“THIS IGNORANCE GOD WINKED AT.”
-ACTS
17:22-34-FEBRUARY 1.-
Golden Text-“He preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.”
PERSECUTION followed
the Apostle to Berea, where we, in a previous lesson, left him teaching a very
noble class of inquiring and searching minds. His enemies in Thessalonica
discovered his whereabouts, and at once began to create a disturbance -no doubt
believing that thus they were doing God service. The Apostle’s own experience
as a persecutor of the body of Christ must have helped him to very charitable
views of those who so viciously pursued him. The evidences of coming trouble
were so strong that the Berean friends feared to have him embark at a regular
port, at which he might have been recognized, and the direction of his journey
anticipated, and thus prejudices might have gone with him or before him into
new fields; they, therefore, secretly hastened him to the near seashore where
he obtained coastwise shipping for Athens. The Apostle, as the chief
spokesman, “drew the fire” of his enemies to such an extent that their hatred
seems to have been confined to him alone-not affecting Silas, his companion,
nor Timothy, at this time his assistant or servant. The latter two were left
behind, to strengthen and encourage the believers, whose faith already had been
established.
Under these circumstances the Apostle arrived at Athens, once the world’s
capital in every sense of the word; but still its capital in respect to science
and art and theology and schools of general instruction-its commercial and
political influence having gone to Rome with the imperial control. To Athens
came the youth of wealthy families of the world, and many others possessed of a
special craving for wisdom,-to avail themselves of the teachers, studies and
lectures-practically the only means of instruction at that time.
Without a miracle no other one of the apostles would have been competent
to secure a hearing before the Athenian Council of the Areopagites-composed of
the teachers of the various schools of learning, and generally speaking, of the
reputedly wisest men of the world. That the Apostle Paul, without letters of
introduction, without political or other influence, serving as such, should
succeed in a few days in obtaining an invitation to address this august body of
men, indicates clearly that he was a man of remarkable talent, as well as
learning. These natural qualities in him were reinforced by the spirit of a
sound mind, the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of the divine revelation, the
true Gospel. The Apostle lost no time in beginning his special work: true, he
first made a general inspection of the chief features of the city’s
attractions, noting its numerous public statues to the gods, whose number Pliny
gives as over three thousand in the time of Nero. It was while making this
inspection of the city and considering how best he could launch the gospel
message there, that his attention was drawn to one altar erected “To the Unknown
God.” He kept this as a text for his principal effort when the time should be
ripe, and meantime, as usual, he began his ministry by going into the Jewish
synagogues; but apparently finding little interest here he resorted to the
public squares and markets, and discussed religious topics with the numerous
students and others who gathered there.
Amongst those who heard him were some of a cynical turn of mind who said,
Let us listen to what this babbler is saying; the word “babbler” signifying
seed-picker, inferentially meaning that the Apostle had gained a mere
smattering of knowledge, picked up some seeds of thought from others of the
great teachers, and was now attempting to set himself up as a teacher. Others,
disposed to persecute, said, He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods;-for
to set forth any strange gods in Athens was a crime, it being held that they
already had them in plenty, and that to admit that any one could present a new
god of which the Athenian teachers knew nothing, would be an insult to their
learning and evidently a fraud. This, together with the Apostle’s talents,
secured for him a hearing before the Areopagites, or Council of the Learned.
It was this Council which had the power to sentence to death anyone who should
attempt to set forth strange gods in Athens; and hence the Apostle’s hearing
before them was probably, more or less, in the nature of a trial for life,
because he had been preaching Jesus-an unheard-of god amongst the Athenians up
to this time-and the resurrection.
