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.