sympathy with those who, though of God, are on a totally different ground, doing and saying what must astonish others possessed of little grace. Is not this a thing to be weighed? We may find, there is little doubt, the importance of it before we have got through our little career. It is a question that often comes up in various forms; but I believe there is only one means of solving it. While the heart thoroughly holds fast the truth of God, let us seek at the same time to understand the workings of that truth according to the grace of God. This was the secret of the apostle’s action here, but it did not hinder in the least his use of the decision arrived at in the recent council at Jerusalem. For “as they went through the cities, they delivered to them to keep the decrees that were ordained of the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily.” Then we find another important fact. Paul was stopped in his Asiatic journeyings, as we are told here, and “forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia.” So completely is the Spirit of God regarded as the directing person in the church. “After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit of Jesus (for such should be the text) suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” In various ways, therefore, divine guidance was never wanting. Accordingly they come to the first spot in Europe that was blessed with the preaching of the great apostle of the Gentiles. They came to Philippi, “which is the first* city of that part of Macedonia, a colony: and we were abiding in the city itself certain days.”

• Philippi was not the “chief” city of Macedonia, but Thessalonica; and as Wieseler has shown, even if the subdivisions had been known then of Macedonia Prima, Sec. etc., Amphipolis (not Philippi) was the chief city of that part or district. The literal and correct translation therefore is “first,” geographically speaking. Eckhel (iv. p. 477, ss.) copies the coin, COL. AVG. IVL. PHILIP. It was therefore probably a colony founded by C. J. Caesar, and afterwards increased by Augustus. Here we read of Lydia’s heart opened, and of her household. The action of the Spirit as to the family seems to have obtained remarkably among Gentiles; among the Jews, as far as I know, we do not hear of it. We have found already districts among the Jews, as also among the Samaritans, which were powerfully impressed (to say the least) by the gospel; but among the Gentiles families seem particularly visited by divine grace as recorded by the Spirit. Take for example Cornelius the jailor, Stephanas: indeed you find it over and over gain. This is exceedingly encouraging — especially to us. But grace never acts in power without stirring up the enemy, and in ways calculated most to oppose and undermine. His tactics in Europe differed from those in Asia — at least in this the first place where the gospel was preached. The earliest case of any one or thing which the word of God names is, as a rule, remarkably characteristic. Applying this to what is in hand, we find that Satan’s peculiar method in Europe was not so much by overt opposition but rather by affecting patronage. The maiden with the spirit of divination did not take the method of decrying the servants of the Lord but of applauding them. As it is said here, “she followed Paul and us (for Luke was now with the apostle) with the cry, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation.” This she did many days, for at first the apostle avoided action to give no importance by any assaults of an open kind on the evil spirit. But after no notice was taken for some days, he being grieved at her boldness turns and says to the spirit, “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” This roused the whole city. The masters were troubled because the source of their gains was gone; and the magistrates disliked anything that produced an uproar. The result was that the multitude rose up together, the praetors rent off their clothes, and the apostle and his companion were beaten and cast into prison, with a charge to the jailor to keep them safely. There the Lord wrought marvellously. At midnight, while others slept, Paul and Silas in praying were singing the praises of God, who soon answered them. “Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened.” The consequence of the truth afterwards presented was in God’s grace the conversion of the jailor. It is not now the time to dwell on the details, beautiful as the scene is, and attractive to the heart as it may well be. The praetors were soon forced to acknowledge the wrong they had done in beating Romans uncondemned, contrary to the law of which they were the administrators. Thus the world was rebuked, the brethren comforted, and Paul and his companions departed to other fields of suffering and service. The next chapter (Acts 17:1-34) sketches for us the first entrance of the gospel into Thessalonica. It may be noted how remarkably the kingdom was preached there. But those of Berea earned for themselves a still more honourable character, being distinguished not so much by the prophetic style of teaching addressed to them, as by their own earnest and simple-hearted research into the word of God. Finally, the apostle is at Athens, and there he makes one of the most characteristic appeals preserved to us in this striking book, but an appeal by no means to the credit of human refinement and intellect. For there is no place where the apostle condescends more to the elementary forms of truth, than in that city of art, poetry, and high mental activity. His text is taken, we may say, from the well-known inscription on the altar, “To the unknown God.” He would let them know what, in the midst of their boasted knowledge, they themselves confessed they knew not. His discourse was pregnant with suited truth, for he points out the one true God, who made the world and all things therein — a truth that philosophy never, acknowledged, and now denies, and would disprove if it were possible. “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth” — another truth that unbelief disowns — that God is not only the maker but the Lord, the master and disposer, of all — “He dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” Thus the apostle finds himself at issue with both the Gentiles and the Jews. “Neither is worshipped (served) with men’s hands, as though he needed anything,” — contrary to all religion of nature, wherever and whatever it may be. “Seeing he giveth” (such is His character) “to all men life and breath and all things; and hath made of one blood:” here again he is at issue with man’s ideas, especially with those of Hellenic polytheism, for the unity of the human race is a truth that goes with that of the true God. It was seen among men that various races had each their own national god, and thus naturally the falsehood of many gods was bound up with and fostered the kindred pretension of many independent races of men. This was a darling idea of the pagan world. They held themselves to have sprung from the earth in some singularly foolish manner, at the same time maintaining that each was independent of the other. On the other hand, the truth which divine revelation discloses is that which man’s mind never did discover, but, when propounded, at once brings conviction along with it. Is it not humbling that the most simple truth about the simplest fact should be entirely beyond the ken of the proudest intellects unaided by the Bible?