The Apostle’s theme is worthy of our notice. Under the divine guidance he
seemed to have a way of approaching the pith of the gospel most directly, and
these words of our Golden Text, “Jesus and the resurrection,” really embraced
the whole of the gospel preached. The world, under divine sentence, was dead
or dying: the redemption price, our Lord’s ransom sacrifice, had just been
paid, and the hope to be built upon his work and to be announced to the people
was the resurrection of the dead-that our Lord’s death was the
purchase price for the sins of the whole world, and that as a result, in God’s
due time, an awakening of the dead shall come, and eventually the full raising
up to the perfection of life of all who will accept the Redeemer as their
leader and guide. This is the gospel which should still be preached, but
which, by reason of various errors that crept in during the dark ages, has been
beclouded and forced out of its way to such an extent that remarkably few lay
any stress whatever upon the grand doctrine of the resurrection of the dead;
and some are even dropping from their teachings “the ransom for all” given by
Jesus.
We can picture before our minds the Apostle addressing the Council of
Mars’ Hill, composed of “the noblest blood of Athens, the first politicians,
the first orators, the first philosophers; accordingly the most august, not
only of Athens, but of Greece, and, indeed, of the whole world, under whose
supervision ‘came the transactions of the popular assembly, religion, laws,
morals and discipline.’” Now the Apostle had use for the text he had found.
He must prove to these men that he was not the setter forth of a new
theology, but an old one. He at once brought forth his argument, not in
the discourteous language of our English Common Version, intimating that his
auditors were ignorant and superstitious, but, on the contrary, in
complimentary language, which we paraphrase: he said to them;-“I perceive that
more than others you Athenians have respect for whatever is divine. The
conviction of this came to me as passing through your city I beheld the various
evidences of your devoutness, and amongst other altars noticed one with the
inscription, “To the Unknown God.” Information regarding this God I am setting
forth. He is the God that made the world and everything therein, and is the
Lord of heaven and earth, too great to dwell in any temples made with hands,
for he is the Lord of heaven as well as earth; neither can he receive service
at our hands, for he needs nothing which we have to give, but is the author of
life and breath and all things; who himself created every nation of men
dwelling throughout all the earth-and even all their affairs are subject to his
regulations and appointments.
Thus did he set before them the greatness of the true God, in contrast
with their numerous gods whom they feared or hated, reverenced or placated, and
whose vices and frequent impotency they admitted. The Apostle thus brought his
teachings within the rules and regulations, as being not a new teaching, but a
fuller declaration of a God already recognized by his hearers. And indeed, so
high, so noble, so great a thought of God, must have impressed his hearers
favorably. We cannot doubt that the teachings of the Jews, supplemented by the
gospel presentations, have done much to lift the minds of men out of the deep
degradation which came upon them soon after the flood, as explained by the
Apostle.-Rom. 1:20-32.
A God who was not merely the God of one nation or of one city or of one
precinct, but who had created all races and nations, and had had to do with the
rise and fall of nations, was certainly a very different God from anything that
had ever been heretofore suggested to the minds of these philosophers; for
although the Jews had preached the same God, undoubtedly their presentation of
him as the God of the Hebrews must have favored the impression that each nation
had its own god or gods, demanding its worship, reverence, sacrifices, etc.
In vss. 26 and 27 the Apostle implies that the Lord’s ordering of the
national affairs had something to do with the propagation of the knowledge of
himself, and so we find it has been. The bringing of the world under
successive empires-the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian and Roman-had tended
to unify the race to some extent, and to make more possible the promulgation of
the gospel. During the Grecian period the Greek language was spread abroad
throughout various lands, and it still maintained its supremacy as the language
of the world, although the reins of government had passed to the hands of the
Romans, under whose pushing, warlike power the world in general would be
brought much closer together than it had ever been from the time of the
confounding of tongues at Babel. All this had occurred at the proper juncture
of time as concerned God’s favor to Israel, according to the flesh, the birth
of Jesus, his crucifixion and the gathering of the ripe “wheat” from that
nation, and the scattering of the remainder. All these things were, under
divine supervision, working in the interest of mankind, “that they should seek
God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from
each one of us.” The Apostle would assist his hearers in finding this true
God, who was to be found of them, and whom they had indicated their desire to
know when they erected the altar referred to.
