And on the coming sabbath almost all the city was gathered together to hear the word of God.
A week earlier Paul had preached in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia to Jews and to proselytes — non-Jews who had joined the Jewish faith. Seven days later the doors could not hold the town. This verse marks the moment the gospel stops being a synagogue matter and becomes a city-wide event. What drew such a crowd? And what does a crowd like that prove?
Paul and Barnabas did not organise this gathering. It grew out of the first sermon, and out of a report that spread through the town that week.
This was the sermon with which the great apostle to the Gentiles opened his missionary work in Pisidian Antioch. The result was encouraging. As the people were going out (the service was over, not interrupted, as some have imagined), the hearers begged Paul to speak these words to them again the next sabbath, the great day for such a talk... So far no Gentiles had heard, apart from the proselytes. But the next sabbath the report drew them in crowds. The effect on them was as marked for good as it was on many Jews for evil, as we shall see.
The pull was one line from Paul's sermon: Christ justifies everyone who believes, from all the things the law of Moses could not. That promise reached past the Jews. The wording quoted below follows an older translation of Acts 13:39.
The words "from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses" concerned the Jews, of course. They told the Jews of a blessing the law could never give them. But the words "by Him all who believe are justified from all things" showed that the grace of justification was within reach of the Gentile just as much as the Jew. All who believed could share in it. God had a message for men who had sinned, and He inclined that large company to attend, and to hear it.
Look at who made up the difference in numbers.
Previously there had been just Jews and proselytes together; now a large mix of Gentiles appeared — natives, many of them, no doubt, of the place. Very probably most of them had never set foot inside those walls before. On this occasion it was clear they could not stay away. They had come to hear the word of God. Though they were Gentiles, many of them were thirsting for truth. Judaism could not supply that truth, but these strangers could give it.
Such interest does not rise by itself. The people best placed to recognise the work of God in it read it as competition instead.
The power of God was clearly behind this awakened interest, as the Jews should have discerned. Yet when they saw the crowds, envy filled them. They did not share the same concern to learn the truth of God. This selfish party spirit among the Jews blinded their minds to how precious the grace of God is. Without realising it, they sentenced themselves to be left with nothing. Selfishness always defeats its own ends.
A packed synagogue is a real result, but it settles nothing about the hearers.
But the poor Jews, moved with jealousy, cannot bear to be outdone in religious influence, or that a religion other than theirs should work on the Gentiles. Oh, poor human heart, always stronger in religious people! The truth it already believes does not put the heart to the test. It believes that truth because many others received it — people who were themselves unconverted — and because professing it does them honour. But truth is always truth, even when the many do not receive it. It does put the heart to the test, and we must receive it only because God gives it.
The message Paul preached stayed God's word even where the hearers threw it back at him.
How could anyone preach the voice of God by His Spirit to the soul? (Acts 13:5, 44) Was it not still the Word of God, even if not one soul heard God's voice in it by the Spirit — even though the people who first heard it contradicted it and blasphemed? (v. 46)
- Word sown. One sermon on justification through Christ did the work. The hearers themselves asked to hear it again.
- Word spread. The report travelled through Antioch for a week, and God inclined that large company to come and hear.
- Word widened. Gentiles who had never entered those walls filled them. The grace of justification was within their reach too.
- Word tested. The crowd was God's power at work, but envy read it as rivalry, and those who should have welcomed it opposed it.
- Word stands. Truth is truth whether the many receive it or blaspheme it. Receive it because God gives it, not because a crowd approves it.
But the Jews, seeing the crowds, were filled with envy, and contradicted the things said by Paul, [contradicting and] speaking injuriously.
A crowd came to hear the word, far larger than the synagogue had ever drawn. That crowd, not Paul's teaching, set off the reaction. One writer notes what the Jews should have read in the scene, and what they read instead.
The power of God was clearly behind this awakened interest, as the Jews should have discerned. Yet, when they saw the crowds present, envy filled them instead of the same concern to learn the truth of God. This selfish sectarianism blinded their minds to how precious the grace of God is... They opposed what Paul was speaking. They did not only contradict him; they blasphemed (verse 45). That shows their contempt for God Himself. They were that intent on holding on to their sectarian pride.
Opposition to the message was not new. What appears here is a different grievance. The strength of the feeling shows what lay behind it.
But a new feature comes out here. From now on the Spirit of God lets us see it in all the journeys and labours of the apostle Paul. It is the hatred which the unbelieving Jews felt at the preaching of the truth to the Gentiles. The scene now lay outside among the nations whom they despised. If the gospel were a lie, why feel it so strongly? It was not love or respect for Gentiles. But Satan stirred up, not now simply their religious pride but their envy.
