Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 17:27

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

27. that they should seek the Lord ] The best authorities read “ seek God.” This was the lesson which God meant His creation and providence to teach, that through His works men should see Him.

if haply they might feel after him, and find him ] The world was to be man’s book in which he should read God’s power and love; thus stimulated, a desire to know more might grow, and by efforts, which the graphic word of the Apostle compares to the exertion of one groping in the dark, more knowledge would come, and at last the full discovery would be made. God would be found. He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

though he be not far from every one of us ] And so can reveal Himself according to the measure of zeal shewn by those who seek Him.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

That they should seek the Lord – Greek: to seek the Lord. The design of thus placing them on the earth – of gang them their habitation among his works – was, that they should contemplate his wisdom in his works, and thus come to a knowledge of his existence and character. All nations, though living in different regions and climates, have thus the opportunity of becoming acquainted with God, Rom 1:19-20. The fact that the nations did not thus learn the character of the true God shows their great stupidity and wickedness. The design of Paul in this was doubtless to reprove the idolatry of the Athenians. The argument is this: God has given to each nation its proper opportunity to learn his character. Idolatry, therefore, is folly and wickedness, since it is possible to find out the existence of the one God from his works.

If haply – ei ara ge. If perhaps – implying that it was possible to find God, though it might be attended with some difficulty. God has placed us here that we may make the trial, and has made it possible thus to find him.

They might feel after him – The word used here pselapheseian means properly to touch, to handle Luk 24:39; Heb 12:18, and then to ascertain the qualities of an object by the sense of touch. And as the sense of touch is regarded as a certain way of ascertaining the existence and qualities of an object, the word means to search diligently, so that we may know distinctly and certainly. The word has this sense here. It means to search diligently and accurately for God, to learn his existence and perfections. The Syriac renders it, That they may seek for God, and find him from his creatures.

And find him – Find the proofs of his existence. Become acquainted with his perfections and laws.

Though he be not far … – This seems to be stated by the apostle to show that it was possible to find him; and that even those who were without a revelation need not despair of becoming acquainted with his existence and perfections. He is near to us:

(1) Because the proofs of his existence and power are round about us everywhere, Psa 19:1-6.

(2) Because he fills all things in heaven and earth by his essential presence, Psa 139:7-10; Jer 23:23-24; Amo 9:2-4; 1Ki 8:27. We should learn then:

(1) To be afraid of sin. God is present with us, and sees all.

(2) He can protect the righteous. He is always with them.

(3) He can detect and punish the wicked. He sees all their plans and thoughts, and records all their doings.

(4) We should seek him continually. It is the design for which he has made us; and he has given us abundant opportunities to learn his existence and perfections.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Act 17:27

That they should seek the Lord.

God the chief object of search

I. In what sense is it true that God is not far from any one of us? He is nigh–

1. In the creation around us.

2. In the sense of creaturely dependence and trust.

3. In that He is the Being towards whom the soul tends.

II. Is what sense does man feel after God?

1. In every search for an object of love there is a groping after God.

2. The intense longing after human fellowship is feeling after God.

3. So there is in the instinct of acquisition.

4. In the awful necessity there is in man for worship.

III. Any certainty that man will find Him?

1. Sin has separated both man and God.

2. Man desired not to retain God in His knowledge.

3. But God wants to find man.

Witness–

(1) Incarnation.

(2) Provision for the new birth.

IV. There is necessity lain upon every soul to find God. No matter how wise and cultured, if a man does not find God, he has missed the object of existence. (B. M. Palmer, D. D.)

The search for God and its satisfaction

I. God made man to seek Him.

1. Man is by nature religious. No one ever discovered light or invented hearing; man saw because he had eyes and heard because he had ears. And religion is as natural as either, because as native and essential. Hence man gets into religion as into other natural things, spontaneously. But to get out of it he has to reason himself into a strange position. No man is an atheist by nature, only by art; and an art that has to offer to nature ceaseless resistance. The atheist does not escape from God, only finds an ideal substitute for Him.

2. Religion being thus native to man, its being is as old as his, and–

3. As universal. In his multitudinous faiths he has been blindly fulfilling the Divine decree to seek God. From this point of view the religions of the world have a most touching import; they show men belated, stumbling darkly on, impelled by his Divine homesickness. The religions of man are like voices which say Come over and help us.

4. The nature that demands religion responds to it. We know how bad the world has been with its religions, but what would it have been without them? In spite of their falsities they have helped man to live his little life to the measure of his capacity. It and it alone has been able to lift man up to the mountain peak of the Spirit. But if religion is the point where man touches the highest, then it is that which finds, vivifies and directs the best that is in him. It is only as the nature which has come from God returns to Him that it thinks the wisest, does the noblest and becomes the best.

II. Religion is not only natural and necessary to man, but also to peoples. When a people has the noblest conception of God its spirit is in its sublimest and most heroic mood. An English ambassador sat at the table of Frederick the Great, with infidel wits who were making sport of religion. Suddenly the talk changed to war. Said the long-silent ambassador, England would by the help of God stand by Prussia. Ah! said Frederick, I did not know you had an ally of that name. So please your Majesty, was the swift retort, He is the only ally to whom we do not send subsidies. There stood the truth confessed. Englands best ally is God. A sceptical age is never a great or golden age; nor an infidel people a noble or creative people. For deed, politics, letters, art, religion is a necessity. In seeking for peoples who know not God, our philosophers have to go to cannibals.

III. Since religion is so necessary, the higher and purer the religion, the greater will be its power for good. History unfolds a wonderful tale. In India a few thousand Englishmen hold empire over more than two hundred millions of men. Wealth and culture came to the Hindoos ages before they came to us, yet how with that long start do they and we now respectively stand? Why has the Hindoo declined in power as he grew in multitude, while the late-born Saxon has widened with the process of the suns? Because the faith of the one grew like an iron band round his spirit full of consecrated falsities, while to the other came a strong yet gentle faith which breathed into him a purer spirit and nobler aims. So while the Hindoo feels as if held in the dread bonds of fate, the Saxon knows himself a son of God, a brother of man, sent to make earth happier and holier.

IV. By what religion can man best find God and realise the end of his being. Religions may be divided into two classes.

1. Artificial or fictitious religions–those of the individual imagination or reason; ideal substitutes for religion. To this class belong–

(1) The Religion of Nature, that product of the eighteenth century, which, however, was neither a religion nor a thing of nature. It was simply a speculative system so named that it might better offend Christianity. It never was professed anywhere–save by its makers, who were not in a state of nature, but were cultured with the culture of the Christian centuries. This attempt to give us Christianity without Christ failed utterly.

(2) The attempt of Strauss to build on our modern physicism a faith in which the universe became the only God. But man can only love the good and trust the right, and as these are the attributes of a person, Strauss failed.

(3) The Comtist apotheosis of man. But worship implies reverence. The thinker in his study, heir of a splendid inheritance, may well feel how magnificent are the gifts of humanity; but what has humanity done for the convict or the miserable victim of lust? The religion that man needs is not one that can delight the enlightened only, but one that can save the lost.

2. Real religions–those of history and fact. These may be divided into–

(1) The national religions of the past. All round us lie the ruins of the ancient faiths of Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome. They are all dead, to revive no more: supplanted by the universal and unifying faith of Christ.

(2) Turning from the dead past to the living present we have–

(a) Confucianism: but its prudential wisdom is without the enthusiasm of humanity. Look at it as realised in the people so quick-witted, yet so stationary, and then imagine what it would be were the world an immense Chinese Empire.

