Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Acts · About this commentary
Forgiveness, warning, and the turn to the Gentiles
Acts 13:38-52
38 Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins; · WEB
The sermon offers a justification the law never could give, and the following week's rejection produces the announcement that redirects the whole mission.
The offer, when it comes, is the clearest statement of the gospel so far in the book. Through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins; and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
The sentence has to be read for what it claims and what it does not. It does not say the law was a failure or that it has been repealed; it says the law could not justify, which is a statement about what the law was for. A standard tells a man where he stands and cannot move him from there — and Paul, preaching in a synagogue to people who honored that standard, offers something it was never given to do. The word everyone is the other half of the sentence, and the God-fearers in that room had never been included in an everyone before.
The warning that follows is severe and is taken from a prophet: Behold, you scoffers! Wonder and perish. The threatened danger is not doing something wicked but declining to believe a work God is doing in one's own time. It is the same danger Gamaliel had described to a council from the other side.
The response is immediate and comes from the wrong quarter. As the congregation breaks up, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath, and many Jews and devout proselytes follow the two men out, and are urged to continue in the grace of God.
The next Sabbath almost the whole city was gathered together. That is the trigger. The synagogue leaders see the crowds and are filled with jealousy — the same word used of the high priest and of Joseph's brothers, the third time this book has named it as the motive of religious opposition. What they object to is not the doctrine they heard a week ago and did not contest. It is the size of the audience.
The announcement Paul and Barnabas make is one of the hinges of the book, and every clause is careful. It was necessary that God's word should be spoken to you first — priority is affirmed, not withdrawn. Since indeed you thrust it from yourselves, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life — the verdict is their own, passed on themselves by their refusal. Behold, we turn to the Gentiles.
And the warrant is Scripture, not resentment: I have set you as a light for the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth. The commission that Paul applies to himself was spoken to Israel's servant, and its content is what the whole city is about to receive. The turn is not a break with the Scriptures but obedience to them. It is also not permanent — in the very next town they go straight back into the synagogue, and Paul does so in every city thereafter.
The Gentiles' reaction is joy, and then a sentence that has been argued over ever since: As many as were appointed to eternal life believed. It sits seven verses after men are said to have judged themselves unworthy of that same life. Scripture puts God's appointing and human refusal in one paragraph without reconciling them, and the honest course is to hold both where it puts them rather than to relieve the pressure by dropping one.
The two are expelled from the district and shake the dust off their feet. And the last word of the chapter belongs to the people they left behind: The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
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