A message that reached everyone alike cost them the standing they had held over their neighbours.
A Jonah would rather see Nineveh destroyed than see the vast city spared when it repented. That way he keeps up his reputation as a prophet. These Jews would rather keep the Gentiles ignorant of the gospel, and so keep up their prestige among them. They could not bear to see these preachers drawing crowds of Gentiles to hear the word of grace. That word put everyone on a common level. It announced that the blessings God was now giving out were equally within reach of all, and that all could share in them.
Jonah was a prophet sent to the great city of Nineveh, who resented it when God spared the city.
Another writer names the feeling plainly, and shows what it could not stop.
How low, as well as evil and malicious, jealousy is — religious jealousy above all, as here! Had the gospel been powerless, the Jews would have kept their composure. The long preaching of Moses had never worked like this. The gospel won such wide attention at once, and that was intolerable to them. But the hatred of grace, though it ruins those guilty of it, only enlarges the field of work. It also frees the messengers from waiting too carefully on the men of tradition and their narrow channels. Blasphemies did not shock Paul and Barnabas into silence. They grew bold instead.
The warning does not stay in the first century. One writer turns the verse on the reader. He points to Paul's own experience of rivals preaching while he was in prison.
This filled the Jews with envy, such is the smallness of fallen human nature. The Jews refused the message, and they would not let the Gentiles have it... Do we not see it sometimes even in Christian circles? In prison, Paul had the unhappy experience of knowing that some brothers were preaching the gospel out of envy and strife. They meant to add trouble to the chains of this devoted servant of Christ. And we have known servants of the Lord, jealous of a younger man with more gift, seeking to hinder him in his work.
Envy is hardest to spot when it borrows the language of faithfulness:
As with pride, so it is with envy. Its most horrible and deadly form hides itself under a cover of zeal for the Lord. Under this or some other religious excuse, it seeks the harm of another.
- Crowd — God's power packed the synagogue, and the Jews should have seen it. Instead of joining the interest, they envied it.
- Envy — they could not stand a gospel that worked. A powerless message would have left them calm.
- Contempt — envy did not stop at contradiction. It went on to blasphemy, and blasphemy shows contempt for God Himself.
- Level ground — grace put everyone on a common level. The blessing they had held as prestige was now within reach of all. That was the real offence.
- Enlargement — hatred of grace ruins those who hold it, but it only widens the work. It freed the preachers from narrow channels, and they grew bold instead of silent.
And Paul and Barnabas spoke boldly and said, It was necessary that the word of God should be first spoken to you; but, since ye thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the nations;
Paul had preached at Antioch in Pisidia, and the crowds he drew turned the synagogue against him. His reply is one of the great turning points in Acts. He defends God's order, names the sentence they passed on themselves, and opens a door to the nations.
Paul does not apologise for going to the synagogue first. Writers point out that he always began there, and that the synagogue gave him his one open door.
We may notice the apostle's practice. It matched the principle so familiar in his inspired words: "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." At Salamis they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. It was indeed the only religious place where any such liberty existed. And such was God's order until Jerusalem fell — or at least until the letter to the Hebrews was written. Then the "no difference" which the gospel declares found a still clearer and final application.
What set them off was not the teaching but the size of the crowd. The attack did not silence Paul.
How base, evil and spiteful is jealousy — religious jealousy above all, as here! ... But "the crowds" were too much for religious prejudice. It had lain asleep until now, and it woke with the most spiteful feelings of hatred and abuse. This is what flesh does in the presence of grace and truth, when it sees hearts attracted and consciences touched. Had the gospel been powerless, the Jews would have kept their composure. The long preaching of Moses had never worked like this, and the gospel's immediate success in winning such wide attention was unbearable to them. But the hatred of grace, ruinous to those guilty of it, only enlarges the field of work. ... Paul and Barnabas grew bold, instead of being shocked into silence by Jewish blasphemies.
Paul does not say God had judged them unworthy. He says they passed the sentence themselves.
"Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life" — how solemn to judge oneself unworthy of eternal life, as every unbeliever does!
The same writer turns that verdict on the reader. He traces the refusal back to what the heart is still holding on to:
God is now in Christ, begging and pleading with you to be reconciled to Him. The ground is His acceptance of the One who was made sin. Your rejecting Him proves that you are not willing to be saved. He is ready to save you, to pardon here and now. But you have some secret reserve, something you are keeping back from Him. Either you wish to serve sin a little longer, or you do not believe that God is as good as He is. You prove that you judge yourself unworthy of eternal life.
