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Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapters 3 and 4 Chapter 5 Chapters 6 and 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapters 10 to 11:18 Chapters 11:19 to 30 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapters 18:1 to 19:7 Chapters 19:8 to 41 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 |
Paul's mission; sent forth by the Spirit from Antioch, a Greek cityWe come now to the beginning of the direct history of the work, new in some important respects, that is, connected with Paul's mission by the immediate intervention of the Holy Ghost. It is not now Christ upon earth, who by His personal authority sends forth the twelve, afterwards endowed with the power of the Holy Ghost from on high to announce His exaltation to heaven and His return, and to gather under the standard of the cross those who should believe in Him. Paul has seen Christ in glory, and therefore has united himself to the assembly already gathered. But here there is no Christ personally present to send him forth as the witness of His presence on earth, or of His rejection as One whom Paul had known in earth. The Holy Ghost Himself sends him, not from Jerusalem, but from a Greek city, in which in free and sovereign power He had converted and gathered together some Gentiles, doubtless some Jews likewise, but forming an assembly whose existence was first marked by the fact that the gospel had been preached to the Greeks. The independent action of the Spirit; the source of the ministry of Paul and Barnabas
In Acts 13 we find ourselves again in the assembly at Antioch,
and in the midst of the independent* action of the Spirit of
God. Certain prophets are there, Saul among them. They fasted and
were occupied with the service of the Lord. The Holy Ghost commands
them to separate unto Him Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He
had called them Such was the source of the ministry of these
two. Assuredly it bore testimony to Him in whom they had believed,
and whom Saul, at least, had seen, and it was under His authority
they acted; but the positive and obvious source of their mission was
the Holy Ghost. It was the Holy Ghost who called them to the
work. They were sent forth (v. 4) by Him — an all-important
principle as to the Lord's ways upon earth. We come out from
Jerusalem, from Judaism, from the jurisdiction of the apostles
nominated by the Lord while He was on earth. Christ is no longer
known after the flesh, as Saul (when become Paul) expresses it. They
have to strive against the Judaic spirit — to show consideration
for it as far as it is sincere; but the sources of their work are
not now in connection with the system which that work no longer
knows as a starting-point. A glorious Christ in heaven, who owns the
disciples as members of His body as Himself on high — a mission
from the Holy Ghost on earth which only knows His energy as the
source of action and authority (bearing testimony of course to
Christ) — this is the work which now opens, and which is committed
to Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas as the link between Judaism and the work from Christ in heavenBarnabas, it is true, forms a link between the two. He was himself a Hellenist of Cyprus; it was he who presented Saul to the apostles after his conversion near Damascus. Barnabas had more largeness of heart — was more open to the testimonies of divine grace — than even the apostles and the others who had been nurtured in a strict Judaism; for God in His grace provides for everything. There is always a Barnabas, as well as a Nicodemus, a Joseph, and even a Gamaliel, whenever needed. The actings of God in this respect are remarkable in all this history. Would that we only trusted more entirely, while by the Spirit doing His will, to Him who disposes all things! Nevertheless even this link is soon broken. It was still in connection with the "old cloth," the "old bottles"; blessed as the man himself was, to whom the Holy Ghost rendered so fine a testimony, and in whom we see an exquisite character. He determined to take his kinsman also (see Col. 4:10), Mark. Mark returns to Jerusalem almost from the beginning of the work of evangelisation in the Gentile regions; and Saul continues his work with such instruments as God formed under his hand, or a Silas who chose to remain at Antioch when (the particular service which had been committed to him at Jerusalem being ended) he might naturally have returned thither with Judas. Preaching to the Jews first and then to the GentilesSent forth thus by the Holy Ghost, Barnabas and Saul, with John Mark as their ministering servant, go away to Seleucia, then to Cyprus; and being at Salamis, a town in that island, they preach the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. Whatever therefore might be the energy of the Holy Ghost, He acts in connection with the counsels and the promises of God, and that with perfect patience. To the end of his life, notwithstanding the opposition of the Jews, vexatious and implacable as it might be, the apostle continues — as the ways and counsels of God in Christ had commanded — to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles. Once brought in where truth and grace were fully revealed in God's assembly, there was no difference between Jew and Gentile. God is one in His character and fully revealed, and the veil rent; sin is one in its character and is opposed to God; the foundation of truth changes not, and the oneness of the assembly is connected with the height of grace in God and comes down to the deep totality of sin, in respect of which that grace has displayed itself. But, with regard to the ways of God upon earth, the Jews had the first place, and the Spirit, who is above all, can therefore act in full liberty in recognising all the ways of God's sovereignty; even as Christ, who made Himself a servant in grace, submitted to them all, and now, being exalted on high, unites all these various ways and dispensations in Himself as head and centre of a glory to which the Holy Ghost bears witness, in order to accomplish it here below, as far as may be, by grace. This does not prevent his giving a distinct and positive judgment as to the condition of the Jews when the occasion requires it. Need met wherever found; judgment pronounced upon what withstands God's gospelEven here, at the commencement of his ministry, the two things are presented together. We have already noticed that he begins with the Jews. Having traversed the island, he arrives at the seat of government. There the proconsul, a prudent and thoughtful man, asks to hear the gospel. Beset already by a false prophet (who took advantage of the felt need of a soul which, while ignorant, was earnestly desirous of something that could fill up the void it experienced in the nothingness of pagan ceremonies, and in its disgusting immorality), he sends for Barnabas and Saul. Elymas withstands them. This was natural. He would lose his influence with the governor if the latter received the truth that Paul preached Now Elymas was a Jew. Saul (who is henceforth named Paul) filled with the Holy Ghost, pronounces on him the sentence, on God's part, of temporary blindness, executed at the moment by the mighty hand of God. The proconsul, struck with the power that accompanied his word, submits to the gospel of God. I do not doubt that in this wretched