(b) Brahminism–the most awful tyranny of custom and caste, to which morality is unknown, and which can deify the basest as easily as the best. Brahminism universalised could only mean man depraved, and sent wearily to wander through time in search of eternal oblivion and peace.

(c) Buddhism, numerically the mightiest religion in the world: but in spite of its admirable ethics, a religion without God or hope, radically selfish, and as impotent as selfish.

(d) Islam, whose religion does not purify the home and therefore cannot regenerate the race.

(e) Judaism, which was great only as a prophetic religion, and whose life for the past eighteen centuries has been but a reminiscence.

3. From these imperfect faiths let us turn to that which has created the civilisation and noblest moral qualities of the Western world. Study it–

(1) As regards its ideal contents. Take its conception–

(a) Of God. Such a God as that of Christianity, an eternal Father and Sovereign, infinite personalised love and righteousness, has boundless promise of good and hope for man.

(b) Of man. The Christian doctrines of mans origin, nature, privilege and destiny are elevating and ennobling as no others are.

(2) As regards its actual achievements. Look around; you confront a civilisation that in its high, generous, and humane elements was created by Christianity; that has, to all its ignoble and pernicious elements, in Christianity a merciless foe. It has changed the sinner into a saint, freed the slave, built the hospital and created in every generation a noble army of teachers, reformers, philanthropists. Conclusion: The religion of Christ is the one religion that man needs; it has come from God that it may bring to God. Here lies the secret of its preeminence. Others have risen out of mans search for God; this out of Gods search for man. (Principal Fairbairn.)

Religious nature, and religious character

1. The expression feel after has reference to what they as Gods blind offspring were doing; and find Him, to what God, never afar off, wants to have them do. In one the deep longings of a nature made for God and religion is recognised; in the other a satisfied state of holy discovery and rest in God.

2. That religious nature and character should be distinguished is important in view of a great religious danger. It used to be the common doctrine that sinful man had no affinity for God, had only an anti-religious nature, and that nothing could be done for or by us till a new nature was given. Now piety is regarded as a sort of natural taste, and multitudes congratulate themselves on being better Christians than there used to be, on the ground of mere natural sentiment, because better reformers, etc. Where we shall be stranded in this shallowing process is too evident. Christianity will be coming to be more and more nearly a lost fact, and a vapid and soulless naturalism will take its place.

I. What is it to have a religious nature? Nothing more nor less than to be a man, a being made for God and religion.

1. We are so made as to want God, just as a child wants father and mother. Our nature may not consciously pine after God as an orphan for its lost parents; yet God is the necessary complement of all its feelings, hopes, satisfactions and endeavours. And it hungers none the less truly that it stays aloof from Him and tries to forget Him, even as the starving madman is none the less hungry that he refuses to eat.

2. This something in the soul, which makes God its principal and first want includes nearly its natural everything. It feels the beauty of God, and has the feeling of admiration towards Him. Reason gets no satisfaction till it culminates in Him. Even fear wants to come and hide in His bosom; and guilt, withering under His frown, would only frown upon Him if He were not exactly just.

3. Nor are these things less true under the perverting effects of depravity. Human nature as created is upright; as born or propagated a corrupted or damaged nature, but however much so it has the original Divine impress upon it. The religious nature stands a temple still for God, only scarred and blackened by the brimstone fires of evil.

4. Denying therefore that human nature is less really religious because depraved, it is not to be denied that there are times and moods in which it will be exasperated by the Divine perfections–i.e., when tormented by guilt and resolved on a course which God is known to oppose. But these are only moods. The religious nature has more constant than perverse moods, and is reaching after God in a certain way of natural desire all the while.

II. What it is to have a religious character.

1. Mere natural desire, want, sentiment Godward do not make it. What does it signify that the nature is feeling after God when the life is utterly against Him? If a man has a natural sense of honour does it make him an honourable man when he betrays every trust? Even a thief may have a good sentiment of justice, and be only the more consciously guilty because of it.

2. To answer the question two things must be understood beforehand.

(1) That religious character is more than and different from natural character. It is that which lies in choice, and for which we are thus responsible.

(2) That souls are made for God. They are to know Him and be conscious of Him.

3. Assuming these points it follows that man is never in religious character till he has found God, and that he will never find Him till his whole voluntary nature abandoning its own ends goes after Him and chimes in with His principles and ends. God can have no room to spread Himself in the soul when it is hugging itself.

III. How easily, and in how many ways, the workings of the merely religious nature may be confounded with religious character.

1. The admiration of Gods beauty what is it, some will say, but love? Even the souls deep throbs of want–what are they but its hungerings after righteousness? And so it comes to pass that religion is the same thing as mere natural sentiment; and the feeling after God substitutes the finding God. But it will not organise a church, or raise a mission, or instigate a prayer. It is exactly the religion of Herod, who heard John gladly and then murdered him. Pilate had the same religious nature, felt the greatness of Jesus, and ended in giving Him up. Felix had the same religion, and Agrippa, and Balaam: the world is full of it–sensibility to God and truth, coupled with a practical non-reception of all.

2. It results accordingly that there are always two kinds of religion; those which are the product of the religious sentiment more or less blind, and those which look to regeneration of character. The religion of the Athenians was of the former kind, as are all idolatries. What an appalling proof of the religious nature of feeling dimly after God, imagining that He is in the sun, the moon, snakes, beetles, etc. Look on these and see how man feels after God: does he therefore find Him? And what but hills of character are these idolatries?

3. Under the guise of Christianity too we may distinguish at least two kinds of religion corrupted by infusions of the same error. One is the religion of forms, where the soul is taken by them as a matter of taste; loves to play reverence under them; the other is a religion of sentiment fed by reason: feeling after God in the beautiful in nature, delighted with Christs lessons of natural virtue; and praising Him as the finest of all great men.

4. Now the true gospel is that which brings regenerative power, and creates the soul anew in Gods image. Any religion that has not this is, so far, a mock religion. The test question, therefore, is–have I found God in my religion? The life of God in the soul of man–that is religious character, and beside that there is none. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)

If haply they might feel after Him and find Him.—

Feeling after God

Hassell, in his From Pole to Pole, quotes the following:–A company of baptized Greenlanders, says Mr. Crantz, one day expressed their astonishment that they had spent their lives in a state of such complete ignorance and thoughtlessness. One of the party immediately rose up and spoke as follows: It is true we were ignorant heathens, and knew nothing of God and a Redeemer; for who could have informed us of their existence before you arrived? Yet I have often thought a rajak, with the darts belonging to it, does not exist of itself, but must be made with the trouble and skill of mens hands; and he who does not understand the use of it easily spoils it. Now the least bird is composed with greater art than the best rajak, and no man can make a bird. Man is still more exquisitely made than all other animals. Who then has made him? He comes from his parents, and they came again from their parents. But whence came the first man? He must have grown out of the earth. But why do men not grow out of the earth nowadays? And from whence do the earth, sea, sun, and stars proceed? There must necessarily be someone who has created everything, who has always existed, and can have no end. He must be inconceivably more powerful and skilful than the wisest of men. He must also be very good, because everything that He has made is so useful and necessary for us. Did I but know Him, what love and respect should I feel for Him! But who has seen or conversed with Him? None of us men. Yet there be men, too, who know something about Him. With such I would willingly converse. As soon, therefore, as I heard from you of this Great Being, I believed you immediately and willingly, having for a length of time longed after such information.