Describing the true God further, the Apostle assured his hearers that none
could live or move or have existence, even, aside from the power and good
intent of this great God. His words are equally truthful, whether we restrict
them to the imperfect existence of the present time and the dying condition of
the world, with but a spark of life, or whether we apply them in the fuller
sense to the Lord’s provision for the future by restitution processes and
arrangements. Still wishing to offset the thought that his message was a new
one, the Apostle declares that certain Grecian poets had practically expressed
this thought in saying, “We are also his offspring.” Carrying the mind, then,
to the logical conclusion, he urges that if we are the offspring of God our
thoughts respecting divinity should not lead us to make or to worship images of
any kind, all of which are professedly of man’s device.
The Apostle’s method is worthy of our
imitation. All wise people distrust novelty, and incline to say that whatever
is valuable has long been. We, like the Apostle, should endeavor to show that
the true gospel is not a new theology, but the old theology; not a new gospel,
but the old gospel,-the one foretold to Abraham; the one announced by
the angels on Bethlehem’s plains as “good tidings of great joy which shall be
unto all people;” the one declared by the Lord Jesus
himself and by all his apostles. In proportion as we would show that errors
prevail today, which had their origin in the “dark ages,” we must show that we
are not forging a new theory equally erroneous, but that we have discarded the
errors of the dark ages, and have gone back to the first principles and
precepts and instructions of the gospel, as announced by the Lord and his
authorized representatives, the apostles.
An explanation was necessary as to why this great God who had
created all nations, and was directing their welfare, had neglected to send
word to the Athenians until now. The Apostle did not go into a full
explanation of the matter, with which his hearers would not have sympathy-he
did not attempt to show how God in the past had merely been giving the world
lessons in respect to the wages of sin, neither did he mention how Abraham’s
seed had been selected as the line through which divine blessings were to be
carried eventually to all the families of the earth, and that God had been
dealing with the natural seed of Abraham for the preceding eighteen centuries,
making types of them and through them illustrating the progress of the divine
plan as it shall ultimately be carried out. He did not explain, either, how
that Christ offered himself to this nation of Israel, and (in harmony with the
divine foreknowledge) had been rejected, and that now God was seeking a
spiritual seed of Abraham-spiritual Israelites-to take the place of the
broken-off branches of the fleshly house.-Rom. 11.
He contented himself with the bare statement of the truth, that in times
past God had “winked at” or overlooked or disregarded and paid no attention to
the idolatries of the world, but that now the time was come for a change of
dispensation;-that now God was sending his message to them, and to all who had ears
to hear, commanding repentance from sin and turning from idolatries to true
worship and righteousness. Quite possibly, though the account does not state
it, the Apostle explained that the foundation or basis of this call to
repentance was the fact that Christ had been a propitiation (satisfaction) for
the sins of the whole world-clearing men thus from the original condemnation of
death and alienation from God, and permitting the return to his favor of
whomsoever would.
The word “because” commencing vs. 31 has a special significance which
should not be overlooked. God calls upon all men to repent and reform, because
he has appointed for them a day of judgment-a day of trial or testing. Not a
trial for testing or judging whether or not they are imperfect and fallen, for
this God already knows, even better than we do, and his Word expressly declares
that “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Such a trial, such a judgment
day, therefore, to see if any were righteous, would be a farce. The object of the
day of trial or judgment referred to by the Lord is totally different from
this.
It is to be a trial day or judgment day to see, to test, to prove which of
the world of mankind desire fellowship with the Lord, desire to be obedient to
him, desire to walk in his ways. The Millennial Age is this trial day, and the
Lord assures us that a full opportunity shall be granted to each and every
member of the race to hear, to know, to comprehend his goodness, his love, his
redemption of the world through Christ, and his willingness that they should
come back into fellowship with him-back to a condition in which he could justly
accord to them everlasting life. God could not reasonably command any to
repent and return until the ransom was paid at Calvary, because it was his own
law that had forbidden them to have fellowship with him, and that law must
first be satisfied; and because he could not reward with life everlasting any
who would seek his face, until he had made provision through the death of
Christ for the payment of the death penalty against the race and through his
resurrection for the times of restitution.