One would think that man ought to know his own origin. It is just what he does not know. He must know God first, and when he does all else becomes plain. “He hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth.” Again, “He hath determined the times before-appointed” (everything is under His guidance and government); “and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him, and find him (“God,” it should be here, according to the best authorities: “The Lord” is not in keeping with the teaching in this place. He shows them that God is the Lord, but this is another matter), “though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets,” etc. Thus he turns the acknowledgment of their own poets against themselves, or rather against their idolatry. Strange to say that the poets, however fanciful, are wiser than the philosophers. How often they stumble in their dreams on things beyond that which they themselves would have otherwise imagined! Thus some of the poets among them (Cleanthes and Aratus) had said, “For we are also His offspring.” “Forasmuch, then, as. we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead (the Divine) is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” How clearly was shown the folly of their boasted reason!

What can be simpler or more conclusive? Since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that God can be made by our hands. This is in effect what their practice amounted to. Gods of silver and gold were the offspring of men’s art and imagination. “And the times of this ignorance” (what a way to treat the boasting men of Athens!) “God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Manifestly there is a thrust at conscience. This is the reason why he insists here on God’s call to repent. It is no use to talk of science, literature, politics, religion. Old or new speculations in philosophy are alike vain. God is now enjoining on all everywhere to repent. Thus he puts the sage down with the savage, because God is brought in as the judge of all.