The parable of the climbing plants

1. The first peculiarity of the climbing plant to which Mr. Darwin calls our attention is the slow revolution, in a larger or smaller circle, of the upper extremities in search of a support, and when in their revolutions they are brought into contact with some firm object, they immediately press against it and so twine round it. The plant cannot stand alone, and it begins to reach out after support just as soon as it begins to grow. Do we not witness in these movements an analogy of the outreachings of the soul after God? The soul knows that it cannot thrive alone, that it needs some Power stronger than itself to cling to; and it feels after it if haply it may find it. Blindly, in the dark, the minds of men grope after this Object of their faith. It is not the heathen alone who have this experience. You know, my friend, no matter how irreligious your life may have been, that your heart is often yearning for a good you have not got; that the sense of helplessness and dependence sometimes takes strong hold of you and forces from your heart the cry: Oh that I knew where I might find Him and lay hold upon His strength!

2. On another plant, says Mr. Darwin, three pairs of tendrils were produced at the same time by three shoots, and all happened to he differently directed. I placed the pot in a box open only on one side and obliquely facing the light; in two days all six tendrils pointed with unerring truth to the darkest corner of the box, though to do this each had to bend in a different manner. The tendril is seeking an object to cling to, the light coming freely from one side shows that no object is there, so the tendrils turn in the other direction; support is nearest on the side where the shadow is. But how does this prefigure our spiritual relation to God? God is light; true, but clouds and darkness are the habitation of His throne. When it is said that in Him is no darkness at all, the darkness is moral; there is in Him no deceit, insincerity, hatred. His character is light, but there are many things about His nature that are dark to us. And it is precisely His transcendent greatness that our trust lays hold upon. We want a Power to cling to whose greatness we cannot compass with our thought. A God whom we could comprehend we could not fully trust. And so it is that our faith turns away from the garish light of human wisdom toward the unfathomed depths of Deity. There is another resemblance here. The darkness is a symbol of Gods infinity, of the veiling of His nature from our sight. But it is only by the help of shadows that we see. Look directly at the sun and you can see nothing. It is when your back is turned to the sun that you see most clearly. Our faith, like the tendrils, turns not only toward the darkness that hides Gods infinity, but also toward the shadow because in that something of His nature is visible. The shadow not only conceals, it also discloses. You cannot conceive of absolute deity. Your mind is dazzled when you look God in the face, just as your eyes are dazzled when you look on the sun. And men have always found it necessary to learn what God is by looking toward the shadows and the types which He has given us. The Incarnation is God in the shadow. Our faith finds something here that we can take hold of and cling to.

3. Knowing, says Mr. Darwin, that the tendrils avoided the light, I gave them a glass tube blackened within, and a well blackened zinc plate; but they soon recoiled from these objects with what I can only call disgust, and straightened themselves. Here we have not a likeness, but a contrast. Full often the tendrils of our desire fasten upon that which defiles us; and the faith that ought to bind us fast to Gods righteousness and power is entwined about some grovelling superstition or some ensnaring sin.

4. When a tendril, says our teacher again, has not succeeded in clasping a support, either through its own revolving movement or that of the shoot, or by turning toward any object that intercepts the light, it bends vertically downwards and then toward its own stem, which it seizes, together with the supporting stick, if there be one. So when our spiritual instincts that reach out naturally after God and goodness do not lay hold on their normal support, they, too, are very apt to turn downward and inward, and to lay hold upon that self which it was their true function to bind to a firm support. And when this is done the affections are apt to be turned backward upon self; the man comes to believe only in himself and to worship himself, and the character that is developed is a most unlovely product of egotism and selfishness.

5. If the tendril seizes nothing, says this naturalist, it soon withers away and drops off. It is possible thus, by simple neglect, to destroy that part of our nature by which we take hold upon God. The extinction of the faith faculty is a possible calamity, and it is the direst. How can the climbing plant cling when the tendrils have withered and dropped off? It must thenceforth grovel in the dirt and be trodden under foot of men. And how can the soul lift itself up, when all the faculties by which it takes hold on God have fallen into decay?

6. Let us hear Mr. Darwin again: Tendrils, soon after catching a support, grow much stronger and thicker and durable, and this shows how much their internal tissues must be changed. Occasionally it is the part which is wound round a support which chiefly becomes thicker and stronger. Is not this, also, true in the higher realm? The instincts of the soul that feel after God are wonderfully strengthened when they find Him, and take hold of His power. Faith grows by exercise.

7. The tendril strikes some object, Mr. Darwin proceeds, and firmly grasps it. In the course of some hours it contracts into a spire, dragging up the stem and forming an excellent spring. All movements now cease. By growth, the tissues soon become wonderfully strong and durable. The very character and quality of the tendrils themselves are changed as they thus fasten upon their support, and perform the function to which nature has assigned them. And so it is with these spiritual faculties of ours by which we lay hold upon God. Our trust, instead of being a tender and fragile thing, grows firm and strong and holds us fast to the throne of God with a grasp that the shocks of change cannot break nor the storms of adversity loosen.

8. Once more, The tendrils and internodes of Ampelopsis have little or no power of revolving; the tendrils are but little sensitive to contact; their hooked extremities cannot seize their objects; they will not even clasp a stick unless in extreme need of support; but they turn from the light to the dark, and, spreading out their branches in contact with any nearly flat surface, develop discs. These adhere by the secretion of some cement to a wall or even to a polished surface. The rapid development of these adherent discs is one of the most remarkable peculiarities possessed by any tendril. I cannot help seeing in this an analogy of that phenomenon of the spiritual life which we so often witness, by which those natures which have but little power of comprehending religious truth–of reaching round it and getting hold of it by their understanding–do yet lay hold upon it in a way of their own, and hold fast to it very firmly too. There are Christians whose faith does not seem to need the leading strings of logic or theology, but mounts right up by its own sure-footed intuition. And it is a blessed thing that those to whom the paths of philosophy are thorny, and the steeps of speculation hard to climb, may thus, by a simple and direct confidence in the Christ Himself, who is to all who receive Him the Way and the Truth and the Life, ascend to the serene and tranquil heights of virtue. (Washington Gladden, D. D.)

Though He be not far from every one of us.—

Not far from any one of us

This is the leading thought which the gospel presses home upon us in various ways.

1. In His Son Jesus Christ God has drawn near to the world.

2. The Holy Spirits abode in the heart of the Christian brings God near.

3. But Paul speaks of Gods presence in nature.

I. Distinguish between the revelation or God through nature and in the Scriptures.

1. The revelation in nature is the elder and more direct, that in Scripture the later and more mediate.

2. God speaks to us by nature in an inarticulate; by Scripture in an articulate voice. Nature is very beautiful, but she is so unresponsive.

3. Nature speaks more to our feelings and imagination. Scripture more to our understanding.

II. Note some of the tokens in nature of God.

1. Its effect upon the senses as an evidence of Divine goodness.

2. Its effect upon the emotions giving exquisite pleasure and evoking gratitude towards the unseen worker.

3. Its effect upon the imagination producing the consciousness of the presence of a mind sympathetic with our own.

4. Its effect upon the reason revealing besides God immortality, and creating a sense of sin.

III. But nature can only suggest to us those truths which we need for our peace and salvation, for their full exhibition we must turn to the bible. (E. Johnson, M. A.)

The nearness of God

God is not far from every one of us.