The move outward looks like a reaction to failure. It was nothing of the kind.
Turning to Gentiles, when the Jews should judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life, was no afterthought in the mind of God. The Gentiles who now heard it were glad. The Scriptures given to Israel contained this announcement about them. Would the Jews boast of a divine written revelation given only to them? That very revelation, it was now shown, had foretold mercy to Gentiles.
Paul then takes words spoken about the Messiah and applies them to himself.
Paul's use of Isaiah 49:6 in the next verse is both striking and full of instruction. The prophet is speaking of the Messiah rejected by Israel. God grants Him this comfort: His humiliation opens the door to wider glory. The slighted servants of Christ take this to themselves. In the same circumstances, infinite grace gives men of faith that right: what was said of Christ is no less true of the Christian. "For so the Lord has commanded us." ... The spirit of obedience, we may add, finds a command where no other eye could see one.
The words were few. One writer sees in them the start of everything that followed.
"Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:46) was a challenge of a new kind. It was destined to turn the tide away from Jerusalem, the land of Israel, the synagogue, the law and that whole system. It was to be the beginning of the evangelisation of the world, whatever a person's country or background. It was indeed the beginning of the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy, written over five and a half centuries earlier.
- Order. The word had to come to Israel first; Paul kept that order everywhere, and only opposition moved him past it.
- Envy. The crowds, not the teaching, provoked the attack; religious jealousy is the basest kind of all.
- Self-sentence. God did not shut them out. They judged themselves unworthy, and every refusal of Christ says the same thing.
- Purpose. The turn outward was no emergency plan. Israel's own Scriptures had foretold mercy for the Gentiles.
- Overflow. Their rejection did not shrink the work but widened it, and the gospel went out to the whole world.
for thus has the Lord enjoined us I have set thee for a light of the nations, that thou shouldest be for salvation to the end of the earth.
The synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia had pushed Paul's message away, so he and Barnabas turned to the Gentiles. Paul gives his reason from Isaiah — words God spoke to the Messiah, not to a missionary, which raises a question: how can a servant act on a promise made to Another?
The "you" in the quotation is Christ. Paul applies it to himself and Barnabas as well. One commentator raises that difficulty and answers it:
"For so," he says, "the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles." What had this to do with Paul and Barnabas? Everything. There is no doubt that the prophet has Christ directly in view. Some might want to limit the words to Christ alone. But the Holy Spirit does not; He extends their reach to Paul and Barnabas. Did not Paul afterwards write, "to me to live is Christ"? Christ was everything to them. Christian faith takes to itself what was said to Him.
Paul does not say "so it is written." He says the Lord commanded us. A word about the future became a direction for the next step:
In Acts 13:47 you have a quotation from Isaiah. He calls that a commandment, though it was a word of prophecy; but the moment they understood it, it was a commandment. If they had words which gave them the knowledge of God's will, they really are commandments.
Not everyone would have read Isaiah that way. The same writer notes that this does not weaken the certainty of those who did:
We should notice this last point: the energy in action that spiritual understanding gives. Prophetic declarations turn into light and authority for action when the Spirit of God gives the true practical meaning — the application. Someone else might not understand it; but the spiritual man has full assurance in his own conscience from the word he has understood. He leaves the rest to God.
The words Paul quotes come from a passage where God's work meets refusal. His answer to that refusal is not a smaller plan but a wider one:
The original thought was to gather Israel, but Israel would not be gathered. Then God says, That is too small a thing; I will save the nations also. But Christ is first given as a light to the Gentiles. It is going out rather than gathering in. At any rate, that is the turn given to the passage now, under the gospel. While Israel is not yet gathered, Christ becomes a light to the Gentiles.
The verse works on two levels. Its full scope is still ahead, but Paul used it at once:
During the time of Christ's rejection by the Jews — while Israel is still scattered among the nations — God will give Christ as a light to the Gentiles, so that He may become God's salvation to the ends of the earth. No doubt the prophecy looks on to the Millennial blessing of the world for its complete fulfilment. But in the meantime the Spirit of God, through the Apostle Paul, gives these beautiful words an application to the present time.
Light and salvation are not two separate gifts here. The light is how salvation comes:
God brings Himself before the eyes of men in this Person. If we do not believe in Christ as the revelation of God we must stay in our natural darkness; we can never know Him. There is no other light. Jesus is the true light… And all this light is so that our souls may be saved. Jesus is set to be a light for the Gentiles, that He may be for salvation to the ends of the earth. Salvation is found in the knowledge of God; it cannot be known any other way.