It is evident that divine truth must be aggressive; it cannot but deal with every conscience that hears it throughout the world. The law might thunder its claims on a particular people; but the truth deals with everybody as he is before God. The ground of the appeal too is most serious: “Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world.” Solemn prospect! This he urges home on them, and in a manner peculiar but suitable to the moral condition of Athens. God is about to judge the habitable earth (οἰκουμένην) in righteousness. He does not here speak of judging the dead. It is the sudden intervention of the man who, raised from the dead, is going to deal with this habitable earth. Such is the unquestionable meaning of the text. The “world” here means the scene dwelt in by man. It is in no way a question of the great-white-throne judgment. Certainly all that he put before them was admirably calculated to arouse them from their mythic dreams to the light of truth, without gratifying their love of the speculative. “He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” The allusion to the resurrection became at once the signal for unseemly jest. “And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them.” There was but little fruit even for the apostle and from this wonderful discourse. Some, however, did cleave to him, and believed: “among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” Acts 18:1-28. But in the grossly voluptuous state of Corinth the gospel, strange to say, was to take a great and effectual hold on a certain part of the population. Not so at Athens: few were the souls, and comparatively feeble the work there. But in Corinth, proverbially the most corrupt of Grecian cities, how unexpected yet how good the ways of the Lord! He had much people in that city. It was an immense comfort, both in his labours there and afterwards, when the work seemed spoiled. He could still believe, and spite of all look for the recovery of those that had been turned aside. The Lord is ever kind and true; and so Paul went on with good courage, however tried and humbled on their account. Here take note of another remarkable fact. The apostle does what is proscribed by all ecclesiastical canons, as far as I know, everywhere: that is to say, he works with his hands at the simple occupation of tent-making “And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And when Silas and Timotheus were come” — he takes this as the occasion for testifying to the Jews fully — being “pressed” (not exactly in the spirit, as it is said in the common text, but) “in regard of the word,” he testifies that Jesus was the Christ. “And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment,” with the warning, “Your blood be upon your own head; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.” Accordingly the work goes on among the Gentiles, though the Lord was not without witness among the Jews. And this leads to a vast deal of feeling and clamour: “and all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat.” Here the ruler was not only unwilling to entertain the question, but supercilious, and indifferent to the general disorder. Just at the same time another remarkable feature appears here. In Cenchrea Paul shaves his head according to a vow. It is plain that, whatever might be the strength of divine grace, there was a certain concession to his old religious habits, even in the greatest of apostles, and the most blessed instrument of New Testament inspiration. However this may be, the end of the chapter gives another remarkable witness of grace. Apollos is brought before us, taught by Aquila and Priscilla, who “took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.” I doubt whether it would have been according to the will of God for a woman to have done so alone; but she, along with her husband, instructed him as they could. Now Priscilla, as I cannot doubt, knew more than her husband; it was therefore desirable that she should contribute her help. Still the Lord’s ways are invariably wise; and it is very evident that it was in conjunction with her husband, not independently of him, that this grave task was carried on. Another important fact opens Acts 19:1-41. Paul found at Ephesus a dozen disciples, who were in a very ambiguous position; for they were not exactly Jews, and they were certainly not in the true sense Christians: they were in a transition state between the two. Does this appear to you at all startling? It is likely that it may disturb those who are in the habit of thinking, or at least saying, that all persons must be in one of the two states — that it is impossible to be in a middle position between them. But this is not the fact. It is always well to face the word of God; and God has written nothing in vain. I say, then, that these men were recognized at Ephesus as believers, but it is very evident that they were not resting on the work of the Lord Jesus. They had faith, they looked to His person; but they had not intelligently laid hold of His work for the peace of their souls. So when Paul comes there and finds these disciples, he says, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” Not the slightest doubt is started about their believing, but he does raise a very serious question about another thing: — “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” Why he asked this it is not for us to say for certain. It is likely that he saw something that indicated to his penetrating eye souls not at rest and in the liberty of grace. In spirit they were still under the law. It is the state described in the latter part of Rom 7:1-25.

Of course I use this description with reference to Romans 7:1-25 by anticipation, because that Epistle was not yet written. But people were in that state before it was written as well as since; and the object of the epistle was to deliver them out of it. Paul then enquired, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” It is not that they did not know the existence of the Spirit of God. Such is not at all the meaning of the text. All Jews had heard in the scripture of the Holy Ghost; and more particularly John’s disciples were well instructed in the fact, not only of His existence, but that the Holy Ghost was about to be sent down on believers, or rather that they were going to be baptized with the Holy Ghost. This is what is referred to. Had that baptism taken place?

They were not aware of it; they had not yet received the great blessing. Thus it is seen, they were believers, though they had not received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Such is the account that scripture gives of their state. It is well to note this, because we may find persons now in a state somewhat analogous. There are many souls who are not at all in liberty, not having yet received the Spirit of adoption. Yet are they persons that we can truly accept as born of God; they detest sin; they love holiness; they really adore the Lord Jesus, having no doubt at all as to His glory, and that He is the Saviour. For all this they are not able to — what they call — “apply” the truth to their own case and settled relationship. They cannot always appropriate the blessing. They are not at ease and at liberty in their souls.

We must not put such people down as unbelievers, on the one hand; neither must we rest, on the other hand, as though they had received everything. Those are two errors to which many are prone. Scripture allows neither, perfectly providing for every case. What the apostle did was this: he was far from questioning the reality of their faith, but he showed that it was not yet exercised on the full object of faith. They had not, yet entered into the just results of redemption. Accordingly he enquires how this came to pass — to what they had been baptized.