I. In the nature and aspirations of the soul. We are also His offspring. We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and mans device. The art of the sculptor may grave an exact resemblance of the human body, but cannot make a similitude of the soul. And it is in the soul that our child likeness to God is found. He who is the Father of our spirits must be Himself a spirit. And that our spirits are endowed with reason, affection and will, suggests the conception of a supreme intelligence, affection. The same is true of our moral endowments. Our sense of right and wrong (Rom 2:15) points upward to a Being of absolute truth and holiness. And so also the desires of our souls are indications of a Being in whose love we may find absolute repose, and from whose resources all our spiritual wants may be supplied. The offspring bear the likeness of the universal Father. It is His witness, His imprint and the mark of our Divine paternity; in which He is not far from every one of us.

II. In his essential presence. He is omnipresent in His authority and influence, as a king in all his dominions. But His presence is not only influential, it is actual. In Him we live and move and have our being. He is God above all and through all and in you all. He fills heaven and earth. This universal and actual presence of God is, according to Scripture, the source of His perfect knowledge. There is no doubt a sublime mystery in this conception. But I can just as readily conceive of an infinite spirit filling immensity as of a finite spirit filling my own body. Nor is there any kinship between this Divine omnipresence and Pantheism. There is a worldwide difference between saying that God is everywhere, and saying that everything is part of God. The one degrades, the other exalts Him. The one is the foundation of all idolatry; the other lies at the base of all true worship and of all true religion. Let a man realise that he can never be alone, because the Father is with him, and the sublime thought will restrain him from sin, and just in proportion as he apprehends Gods wisdom, power and love, it will fill his heart with confidence and his lips with prayer, and undergird his whole being with Divine strength.

III. In the daily workings of his providence. He has never left Himself without a witness to His universal presence. His sun shining alike upon the evil and the good; all the revolutions and order of the material universe, and all the mysterious influences which hold human society together, bear a perpetual testimony to the presence and goodness of God. It is true that men do not always hear this testimony, and that when they hear it they often misinterpret and pervert it. It is easy for us to attribute all these things to the operation of second causes, and even to worship the things that are seen, and it is no less easy to attribute them all to the blind operation of natural law, and to exclude all thought of an intelligent lawgiver. But after all there is in the soul of man an intuitive perception of God and longing after Him. For He has made of one blood, etc., i.e., He so constitutes their common nature that they should seek the Lord, etc. And it is to this common religious nature which feels after God that the Scriptures constantly appeal.

IV. As Our Judge. The incompleteness and the disorders of the present life all point forward to retribution beyond the grave. Conscience warns us of it. Hope aspires to it. Fear shrinks back from it. And who shall determine that destiny for us but the God in whose hands our breath is and whose are all our ways? And how near judgment is! There is but a hand breath between us and death and the tremendous realities which it will reveal to us. The Judge standeth at the door. Our character will be determined, and our condition will be fixed by God in whom we live and move and have our being.

V. Is the preaching of the gospel and in all the means of grace and salvation. Here it is that revealed religion comes in to supplement and give efficacy to the teaching of natural religion. (H. J. Van Dyke D. D.)

Gods nearness to man

In relation to this truth our race may be divided into five classes–

1. Those who enjoy His presence, like the Psalmist, who said, When I am awake I am still with Thee.

2. Those who are stolidly insensible of His presence, like those described by Paul in Eph 2:12 as being without God and without hope in the world.

3. Those who are in horrific dread of His presence, like those of Job 21:14. Depart!–this is the unceasing cry of hell.

4. Those who are in earnest search of His presence (Job 23:3). This class comprehends all earnest inquirers.

5. Those who theoretically deny His presence (Job 22:12-13). But these different opinions and feelings do not alter, even to the shadow of a shade, the fact that God is near. The earth sweeps her majestic course around the sun, though all the priests of Rome deny the fact of her motion. God is–

I. Locally near (Jer 23:24). An absolute existent has no relation to time or place. No metaphysics can explain, no finite thought comprehend, how He can be equally present in all places at the same time; but the denial of it involves philosophical contradictions, undeifies God, and contravenes the plainest and the sublimest teachings of inspiration. Then–

1. All men should live under a constant impression of His presence.

2. All attempts at secrecy in sin are to the last degree futile and absurd.

3. Death can effect no local separation of the soul from God.

II. Relationally near. He is the nearest relation we have. He is our Sovereign, overruling all things pertaining to us and our history; our Father, our Creator, who has made every particle of our being; our Proprietor, our Life. We cannot move a muscle, breathe a breath, think a thought, feel an emotion, without Him. In Him we live and move, and have our being. Two truths are inferable from His relational nearness.

1. That the necessity of the Atonement cannot be satisfactorily argued, to thinking minds, on the remote relationship of God as the Governor of man.

2. That the preservation of mans perfect freedom of moral action is very wonderful. Whilst He moves us, we are morally free in moving. The how of this is the problem with which all thoughtful ages have wrestled hard, and to this hour it remains unsolved. I feel that I am free, and no argument can destroy this feeling.

III. Sympathetically near. How close is the heart of a mother to her babel But we are nearer to the heart of God than the babe to the heart of that mother. Can a woman forget her sucking child, etc. There are three things that show the nearness of His heart to us.

1. His distinguishing goodness in the creation of our existence. He has given us greater capacities for happiness than He has to any other creatures of which we have any knowledge. Sensuous, intellectual, social, and religious enjoyments are ours.

2. His wonderful forbearance in the preservation of our existence. We are rebels against His government as fallen creatures, yet how He forbears (Hos 2:8).

3. His infinite mercy in the redemption of our existence. Here is the climax of love. God so loved the world, etc.

Conclusion: It is true that the heart-searching God is thus near us?

1. Then our indifference is more anomalous than the conduct of him who lies down to sleep upon the bosom of a burning volcano.

2. Then how preposterous and wicked is hypocrisy.

3. Then ceremonialists, why be so particular about the rituals, the places, and the times of worship? God is a Spirit. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Realising Gods nearness

We are said to be, known to be, nearer to the sun in winter than in summer. But the increased swiftness of the earths motion in its orbit, together with the inclination of the axis in the same, prevents the increase of heat that otherwise would be inevitable. The surface of the earth on this account is so much less time exposed to the suns rays, and so obliquely that the heat is diminished by the nearness. Just so, the world may be nearer to God in position, by providential advantages, opportunities, and in speculative Divine knowledge, nearer, and yet farther from Gods love, less affected by His mercy, less warmed and quickened by His light. So it may be with an individual heart. One man may really be farther from God in position than another, and yet have a summer season in his soul; while the other, though nearer in point of every advantage and opportunity, may remain in the dead of winter. The climate of the soul does not depend so much upon the nearness and abundance of the rays, if it is flying swiftly through them, and obliquely turned from them, but upon the steadiness and constancy with which they are received by a heart turned directly towards them. Looking steadily to Christ is the condition of light and life. (W. Cheever.)

