Acts 17:23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD… 1. Athens was a city illustrious for its learning. But during the century or two preceding the Christian era, intellectual decay had set in, and instead of investigating the true, the people were raving after the new. The distinction between true and false philosophy in every age consists mainly in this — the one loves the new more than the true, the other loves the true more than the new. At this time Paul went to Athens, and the everlasting gospel with him; and in it there is a perfect combination of the true and the new. He declares unto them the unknown God: — I. IN RELATION TO NATURE. 1. As Creator of the universe. The Greek mind had often but ineffectually grappled with the mysterious problem of the origin of the world. Every school of ancient thought believed in the eternity of matter. Of a creation out of nothing the ancient heathen had not the crudest idea. Mankind seemed to be entirely indebted to Divine revelation for it. God created — (1) The matter of the world. Plato recognised God as the "Arranger of the Hyle." But whence issued the "Hyle"? Plato is mute. But St. Paul teaches that God not only built the world, but made the materials likewise. A child may learn more in five minutes in the first verse of the Bible than recondite sages in their protracted studies. "Through faith we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God."(2) Its laws. Laws are so many windows through which we can glance at God. But over these windows infidelity draws the blinds. Men praise each other for discovering these laws, but are slack to give glory to God for making them. But what is the discovery of a law compared with its invention? 2. Having created the world, God is still present in it as its Sovereign Lord and Director. "Seeing He giveth to all life and breath and all things." The Stoics did not theoretically deny the Divine existence, but they did deny the Divine government. They believed in fate; hence their reckless indifference to all the ills and favours of life. In our day also, law does everything, God nothing. Ancients and moderns alike, after putting the extinguisher on the sun, feel constrained to light a candle. The Bible teaching, however, is clear and unambiguous. Whilst we must insist upon the radical distinction between God and the world, we must beware lest we make this distinction separation. From these truths two valuable lessons are deduced — (1) That "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands."(2) That "He is not worshipped or served with men's hands as though He needed anything." We do not give to Him, He gives to us. "Every good gift and every perfect gift," etc. II. IN HIS RELATION TO MAN. 1. God made man — a truth strikingly new to the Greeks. The Greeks thought that they had grown from the soil. The idea of God cannot be degraded without at the same time debasing the idea of man. The same theory practically is advocated now. God is involved in nature according to the fashionable Pantheism of the age; and man is evolved out of nature according to its anthropology. The apostle further proclaims the unity of the human race. The Greeks viewed themselves as the aristocracy of the world, separated even in origin from all other nations, whom they contemptuously treated as barbarians. 2. God rules men. He did not fling them upon the world to be the sport of chance, but "determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." The one object, however, was that men "might seek the Lord, if haply they might find Him." All events were so disposed as to be helpful to mankind in their search after God. We imagine that were the circumstances arranged a little differently, it would result in the spiritual advantage of the nations. But St. Paul declares otherwise. 3. God is the Father of man (ver. 28). God is only the Maker of nature. The white man carries about him God's image in ivory, and the coloured man in ebony, but none the less an image for that. How striking the genealogy in Luke 3 the son of David the Son of God. From this homogeneity of nature between man and God the apostle makes a practical inference (ver. 29). Athens abounded in idols, but none of them properly represented God. The Divine likeness cannot be stamped on gross matter, it must have intelligence for its canvas. Consequently man's fault has always been in seeking God among material objects. But inasmuch as we are partakers of His nature, it cannot be that "He is far from any one of us."(1) As to place. There is a sense in which the sun is over ninety millions of miles distant; but there is a sense in which it is nearer us than any other created object. Its beams pierce our frame, its light enters the eye, its warmth pervades the body. "In it we live and move and have our being." In like manner God may be affirmed to be infinitely removed from us; but there is a sense in which He is nearer every one of us than any other being can possibly be (vers. 27, 28). (2) As to His nature. His spirituality and not His omnipresence is the leading idea. In our own spirituality can we best understand the nature of the Deity. 4. God is the Redeemer of men. From the Fatherhood to the Redeemership the stride is not so very great. "And the times of this ignorance God overlooked" — i.e., did not directly interfere. Not that He entirely disregarded the heathen world. That would be a flat contradiction of ver. 26. God often interposed in their geographical and political history, but He left them to work out their religious problems for themselves. The "now" is significant of a change of policy. It is not a matter of no consequence whether you embrace Christianity or not. "He commandeth you." The gospel comes with all the authority of law. You have broken other commandments, will you persist in breaking this also? Paul's hearers had been all their lifetime endeavouring to atone for sin; now, however, they are bidden not to atone but to repent. "Every man everywhere." The gospel embraces every human being. None are too high to need repentance; none are too low to have it. 5. God is the Judge of men (ver. 31). Paul was now standing on the site of the most venerable court in the whole world. Here Mars and Orestes were tried, and here Socrates was unjustly condemned. What therefore more natural than that Paul should wind up his oration by a solemn reference to the judgment seat of Christ? Yes, there is an awful hereafter, notwithstanding the creed of Epicureans. Oh, the madness of those who spend their day of grace in reckless indifference, saying, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. |
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