It is a further part of this blessed assurance that the judgment or trial
of the world will be “in righteousness”-under a reign of righteousness when the
besetments of the Adversary and his deceptions will be at an end, and when,
therefore, a clear and explicit knowledge of the Lord and of the truth will
fill the earth, as the waters cover the great deep. What a gracious gospel the
Apostle had to preach! It was so good, indeed, that he had to be guarded in
his expression of it;-too good for his hearers to appreciate, with their
debauched ideas of the cruelty and perversity of the gods-even as it is too
good to be appreciated today by those whose minds have been more or less
confused by the horrible theological nightmares coming down to us from “the
dark ages.”
The Apostle was proceeding logically to show that the resurrection of
Christ from the dead was God’s assurance to all that he would ultimately carry
out this great plan of blessing the world, by granting to each member of it an
individual trial or judgment for life, under the favorable conditions of the
Millennium; and that the resurrection of Christ was not only God’s attestation
to men that his sacrifice has been satisfactory, but was also necessary, that
our Lord Jesus as the risen and glorified Son of God might exercise in due time
“all power in heaven and in earth,” and thus bring about the great
Thousand-Year Judgment Day, or “times of restitution of all things which God
hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts
3:21.) But with this his hearers, who must have been amazed with the logic of
his argument, and must have wondered how their various disciples would be
influenced by the new teacher, and to what extent they would lose caste, as
being less logical or less lofty in their sentiments, found occasion for an
expression of dissatisfaction, and of thus logically casting aside the entire
argument-dismissing it as unworthy of further consideration.
Their objection rested on the resurrection, which the Apostle made so
prominent, so indispensable to the carrying out of the entire plan of God;
indispensable, first, as to the Redeemer, that he must rise from the dead, ere
he could be the agent of Jehovah in prosecuting the work of blessing the world;
necessary to the world of mankind, that they might come forth from the tomb and
be granted a knowledge and opportunity of restitution or resurrection to all
that had been lost by Adam’s disobedience. When the resurrection was mentioned
the occasion for expressions of derision was furnished, as though they would
say: We knew that there could be no thorough-going philosophy superior to our
own; we were on the look-out for the weak point in the argument of this speaker
who sets himself up to be a teacher, and now we have found it;-the
resurrection! Nonsense! Whoever saw or heard of a resurrection from the dead?
Others of his auditors were less violent in their expressions, but agreed
that they had heard enough for the present-implying that the argument was not
very satisfactory when it needed to be supported by a resurrection hypothesis
which, to them, seemed very much less reasonable than their own philosophies,-that
a man never died, and that when he appears to die he really becomes more alive
than he ever was before. From their standpoint of view there could be no
resurrection of the dead, since there were none dead,-all being more abundantly
alive from the moment of apparent death. This has been the point of contest
between the Scriptures and those who hold to them as the Word of God, and all
other theories advanced by and backed by the Adversary and in accordance with
his original deceptive statement, “Ye shall not surely die.” Those who would
be on the Lord’s side must accept the Lord’s statement, “Ye shall surely die;”
must admit that it is true; must admit that it was necessary that Christ should
die, as our representative and substitute, to free us from the condemnation of
death, and must admit also that only by a resurrection of the dead can we come
back again to life,-to absolute perfection and full harmony with God.
However, one member of the Council of Mars’ Hill (the Areopagite Society)
had been deeply interested in the truth he had heard; also a woman of some
distinction, and others with them;-for although the Society alone occupied the
place of prominence in such discussions, the people in general were privileged
to surround the court. The Apostle’s experience here, as elsewhere, like our
own, demonstrates the fact that at the present time not many have ears to hear
the Word of the Lord; not many are seriously “feeling after him if haply they
might find him.” The majority are blinded by the god of this world, Satan,
through various traditions, heathen and Christian, so that they cannot discern
the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of the true gospel. At the
present time it is not given to all to see and to understand (Matt. 13:11; Mark
4:11), but we thank God that the time is coming when all the blind eyes shall
be opened, and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped; and then the preaching of
“Jesus and the resurrection” will mean a great blessing, and all shall come to
the knowledge of the truth, from the least to the greatest, as the Lord,
through the Prophet, has declared.-Jer. 31:33,34.