Gods nearness to man: effects of the consciousness of

Two men are walking upon the same plain, and each turns his face towards the sky. The light of the sun is shining upon both, but one sees no sun, while the other sees not only light, but the face of the sun, and his eye is overpowered with its glory. What makes the difference between the two? Not that one is in darkness, and the other in light; not that one is near the sun, and the other far away; not that one has an eye differently constituted from the other; but simply that there is a thin cloud between heaven and the one, and no cloud between it and the other. The latter can not only trace evidence that there is a sun, and that he is up, but has the presence of that sun before his face, and his glory filling his eye. So two men stand in relation to the universal and all-present God. One believes, infers, intellectually knows, that He is; ay, that He is present; yet he discerns Him not: it is a matter of inference, not of consciousness; and though believing that God is, and that He is present, he sins. Another spiritually discerns, feels His presence; and he will stand in awe, and sin not. (W. Arthur, M. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 27. That they should seek the Lord] This is a conclusion drawn from the preceding statement. God, who is infinitely great and self-sufficient, has manifested himself as the maker of the world, the creator, preserver, and governor of men. He has assigned them their portion, and dispensed to them their habitations, and the various blessings of his providence, to the end that they should seek him in all his works.

Feel after him] , That they might grope after him, as a person does his way who is blind or blindfolded. The Gentiles, who had not a revelation, must grope after God, as the principle of spiritual life, that they might find him to be a Spirit, and the source of all intellectual happiness; and the apostle seems to state that none need despair of finding this fountain of goodness, because he is not far from every one of us.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

That they should seek the Lord: the apostle tells these philosophers, to whom he spake, the true use of their philosophy, to improve their knowledge of natural things, to beget in them by it an admiration of the God of nature; for as from him, so for him are all things, Rom 11:36.

If haply they might feel after him, and find him; and although God himself is incorporeal, yet the things which he made are palpable; and did they seek as they ought, they might find out a great deal of God by the creatures, in which his wisdom, power, and goodness are manifested, Rom 1:20.

Though he be not far from every one of us; God filleth all things, especially he is near in the effects of his wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness, by which he orders and disposes of all things, to the falling out of a hair from our heads.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

27. That they should seek theLordThat is the high end of all these arrangements of DivinePower, Wisdom, and Love.

if haply they might feelafter himas men groping their way in the dark.

and find hima livelypicture of the murky atmosphere of Natural Religion.

though he be not far fromevery one of usThe difficulty of finding God outside the paleof revealed religion lies not in His distance from us, but in ourdistance from Him through the blinding effect of sin.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

That they should seek the Lord,…. Or “God”, as the Alexandrian copy and others, and the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions read; their Creator, and kind Benefactor, and who has appointed their time of life, and their habitations for them; and this should engage them to seek to know him, who has done all this for them, and to fear and serve him, and to glorify his name:

if haply they might feel after him, and find him; which shows, that though it is possible for men, by a contemplation of the perfections of God, visible in the works of creation and providence, so to find God, as to know that there is one, and that there is but one God, who has made all things; and so as to be convinced of the vanity and falsehood of all other gods, and to see the folly, wickedness, and weakness of idolatrous worship; yet, at the same time, it very strongly intimates, how dim and obscure the light of nature is; since those, who have nothing else to direct them, are like persons in the dark, who “feel” and grope about after God, whom they cannot see; and after all their search and groping, there is only an “haply”, a peradventure, a may be, that they find him:

though he be not far from everyone of us; not only by his omnipresence, and immensity, whereby he is everywhere; but by his power in supporting all in their being; and by his goodness in continually communicating the blessings of providence to them.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

That they should seek God ( ). Infinitive (present active) of purpose again. Seek him, not turn away from him as the nations had done (Ro 1:18-32).

If haply they might feel after him ( ). First aorist active (Aeolic form) optative of , old verb from , to touch. So used by the Risen Jesus in his challenge to the disciples (Lu 24:39), by the Apostle John of his personal contact with Jesus (1Jo 1:1), of the contact with Mount Sinai (Heb 12:18). Here it pictures the blind groping of the darkened heathen mind after God to “find him” (, second aorist active optative) whom they had lost. One knows what it is in a darkened room to feel along the walls for the door (Deut 28:29; Job 5:14; Job 12:25; Isa 59:10). Helen Keller, when told of God, said that she knew of him already, groping in the dark after him. The optative here with is due to the condition of the fourth class (undetermined, but with vague hope of being determined) with aim also present (Robertson, Grammar, p. 1021). Note also the inferential particle with the delicate intensive particle .

Though he is not far from each one of us ( ). More exactly with B L ( instead of or ), “and yet being not far from each one of us,” a direct statement rather than a concessive one. The participle agrees with and the negative rather than the usual with the participle makes an emphatic negative. Note also the intensive particle .

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Might feel after. See on handle, Luk 14:39. Compare Tennyson :

“I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all.”

In Memoriam, 55

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “That they should seek the Lord,” (zetein ton theon) “That they are continually to seek the Lord,” to seek the God who sustains them, in whom, by whom, and through whom they have their life, movement, and existent being, Act 17:26; Isa 45:22; Isa 55:6-7; Jer 29:13.

2) “If haply they might feel after Him,” (ei ara ge pselapheseian auton) “So that they may feel after Him,” Rom 1:20; grope after Him, as blind men in the dark, seeking help, 2Co 4:3-4.

3) “And find Him,” (kai heuroien) “And may find him,” for they shall find Him who diligently, honestly, earnestly seek Him, when after He convicts them of their need of Him, Pro 1:20-28; Joh 7:17; Joh 6:37; as the blind Bartimaeus, and as Zacchaeus found Him, Luk 19:1-10; Mar 10:46-52.

4) “Though He be not far from every one of us:” (kai ge ou makran apo hemos heksatou huparchonta) “Though He does not exist (is not being or existing) far from each of us,” from each as well as every one of us, for He is “nigh unto all them who call upon Him,” Psa 34:18; Psa 145:18; He also will “hear their cry and will save them,” See also Rom 10:13. One may run from, but not getaway from God; Pharaoh didn’t, Jonah didn’t, the Prodigal son didn’t, the rich barn builder didn’t, nor will you or I get away from His presence and confrontation, in life, in death, or thereafter, Psa 139:1-11; Heb 13:5; Heb 9:27; All shall stand before Him in: (Joh 5:28-29)

1) The judgement seat (Gk. Bema) of Christ, 2Co 5:10, or in

2) “The Great White Throne Judgement, Rev 20:11-12.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

−

27. That they might seek God. This sentence hath two members; to wit, that it is man’s duty to seek God; secondly, that God himself cometh forth to meet us, and doth show himself by such manifest tokens, that we can have no excuse for our ignorance. Therefore, let us remember that those men do wickedly abuse this life, and that they be unworthy to dwell upon earth, which do not apply their studies to seek him; as if every kind of brute beasts should fall from that inclination which they have naturally, which should for good causes be called monstrous. And, surely, nothing is more absurd, than that men should be ignorant of their Author, who are endued with understanding principally for this use. And we must especially note the goodness of God, in that he doth so familiarly insinuate himself, that even the blind may grope after him. For which cause the blindness of men is more shameful and intolerable, who, in so manifest and evident a manifestation, are touched with no feeling of God’s presence. Whithersoever they cast their eyes upward or downward, they must needs light upon lively and also infinite images of God’s power, wisdom, and goodness. For God hath not darkly shadowed his glory in the creation of the world, but he hath everywhere engraven such manifest marks, that even blind men may know them by groping. Whence we gather that men are not only blind but blockish, when, being helped by such excellent testimonies, they profit nothing. −