They say, To John’s baptism. This explains all. John’s baptism was only transitional. It was of God, but it was simply in prospect of the blessing, not in possession of it. Such too was the state of these men. The apostle then puts before them the truth. “They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came upon them; and they spake with tongues.” This is highly important to be understood, though (I need not say) still more to be believed. We have the apostle in an exceptional way laying his hands on disciples in this condition, just as Peter and John laid their hands on the Samaritan believers who thereby received the Holy Ghost. Thus God takes particular pains to show that the apostle Paul had the same sign and voucher of his apostleship as attached to Peter and John before. We are not, however, to suppose that a man cannot receive the Holy Ghost except by such an act: this would be a false impression and a misuse of scripture. As I have said elsewhere, and sought to explain long ago, the two general cases of the gift of the Holy Ghost are entirely irrespective of any such act; the special cases, where hands were imposed, owed their existence to peculiar circumstances that do not call for detailed remarks at this late hour. Then we hear of the mighty spread of the work, not only the power with which God clothed the apostle, but also that which rebuked the superstitious use of the name of Jesus by those who without faith pretended to it. The chapter ends with the tumult at Ephesus. In Acts 20:1-38 we learn the definitive usage, which the Spirit sanctions and records for us, of the Lord’s day, or the first day of the week, as the fitting time, for the breaking of bread. So we find it among the Gentiles in Acts 20:7. I am aware that there are those who seem to think there is no liberty to break bread on any other day. I cannot but differ from such a conclusion. There appears to me full liberty to break bread any day provided that some adequate or just reason call for it: Acts 2:1-47 is, to my mind, conclusive authority for this. At the same time, while there is liberty to break bread, wherever there arises a sufficient ground for it in the judgment of the spiritual on any day of the week, it is obligatory, if we may use such a term on such a theme, on all saints walking with the Lord to break bread on the Lord’s day, remembering always that the obligation flows from the grace of Christ, and is perfectly consistent with the most thorough sense of liberty before the Lord.

In short, then, the regularly sanctioned day for breaking bread among the Gentiles is the first day of the week (not of the month, or quarter, or year); but under special circumstances the early disciples used to break bread every day. This appears to be the true answer to questions raised on this point. Finally, in the same chapter (without entering into particulars at present), we may note the meeting of the elders* with Paul, and the important truth that they are not thrown upon any successors to the apostle, nor does he speak of any successors in their own office, but “commends them to God and to the word of his grace.” This is the more worthy of attention because he warns them of grievous wolves without, and perverse men from within. Thus there was every reason for speaking of succession, if it really possessed the place which tradition gives it, both to apostles on the one hand, and to elders on the other; but there is a marked absence of any such provision. Not only is it not pointed to, but a wholly different comfort is administered.

• It may be observed here that those whom the inspired historian calls “the elders of the church” (i.e., in Ephesus) the apostle designates overseers, or bishops (ἐπισκόπους). They are not in scripture two orders of spiritual rulers but one office. It is not merely that the bishops were styled presbyters (the higher dignity including the lower), but the presbyters Paul calls bishops, which could only be because they are both descriptive of the same men and office. This is supposed also in Philippians 1:1, 1 Timothy 3:1-16, Titus 1:5; Titus 1:7, 1 Peter 5:1-2. On the other hand presbyters never appointed to that office, though an apostle associated them with himself in laying hands on Timothy when he conferred on him a χάρισμα. But scripture never calls Timothy a presbyter or bishop, but an evangelist, though he was also employed of the Lord in a highly responsible place at Ephesus, and seems to have exercised a quasi-apostolic charge over the presbyters as well as the saints in general there. I am sorry to add an instructive sample of the blinding influence of ecclesiastical tradition over a pious mind at an early day. It is a citation from Ireneaus’ famous work against heresy (III. xiv. 2), or rather the Latin version which alone represents him here: — “In Mileto enim convocatis episcopis et presbyteris, qui erant ab Epheso et a reliquis proximis civitatibus, quoniam ipse festinaret,” etc. Undeniably there is a double misstatement here: (1) the bishops and presbyters must be regarded as at least contrary to fact; (2) they were expressly of the church in Ephesus, not from other neighbouring cities. We cannot wonder that later writers of less integrity and singleness of eye than the martyr bishop of Lyons went farther and without scruple in the effort to justify the growing departure from the normal state of the church, its doctrines, ministry, and discipline, as laid down in God’s word. I could not but consider the note of Massuet, the Benedictine editor, a disgrace to a Christian scholar, or even to an honest man, if one did not bear in mind that the eyes of such persons are useless spiritually when they read the Fathers.