Anyone who meets a closed door can reason the same way:
Paul and Barnabas say, Christ is our life. If it is true of Christ, it is true of us. If Christ, rejected by Israel, turns to the Gentiles, so should we. If one casts us out, let us take it meekly and turn to another. Where there is humble love, you turn from those who reject you, and you go where the door is open.
- Rejection: Israel would not be gathered. God called that work "too small a thing," and the refusal opened the way to a wider purpose.
- Light: God gave a Person, not a plan. There is no other light, and salvation comes by knowing God as Christ shows Him.
- Shared: God spoke the words to Christ, yet faith takes them for itself — so the two preachers could say the Lord commanded us.
- Command: A line of prophecy became an order the moment they understood it. Once you know God's will, you must obey it.
- Reach: The light reaches to the ends of the earth. Paul applied that in Antioch, its full scope is still to come, and every rejected servant copies it by going where the door is open.
And [those of] the nations, hearing it, rejoiced, and glorified the word of the Lord, and believed, as many as were ordained to eternal life.
The synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia pushed Paul's message away. So Paul and Barnabas turned to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles welcomed the news with joy. Then comes the line people have argued over ever since: those appointed to eternal life were the ones who believed. Older translations say "ordained" where the ESV says "appointed," and the writers below use that older word.
The move to the Gentiles was not an emergency measure after Jewish rejection. One writer notes that Israel's own Scriptures had already announced it.
The turn to the Gentiles, when the Jews would judge themselves unworthy of eternal life, was no afterthought in God's mind. The Gentiles who now heard that were glad. The Scriptures given to Israel held this announcement about them. Would the Jews boast that God gave His written revelation to them alone? In that revelation, it was now shown, mercy to Gentiles was foretold.
The joy here comes from people who were shut out for a long time. The same sentence also marks how far the offer reaches and who receives it.
For a long time the nations were both hidden and shut out. Now they are brought into view. They are the direct object not of law, as Israel once was, but of God's mercy in the gospel. God's righteousness is toward all, though it takes effect only on all who believe.
The same message reached everyone there, yet only some believed. One writer traces that difference to God's power working with the words spoken.
Such was free grace, poured out on all, leaving the strict limits of Judaism and directing itself to the whole world. But still the grace of God, mingled with faith, was necessary to make the truth enter the heart, so that it might be born of God. This is what happens here. The power of God accompanied the word and "as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."
Some readers flip the sentence around, so that believing comes first and appointing follows. One writer holds both halves together: Paul preached to everyone alike, and those appointed to eternal life were the ones who believed.
Why should we take one of these truths, and not the other? Or why should we seek to alter either? Some would say, Do not preach the gospel to all, only to the elect. Paul preached it to all alike, and declared that all who believe are justified. Others would change the second one, and say, As many as believe are then ordained to eternal life. But it is not so; "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Surely we have no right to alter God's word to suit human opinions.
No one could have picked out the future believers in that crowd beforehand. God's appointing comes first, but we see it last.
Many Gentiles did believe, and by that it became clear that they had been ordained to eternal life. We do not know who are ordained to eternal life, so we cannot foretell who will believe. When we find anyone really believing, we know at once that they are ordained to eternal life.
Some stretch this verse into a matching decree running the other way: that God marks others out beforehand for ruin. One writer answers that Scripture never says this.
Another error has caused trouble about election. Some hold that since certain people are ordained to eternal life, God must also have foreordained others to destruction. They call this "reprobation." But Scripture does not teach it. God desires that all men should be saved, 1 Timothy 2:4, and His election to life ensures that some will be.
Does this doctrine belong in a preacher's message to the lost? One writer draws a sharp line.
But then some may feel inclined to ask, "Do you want to set aside the doctrine of election?" God forbid. We only want to see it in its right place. We want it as a landmark, not as a stumbling block. We believe the evangelist has no business to preach election. Paul never preached election. He taught election, but he preached Christ. This makes all the difference.
- Refused. The synagogue judged itself unworthy of eternal life, so the preachers turned to the nations. Israel's own Scriptures had already foretold that turn.
- Offered. The gospel went out to everyone there. God's righteousness is toward all, but it takes effect only on those who believe.
- Given. Faith was not self-produced. The power of God went with the word, and grace made the truth enter the heart.
- Shown. God's appointing came first; their believing revealed it. We cannot read the list, so we know the appointed only when we find them believing.
- Guarded. The verse decrees no ruin for the rest. Election is a landmark for believers, not a hurdle in front of those still seeking.