Dear friends,
The climax of Paul’s great Athenian sermon is the call of God for all people to repent. But there are some strange elements in this call. One important element is its timing. Another is in the judgement “by a man”. Let’s listen afresh to Paul’s great gospel statement.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: In our summer edition of Two Ways News, we are looking at the great address of the Apostle Paul in Acts 17, in which he preaches the gospel to the Athenians. That sermon rises to its climax in Acts 17:29-31
Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Peter, what do you think of this great address of Paul?
Peter Jensen: It is astonishing, and such an encouragement to the preaching and sharing of the gospel. So far in this sermon, Paul has been telling the Athenians of the God that they acknowledge in a way; in last week’s episode, I quoted from Francis Bacon, “Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.” The heart of human beings is religious, and the Athenians acknowledged that by creating many gods, including this strange one: the altar of the unknown God. That is a confession of not knowing God, so Paul essentially says, ‘I’ve come to tell you about the real God.’ Then he proceeds to tell them this astonishing, wonderful, extraordinary truth, that there is only one living God, who has created and sustains all things.
If you ask who rules this world, the answer is one God. If you ask why things are happening, the answer is the will of this one God. Furthermore, this one God is so almighty and powerful that he rules over the nations in such a way that we should all be seeking and searching for him. But the truth is that he’s not far from any of us, that his disclosure of himself in his general revelation of the universe means that he speaks to us all the time. But more than that, he discloses himself to us in the truth of the gospel.
Furthermore, Paul tells us that God is the father of all humans. In other words, we all have a connection to him; it’s not as though he’s only the father of Christians. Though there is a special way in which he is the father of Christians, he is the father of all. Therefore, all are united in one people, and all of us should be seeking the Father. That’s why religious practices like temples and idols are, in the end, incoherent. We know that there is one God, not many gods. We know that this one God is such that he discloses himself to all his children. We know that he is the ruler of the universe; therefore, to put him in a building and worship little statues of him is so human and so sinful.
Phillip: That’s why we come to the climax on the judge of all the earth, because doing that to God is not something neutral; it is to reject the God we know, as he made himself known. It’s the attempt of humans to control God, to make him answerable to us, rather than to acknowledge ourselves as answerable to God. It’s the attempt to manipulate God to give us good weather, children or grandchildren, or whatever else we want. Religious practices, while completely normal, are completely sinful. The different temples, sacrifices and idols are not truly mankind’s attempt to find God; they’re humanity’s attempts to run away from the God that is clearly revealed to us. So far, Paul tells them of the God they acknowledge in the idols, but whom they confess not to know: this true and living God, who creates and sustains all things. That’s why these religious practices are so awful.
Therefore we come to the conclusion of the sermon, the judgement of God. But this judgement is not quite as people expect. One of the beautiful things about the Bible is that it keeps changing my mind for me. I have my expectations as to what the Bible is going to say, which are then subverted by what it truly says. That’s because it is right and I am wrong. It keeps changing me.
In this conclusion of the sermon, I have drawn out 5 points. The first is, “The times of ignorance God overlooked”; the second, “Now he commands all people everywhere to repent”; the third, “Because he has fixed a day on which to judge the world in righteousness”; the fourth, “and to judge by a man whom he has appointed”; and the fifth, “of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Let’s start with the first point, “The times of ignorance God overlooked.”
Peter: It is a strange phase, but what it means is clear enough. It’s not ignorance in the sense that people didn’t know about God’s existence, because their religious life showed that they knew something, even though it was an ignoring of God. Remember that we are dealing here with a relationship between ourselves and God. We all know what it is like to be ignored, for someone to turn their back on us, carrying on as though we don’t exist. It’s very painful to us as human beings, and that is the point that Paul makes. We have ignored God. That is to say, we have done everything to avoid looking at him.
Phillip: Indeed, it is a profound rejection of God.
Peter: The times of that sort of ignorance, God overlooked. He didn’t do what you would have expected him to do: namely, to end the human race right there and then, because that’s what we deserve for our treatment of him. But we read in the Bible that God is slow to anger. That does not mean that he is devoid of emotions; in fact, he is angry. It is the righteous anger of God which we’re referring to. It’s not a temperamental matter. Another way of putting it is to be found in 2 Peter 3:9, which states that the Lord is “Patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
So it comes out of the very being of God himself, that judgement is not being wrought upon us. The very being of God himself, his love for his wayward children. He could have condemned us at any point in history. The sins of Adam and Eve could have been the end of all things. But he has overlooked these things in the sense that he has patiently given us time to do what he tells us, which is to turn to him.
Phillip: Could this overlooking of our sinfulness bring people to accuse him of not being righteous?
Peter: It could indeed. If the state refuses to take action on a crime, you can be aggrieved and accuse the state of not being righteous. But there may, even in this example, be a good reason for this. That is certainly the case with God.
Phillip: It made me think of Romans 3:23-26
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
The work of the gospel is the bringing to an end of this overlooking of sinfulness, which therefore takes us to the second point: “Now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” ‘Now’ is a key word in this sentence, as it indicates the change that has occurred between the past, during which sin was overlooked, and the present, in which we are called to repent.
Peter: In Mark 1:15, when Jesus preaches in Galilee, the gospel is summarised thus: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Phillip: Furthermore, in John 12:31, Jesus says, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Here he speaks again of his death, indicating that he will be a profound disruption to the history of the world. Our forebears were right in dividing history as ‘Before Christ’ and ‘In the year of the Lord’, because no continuum of history can be written without this fracture that happened when God stopped overlooking the wilfulness of humanity by paying the price. Therefore, now is the day for repentance.