Yet here ariseth a question, whether men can naturally come unto the true and merciful − (298) knowledge of God. For Paul doth give us to understand, that their own sluggishness is the cause that they cannot perceive that God is present; because, though they shut their eyes, yet may they grope after him. I answer, that their ignorance and blockishness is mixed with such frowardness, that being void of right judgment, they pass over without understanding all such signs of God’s glory as appear manifestly both in heaven and earth. Yea, seeing that the true knowledge of God is a singular gift of his, and faith (by which alone he is rightly known) cometh only from the illumination of the Spirit, it followeth that our minds cannot pierce so far, having nature only for our guide. Neither doth Paul intreat in this place of the ability of men, but he doth only show that they be without excuse, when as they be so blind in such clear light, as he saith in the first chapter to the Romans, ( Rom 1:20.) Therefore, though men’s senses fail them in seeking out God, yet have they no cloak for their fault, because, though he offer himself to be handled and groped, they continue, notwithstanding, in a quandary; − (299) concerning which thing we have spoken more in the fourteenth chapter, ( Act 14:17.) −

Though he be not far from every one of us. To the end he may the more touch the frowardness of men, he saith that God is not to be sought through many crooks, neither need we make any long journey to find him; because every man shall find him in himself, if so be that he will take any heed. By which experience we are convicted that our dullness is not without fault, which we had from the fault of Adam. For though no corner of the world be void of the testimony of God’s glory, yet we need not go without ourselves to lay hold upon him. For he doth affect and move every one of us inwardly with his power in such sort, that our blockishness is like to a monster, in that in feeling him we feel him not. In this respect certain of the philosophers called man the little world, [a microcosm;] because he is above all other creatures a token of God’s glory, replenished with infinite miracles. −

(298) −

“

Liquidam,” clear.

(299) −

“

Attoniti,” in stupid amazement.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE IMMANENCE OF GOD

Act 17:27-28.

THIS text of Scripture gives natural rise to this topic, viz., The Immanence of God. If, by holding Pauls speech before you for some minutes this morning, I shall help any to realize more fully Gods presence, Gods interest, Gods grace, and Gods love and power, then I shall not have presented my thought in vain.

Paul was an ingenious preacher. In the Athenian inscription, To the Unknown God, he found his theme, and, from that worshipful cry of heathen souls, he started with his auditors upon a search for the God revealed; not that Paul needed to find Him, but that he wanted to introduce these benighted men into a saving knowledge of Him. But ere he could get the true God before their eyes, he must remove the false godthe god of wood and stone. The first lesson they needed to learn is needful still, viz.,

GOD IS A SPIRIT AND IS SPIRITUALLY PERCEIVED

We will not stop to discuss the fact that God is a spirit. How He can be purely spiritual and yet a Personal Intelligence and Power, is difficult to make plain to those who have not eyes of faith; and for those who have such eyes, that fact has already appeared more clearly than human speech can voice it.

But be it understood that the Spirit-Father cannot be found out by the natural senses. We cannot see Him with the natural eye, or lay fleshly hand upon Him, or hear His footsteps with the physical ear. The organs of the physical man are too dull and blunt to discern the Father of Lights, or lay hold upon Him.

And yet God is not the unknown and unknowable One. To see the Spirit a spiritual vision is needful; to touch God and know Him is to have a hand redeemed, and to hear His passings, by, an ear of the soul is required. Jesus said to Nicodemus, Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. The reason is plain. That Kingdom is spiritual and can only be discerned by a vision adapted. The sensualist of the street cannot see any special reason for Christian behavior. It looks to him as if the converted man were playing the fool by turning from the sweet morsel of sin, and commencing on a course of abstemiousness in those things that excite appetite and appeal to passion, and offer satiety to both. The reasons for morality and religion do not appear to him at all. Why? Because there is in him no faculties of mind to respond to such appeals. He has no high appreciation of the beauty of holiness; he knows no swelling tides of holy thought and purpose, such as sweep through the souls of spiritual men. The natural life can trace the lines of beauty in the face of flesh, in the form of stone, but to see that higher beauty of character, a spiritual vision is required. That is why the pure in heart shall see God. People of cultured intellects have considered our professed knowledge of God an assumption, a mental or moral deception, because they are not able by searching to find Him out. And yet their inability is explained the moment a man admits a spiritual world. It is a higher world and a brighter world than that in which the intellectual egotist lives, and its very brightness blinds him. In the old days, when, in Italy, they entombed the living in underground and darkened cells, and left them there for years, children were born to the imprisoned parents in darkness, and lived for years without ever seeing the face of man, or the light of heavens sun. When at last they were led into the open street above, would they see what the free-born beheld? the light of the sun? Would its beauty appear to them? Then how can a man who has lived in the dungeon of sensuality, the Symirian darkness of unregeneracy, hope to look on the all-glorious God of the Christians vision een though He stand full before him? Yes, God is known, and men come into His very presence with singing, but He is a Spirit and seeketh such to worship Him as will do it in Spirit.

But Paul put before these Athenians a second lesson of large importance, namely this:

GOD IS PRESENT EVERYWHERE IN LOVE AND POWER

Their gods were located; they were quite as often malevolent and impotent, as gracious and potent! Paul then must teach them how different they were from Jehovahthe true and only God.

He began by affirming that the God over all was not far off. That is where he would begin today in defining our Father, if he stood on the acropolis of the Christian world. We need to have that doctrine restated and affirmed afresh among Gods nominal followers. Most of themI should say, most of usdont believe He is near. To the average Christian God is in heaven, and heaven is some locality afar off! You can detect that conception of God in the sound of his voice at prayer. He doesnt pray as if he was holding a face to face communication with a friend. It is the telephone pitch he puts into it, and the long distance pitch at that. It is the cry of one who betrays his fear that the words will die on the way to the objective ear.

Did you ever hear a man pray, who knew with Paul that God was not far off? I shall never forget my first experience in listening while a mortal man talked to God and told Him what he wanted. It was in my church in Lafayette, Indiana, and Mr. Moody was the man. I cant describe my feelings. I was overpowered, almost overwhelmed with the sense of God. He was there, there in that very room, and a mortal man was talking to Him; a mortal man was asking Him to save the sinners present, just as you would ask an athletic friend to lift out of a pit one who was too weighty for your poor strength. Oh, if we would only believe that Godthe omnipotent and all-lovingwas here in our church, here in our homes, here in our separate praying places, that He is not far from any one of us, we would either cry with Peter, Depart from me, O Lord, for I am unclean, or else, with the disciples at Pentecost we would flash instantly into agents of irresistible power!

And if He is near, He is not indifferently near. He is not near as the wind is near, all about, pressing upon us and infilling us, and yet indifferent to us, unconcerned about us, unconscious of us. On the other hand, an affectionate earthly father is a poor illustration of Gods interest in His own. He not only watches with abiding concern all that we do, but with unutterable affection He takes account of all that we are, and think! The very hairs of our heads He numbers in the delicacy and minuteness of His love. The smallest of us He no more forgets than a mother is likely to overlook her weakest child! How much it would be worth to the Kingdom today, if men and women who profess Christ would accept that Scripture fact, that fact of experience also, in all its fullness! How our lives might be redeemed from fear and faithlessness, if only we would never again forget that God who is close to us is our Father, and feels an infinitely good fathers interest! Beecher says, On the heights above Sedan, on the day of that terrible battle, there were two watchers. One, Sheridan, our own man, watched with all the enthusiasm of a warrior, but in the vast host before him, it is not probable there was one person in whose veins his blood ran. Right by his side King William watched, and there were both his sons, leading parts of that gigantic army. And though both of them, the king and the general, were warriors and watchers, the kings heart was in his eye. His, therefore, was the outlook of paternal love! Oh, brethren, when we struggle against our sins, against our sorrows, against Satan, God is near, and His affectionate, pitying eye is ever upon us, and His interest ought to be a perennial inspiration!