Bar-jesus we see a picture of the Jews at the present time, smitten
with blindness for a season, because jealous of the influence of the
gospel. In order to fill up the measure of their iniquity, they
withstood its being preached to the Gentiles. Their condition is
judged: their history given in the mission of Paul.* Opposed to
grace, and seeking to destroy its effect upon the Gentiles, they
have been smitten with blindness — nevertheless only for a
season. Return to Antioch; Paul's testimony in the synagogue
Departing from Paphos, they go into Asia Minor; and now Paul
definitively takes his place in the eyes of the historian of the
Spirit. His whole company are only those who were with Paul, an
expression in Greek which makes Paul everything (Paul's company
Lit. "those around Paul"). When they reached Perga, John Mark
leaves them to return to Jerusalem — a milder and more moderate
form of the Judaic influence, but showing that, wherever it
exercised itself, if it did not produce opposition, it at least took
away the vigour needful for the work of God as it was now unfolding
among the Gentiles. Barnabas however goes farther, and still
continues with Paul in the work. The latter, when they were come to
Antioch,* again begins first with the Jews. He goes on the sabbath
day into the synagogue, and, on the invitation of the ruler,
proclaims Jesus, rejected by the Jews at Jerusalem and crucified,
but by the power of God raised up again, and through whom they might
be justified from all things, from which they could not be justified
by the law of Moses. Here the testimony of Paul is very like that of
Peter, and is very particularly allied to the beginning of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, with regard to the character of the
testimony: verse 33 is quite Peter's testimony in Acts 3. In verse
31 he sets the twelve distinctly in the place of testimony to
Israel, as those who had personally accompanied the Lord, and who
had seen Him after His resurrection. "They are," he says, "his
witnesses unto the people." But Paul's testimony (which, as to the
fulfilment of the promises by the coming of Christ, and the mercies
of David made sure in His resurrection, returns into the order of
Peter's preaching) departs from it in an important point. He says
nothing of God's having made Jesus both Lord and Christ. He
announces that the remission of sins is proclaimed in His name,
exhorting his hearers not to neglect this great salvation.** The gospel of peace rejected by Jews — Paul and Barnabas return boldly to the Gentiles
Many follow Paul* and Barnabas in consequence of this
announcement, and are exhorted by them to continue in the grace which
had been proclaimed to them. The mass of the people come together the
following sabbath to hear the word of God; the Gentiles having
besought that this gospel of grace might be preached to them
again. Their souls had found more truth in the doctrine of the one
only God, acknowledged by the Jews, than in the senseless worship of
the Pagans, which, to an awakened and unsatisfied mind, no longer
presented any food that could appease it — a mind that was too active
to allow the imagination to amuse itself with ceremonies which had no
charms but for ignorance, which could be captivated by the pageantry
of festivals, to which it was accustomed, and which gratified the
religious element of the flesh. Still, the coldly acknowledged
doctrine of one only true God, although it set the mind free from all
that shocked it in the senseless and immoral mythology of Paganism,
did not at all feed the soul as did the powerful testimony of a God
acting in grace, borne by the Holy Ghost through the mouth of
messengers whom He had sent — a testimony which, while faithful to
the promises made to the Jews, yet addressed itself as a "word of
salvation" (v. 26) to all those who feared God. But the Jews, jealous
of the effect of the gospel which thus met the soul's need in a way
that their system could not, withstand Paul and blaspheme the doctrine
of Christ. Paul therefore and Barnabas turn boldly to the
Gentiles. Old Testament prophetic declarations turned into light and authority for action when the Spirit gives their applicationIt was a decisive and important moment. These two messengers of the Holy Ghost quote the testimony of the Old Testament with regard to God's purpose towards the Gentiles, of whom Christ was to be the light — a purpose which they accomplished according to the intelligence in it that the Spirit gave them, and by His power. The passage is in Isaiah (chap. 49), where the opposition of Israel, that made the testimony of Christ useless to themselves, gave God occasion to declare that this work was but a small thing, and that Christ should be a light to the Gentiles, and great even to the ends of the earth. We shall do well to observe this last circumstance, the energy in action imparted by spiritual intelligence, and the way in which prophetic declarations turn into light and authority for action, when the Spirit of God gives the true practical meaning — the application. Another might not perhaps understand it; but the spiritual man has a full guarantee for his own conscience in the word which he has understood. He leaves the rest to God. Gentile belief; the true character of the Jews shown as enemies of the Lord and His truthThe Gentiles rejoice at the testimony, and the election believe. The word spreads through all the region. The Jews now show themselves in their true character of enemies to the Lord and to His truth. With regard to them Paul and Barnabas shake off the dust of their feet against them. The disciples, whatever might be their difficulties, are no hindrance to this. The position here taken by the Jews — which, moreover, we find everywhere — makes us understand what a source of grief and pain they must have been to the apostles. |
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