The word ‘repentance’ means a change of mind, particularly one that leads to a change in the direction of one’s life. For example, I made my repentance back in 1969 when I married Helen. At that point I said, ‘No longer am I going to live as a single man; now I’m living as a married man.’ That change of mind, declared in a church building in front of many witnesses, meant that I did not go back home to my parents; from then on, we combined as a couple. Repentance is therefore the change of life that comes from a change of mind.
The repentance Paul refers to in Acts 17 is the turning away from idolatry and from the false views and the rejection of God. The reason why he calls people to repent brings us to the third point, “Because he has fixed a day on which to judge the world in righteousness.”
Peter: Indeed, the end of history is at hand. To once more quote Mark 1:15, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” You may think that this kingdom never came. However, it came in the person of Jesus, and there will be a second coming. That there’s been 2,000 years so far is neither here nor there. We’re living in the last days now. We don’t know how long this period will last, but the day will come at any time, for there is a fixed day in which he will intervene and bring judgement to pass.
Phillip: It is good news. But what does it mean to judge the world in righteousness?
Peter: We want God to be just; we all love justice. We want the right thing to be done, especially when we are the victims of injustice. So the fact that God is totally just and will bring all sin and evil to account is good news. The only bad news is that we are the ones who will be brought to account. Even then, it’s not bad news, because God has warned us of this and has called upon us to repent. Particularly, we must repent of our wilful misrepresentation of him by the idolatry of our hearts: the worship of money, for example. Our idolatry has to finish, and we need to repent and turn back to him now.
Phillip: God is going to judge by righteousness. That a judgement would be on the basis of righteousness is to be expected. But then he says something unexpected, that fourth point we raised: “He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.”
Peter: That is one of the most astonishing verses in the Bible, for it tells us that God will judge the world by one of us.
Phillip: Indeed, you don’t expect the world to be judged by a man. But it’s not just any man; it’s the one he has appointed to do this. It’s an extraordinary idea. But Jesus taught it by the use of ‘Son of Man’ as a phrase. In Daniel 7, there is a picture of God’s judgement taking place. The Ancient of Days is there, the books are all open, and everybody is standing before the judge of all the earth; suddenly, there appears a ‘Son of Man’ coming in the clouds to the Ancient of Days. You’re not told anything about this man, other than the fact that the Ancient of Days gives to him all nations for all time. Suddenly, in the middle of the judgement seat of God, a man is given sovereignty over the universe.
You may think, ‘Who is this man?’ Nothing more is said about it in Daniel 7, but throughout the gospels, the phrase that Jesus uses most often to refer to himself is ‘Son of Man’. Most of the references may make you think he’s referring to himself, but it likely doesn’t make you think of Daniel 7. That is, until Mark 14:61-62, when he’s challenged, “Are you the Christ?”, and he says, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Suddenly, you realise that all those other references to the Son of Man indicate that he is the judge of this earth.
To once again quote John 12:31, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” That is because Jesus is the judge. It’s an extraordinary idea that Jesus continues to be a man, yet he is still the one whom God has appointed according to Acts 2: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” It’s the appointment of God to the dead and risen Jesus. But the resurrection is a key part of it, which leads us to our fifth and final point about Paul’s sermon.
Peter: We are certainly not left in the dark about this man, hence the words, “Of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” The resurrection from the dead likewise is predicted in Daniel: it’s the resurrection of all people from the dead, and Jesus confirms that. But the resurrection from the dead is something that occurs on the last day. When the end has come, and God has created a new heaven and a new earth, the resurrected dead will be there. There will be a day of judgement. But one of the most telling features of the story of Jesus is that his resurrection occurs 3 days after he was crucified. Among other things, this tells us that the new day has dawned, for the king has come. In a sense, the day to come has invaded the present time.
Why was Jesus resurrected from the dead? Was that strictly necessary? The resurrection is God’s great enthronement of Jesus as the king of humanity, the king through whom God rules. As the apostle Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”
So Jesus’ resurrection from the dead speaks to us of his status, and tells us that ours is an age which begins with that judgement. We have the assurance of this age to come through the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We are therefore living in the last days; though they have gone on for a long time, we can be sure that they will come to an end when Christ appears to judge all things.
Phillip: The breaking in of that resurrection age is something that is not taught much. I have had to learn about it over time, because I previously did not realise how fundamental the judgement resurrection is to understanding the Jesus resurrection. It reminds me of the parable at the end of Luke 16, where the rich man begs Abraham to send the poor man back to warn his brothers of the judgement, and he says, in Luke 16:31, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” But you must understand what resurrection is to see the importance of Jesus’ resurrection in bringing about the judgement of the world, and assuring us of the judgements to come.
Preceding the verse you quoted earlier, “So as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” is 1 Corinthians 15:20–21
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
The phrase ‘firstfruits’ refers to the assurance that there is going to be a crop, through the first sign that the harvest has started. Furthermore, there is a strange reference in Matthew 27:51–53
And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
The general resurrection started with the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is the first of the new age; thus, his resurrection is the assurance of our resurrection, because God is going to judge the world by him.
When Paul’s Acts 17 sermon finished with the mention of the resurrection, there were 3 types of reactions from the audience. The first was that some mocked the idea of the resurrection; secondly, some wanted to hear more; thirdly, some were converted. That is still the case when you preach on the resurrection. When some people hear of the resurrection of Jesus, they start to mock it and find fault with the historical evidence that we have. But others want to know more about the resurrection and what it means. Because simply knowing about a man rising from the dead alone is not enough; you must know the prophets and Moses.
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, check out this talk. It’s called The Inevitable Judgement.
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