He is not present, and impotent! He is present, rather, and omnipotent! No child of His can ever fail before the great Fathers eye. How good the thought! How splendid the contrast to the weakness of the most willing, affectionate and trusted friends of earth! A few years ago a cloudburst occurred some seven miles distant from my boyhood home. The deluge that dropped from the sky fell on a small frame Baptist Church and crushed it as if it had been an egg-shell. An acquaintance was in the congregation that filled the house at that fatal hour. At her side sat a baby girl when the sudden crash came; and a moment later when a mad sea was foaming about them, this baby girl sprang to her mothers arms and piteously pled, Oh, mamma, save me! Save me! The mother kissed the cry from her baby lips and said in excited breath, Darling, dont fear! Mamma can save you! Just then the foundation of the building gave way, the surging waters dashed over the brave mother, and tore baby from her arms, and from the angry bosom of the drowning mass, she cast back a despairing look, the memory of which remains in that mothers heart until to-day and hurts as a red-hot iron. Mother was present, but impotent against heartless natures destructive wave. But no power shall ever prevail against our God. His presence is infallible preservation to those who put their trust in Him (Rom 8:35-39).

THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF THESE FACTS OF GODS BEING ARE ONLY GOOD

A moments reflection will convince you of that.

If God is everywhere present in love and power, what naturally follows?

First of all, man is stimulated to sober living. The presence of a good man, of a pure woman, is a silent and often an effective rebuke to most forms of sin. I saw a drunken man attempting to tear down a circus tent, and with fighting against its owners, with the use of vile language, he was a spectacle to delight devils. A quiet Christian man, his uncle, approached him and instantly he was sober, silent, ashamed and sneaking for a hiding place. The women who went into some of our low theatres the other day described a young man of handsome face and splendid dress, who sat drinking in the lustful sight with relish, until suddenly he saw these pure faced women, and he blushed and retired. Every home is purer and happier because the mothers eye is on it, the father watches his own, the brother watches the sister and the sister the brother. But perhaps Beecher is right in asking, Than this, where is there anything of equal potency with the recognition and consciousness, Thou God, seest me?

A man is not only stimulated to sobriety by that consciousness, but he is also inspired to faithful work in whatever he undertakes. Most of us know that our fellow-men will never understand just what we have done and how; whether we have been true to our trust or have yielded to temptations of idleness, ease and deceit. But every mans work is under Gods eye, and in the end will be accepted or rejected of Him, and all hopes of happiness depend upon the earnestness and honesty of spirit in which he wrought. It is related that when Phidias was carving the statue of Diana to be placed in the Acropolis, he was working at the back side of the head, and was bringing out with his chisel every filament of the hair, when one remonstrated, That figure is to go up a hundred feet, and stand with its back to the wall; and why be so careful about work that will never appear to the public eye? The gods will see it, he said, and with the same painstaking, he carved on.

Finally, let us see that the immanence of God helps a man to endure hardship in life. The pain that a mortal can bear without grumbling, supported by the sense of Gods nearness, no tongue or pen will ever tell. The sorrow that a soul can survive and rise above, supported by the consciousness of Gods presence, would whelm Satan himself in his godless state! Nothing is absolutely too hard for the man who knows that whatever comes, God is near! Death itself is conquered every day and every hour by that sweet sense, God is near! I often think of that afflicted little fellow who was compelled to submit to a severe surgical operation. The doctor sent the father before him to say such things as might brace the boy to endure the pain. After the father had told his child that the pain would be great and the danger to life imminent, he said, Son, do you think you can endure it? Yes, father, I can, if you will stand by me and hold my hand! The surgeon was called to his work. As the keen knife ploughed into nerve, muscle and flesh, through sinew and vein, the brave child looked on and never uttered a cry of pain. The fathers presence and touch helped him to endure!

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

(27) Should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him.The word for feel after expresses strictly the act of groping in the dark. From the Apostles point of view, anticipating in part the great Theodikathe vindication of the ways of Godin the Epistle to the Romans, the whole order of the worlds history was planned, as part of the education of mankind, waking longings which it could not satisfy, leading men at once to a consciousness of the holiness of God and of their own sinfulness. The religions of the world were to him as the movements of one who climbs

Upon the great worlds altar stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God;

who can only say

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust, and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

Their ritual in all its manifold variety was but as the inarticulate wailing of childhood

An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.

Tennyson, In Memoriam, liv.

The if haply expresses the exact force of the Greek particles, which imply a doubt whether the end had been attained in its completeness. The altar to the Unknown and Unknowable was a witness that they had not been found. The world by wisdom knew not God (1Co. 1:21). It had not got, in the language of another poet of our own, beyond

Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;

which are as the

Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realised.

Wordsworth, Ode on Immortality.

Though he be not far from every one of us.Better, and yet He is not far. The speaker appeals, as he does in Rom. 2:15, to the witness borne by mans consciousness and conscience. There, in the depths of each mans being, not in temples made with hands, men might find God and hold communion with him. It was natural, in speaking to the peasants of Lystra, to point to the witness of the rain from heaven and fruitful seasons. (See Note on Act. 14:17.) It was as natural, in speaking to men of high culture and introspective analysis, to appeal to that which was within them rather than to that which was without. But it will be noted that he does not confine that witness to the seekers after wisdom. God is not far from every one of us. St. Paul accepts the truth which St. John afterwards proclaimed, that Christ is the true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (See Notes on Joh. 1:9.) The writer of the Book of Deuteronomy (Deu. 30:11-14) had asserted a like truth when he taught Israel that the word was not in heaven, or beyond the sea, but in thy mouth and in thine heart, that thou mayest do it. At this point the Stoics, we may believe, would recognise the affinities which St. Pauls thoughts presented to their own teaching. The Epicureans would be more and more repelled by this attack on the central position of their system.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

27. That Man is created a social being that he maybe a religious being. He is enabled to form into peoples and nations that he may organically adore the God of all.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Act 17:27. That they should seek the Lord, Dr. Heylin renders this verse, That they should seek God so as to feel and find him: who is indeed already not far from any of us. The word ‘, here, says he, is the same as the word . See ch. Act 26:8. The word , imports, actually feeling. So it is rendered handle me, Luk 24:39. The same word is used Jdg 16:26 where Samson says, suffer me that I may feel the pillars. I have been particular, says Dr. Heylin, in my remarks upon this verse, because I am very desirous to draw the reader’s attention to it.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Act 17:27 . The divine purpose in this guidance of the nations is attached by means of the telic infinitive (Buttmann, neut. Gr . p. 224 [E. T. 261]): in order that they should seek the Lord , i.e. direct their endeavours to the knowledge of God, if perhaps they might feel Him (who is so palpably near) and find Him . Olshausen thinks that in is implied the previous apostasy of mankind from God. But the seeking does not necessarily suppose a having lost; and since the text does not touch on an earlier fellowship of man with God (although that is in itself correct), the hearers, at least, could not infer that conclusion from the simple . The great thought of the passage is simply: God the Author , the Governor , and the End of the world’s history: from God, through God, to God.

] Paul keeps consistently to his figure. The seeker who comes on his object touches and grasps it, and has now in reality found it. Hence the meaning without figure is: if perchance they might become conscious of God and of their relation to Him, and might appropriate this consciousness as a spiritual possession . Thus they would have understood the guidance of the nations as a revelation of God, and have complied with its holy design in their own case. [68] The problematic expression ( , if they at least accordingly; see Klotz, ad Devar . pp. 178, 192) is in accordance both with the nature of the case (Bengel: “via patet; Deus inveniri potest, sed hominem non cogit”), and with the historical want of success (see Rom 1:18 ff., and comp. Baumg. p. 550 ff.); for the heathen world was blinded , to which also . points a word which, since the time of Homer, is very frequently used of groping in the dark or in blindness ( Od. ix. 416; Job 5:14 ); comp. here especially, Plato, Phaed. p. 99 B.

. . .] although certainly He (Act 14:17 ; Joh 4:2 ) does not at all require to be first sought and found, as He is not far (for see Act 17:28 ) from every one of us. Comp. Jer 23:23 . This addition makes palpably evident the greatness of the blindness, which nevertheless took place.

[68] Comp. Luthardt, vom freien Willen , p. 415.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

Ver. 27. They might feel after him ] Grope after him, as blind men, . The apostle dealing here with philosophers, disputes philosophically, showing them, most learnedly and divinely, the true use of natural philosophy, which they were utterly ignorant of. Crucifer oft contemplated the footsteps of God in the creature, saying with Paul, that God was so near unto us that he might be almost felt with hands.

Though he be not far ] Not so far as the bark is from the tree, the skin from the flesh, or the flesh from the bones. Deus intimior nobis intimo nostro. He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, though we see him not. (Bugentag.) Like as if one hear a preacher by night, though he see him not, yet he knows he is there present; so in this case.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

27. ] does not depend on , but gives the intent of the above-mentioned providential arrangement: that they might seek God . (as rec. and two uncial MSS. have) has probably been a careless mistake of a transcriber: , which appears to have been the reading of [87] , is one of its own strange glosses.

[87] The CODEX CANTABRIGIENSIS, or BEZ, so called because it was presented by Beza in 1581 to the University Library at Cambridge; where it is now exposed to view in a glass case. He procured it in 1562, from the monastery of St. Irenus at Lyons. It is on parchment, and contains the Gospels and Acts, with a Latin version. Its lacun, which are many, will be perceived by the inner marginal letters in this edition. It once contained the Catholic Epistles: 3Jn 1:11-14 in Latin is all that now remains. It was edited with very accurate imitative types, at the expense of the University of Cambridge, by Dr. Kipling, in 1793. A new edition carefully revised and more generally accessible was published by Mr. Scrivener in 1864, and has been collated for this Edition. In the introduction some ten or twelve correctors are distinguished, whose readings are found in the notes at the end of the volume. The text of the Codex Bez is a very peculiar one, deviating more from the received readings and from the principal manuscript authorities than any other. It appears to have been written in France, and by a Latin transcriber ignorant of Greek, from many curious mistakes which occur in the text, and version attached. It is closely and singularly allied to the ancient Latin versions, so much so that some critics have supposed it to have been altered from the Latin: and certainly many of the phnomena of the MS. seem to bear out the idea. Where D differs in unimportant points from the other Greek MSS., the difference appears to be traceable to the influence of Latin forms and constructions. It has been observed, that in such cases it frequently agrees with the Latin codex e (see the list further on). Its peculiarities are so great, that in many passages, while the sense remains for the most part unaltered, hardly three words together are the same as in the commonly received text. And that these variations often arise from capricious alteration, is evident from the way in which the Gospels, in parallel passages, have been more than commonly interpolated from one another in this MS. The concurrence with the ancient Latin versions seems to point to a very early state of the text; and it is impossible to set aside the value of D as an index to its history; but in critical weight it ranks the lowest of the leading MSS. Its age has been very variously given: the general opinion now is that it was written in the latter end of the fifth or the sixth century .

] if by any chance , denoting a contingency apparently not very likely to happen, see Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 440.

] Originally an olic form, but frequent in Attic Greek, for , sec Luk 6:11 . On the word itself, compare Aristoph. (Pax, 691): | , | . These lines, as Mr. Humphry observes, ‘seem at once to illustrate the figurative use of the verb, and to express the condition of man prior and subsequent to revelation.’

. ] ‘Not that HE is distant from us , but that we are ignorant of Him.’ See Rom 10:6 ; Rom 10:8 ; Jer 23:23-24 . , ‘et quidem:’ see Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 398 f.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Act 17:27 . = , telic infinitive, Winer-Moulton, xliv. 1. , see critical note. : the more fitting word before this audience Ramsay renders “the God”. : “if haply,” A. and R.V., strengthened by ; in classical Greek we have followed by , but not . This and are generally regarded as = Latin si forte (Blass, Grammatik , p. 211), although Simcox, Language of the New Testament , pp. 180, 181, in admitting this, is careful to point out that it is misleading to regard as = forte . Alford (so Page) maintains that the expression here, as in Act 8:22 , indicates a contingency which is apparently not very likely to happen. On the other hand Rendall holds that the particle here, as in Act 8:22 , should be rendered not perhaps or haply , but indeed: “if they might indeed feel after him,” etc., expressing a very real intention of God’s providence, the optative pointing to the fact that this intention had not yet been realised (pp. 66, 110), cf. also Mar 11:13 , and in 1Co 15:15 , (see further Blass, Gram. , pp. 254, 267; Burton, pp. 106, 111). With the whole passage, Wis 13:6 should be compared. On St. Paul’s study of the Book of Wisdom at some time in his life see Sanday and Headlam, Romans , p. 52. , olic aorist, the verb is used several times in LXX for the act of groping in the dark, Deu 28:29 , Job 5:14 ; Job 12:25 ; Isa 59:10 ; cf. its use also in classical Greek, Odys. , ix., 416; so Plato, Phdo , 99 B, where it is used of vague guesses at truth (Wendt, Page). The word would therefore fitly express the thought of men stretching lame hands of faith and groping, and calling to what they feel is Lord of all. Weiss finds the idea of the word as used here, not in the LXX as above, but in 1Jn 1:1 , of some palpable assurance, which was everywhere possible in a world made by God, Act 17:24 , Rom 1:20 , and where men’s dwellings had been apportioned by Him. But the word might still be used in the above sense, since the recognition of God in His Creation is after all only a partial recognition, and not the highest knowledge of Him; and the inscription “To an Unknown God” testified in itself how imperfect that recognition had been. For the meaning of the verb in modern Greek see Kennedy, p. 156. , see critical note, , cf. Act 2:18 , quin etiam ( quamvis “vix aptum,” Blass). The word . had intimated “et proximum esse Deum et oculis occultum” (Blass, Knabenbauer), and the Apostle now proclaims the nearness of God, not only in creation, in its maintenance and preservation, but in the spiritual being of man: “Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet”. : the word implies not mere local nearness, but spiritual, cf. Jer 23:23 , and Eph 2:13 . With this we may compare Seneca, Ep. Mor. , xliv. 1. “God is near thee; He is with thee; He is within” (quoted by Lightfoot, Philippians , p. 290). The relation of man to God is a personal relationship: God is not “careless of the single life”: , “from each one of us,” R.V. The words may well have struck a responsive chord in the hearts, not only of some in the crowd, but of some of the Stoics who were listening, contradictory and incongruous as their system was, with its strange union of a gross material pantheism, and the expression of belief in the fatherly love and goodness of God (see further Lightfoot, u. s. , p. 298, and Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlungen , ii., 530, 531).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

That they should seek = To seek.

the Lord. The texts read “God”.

if. App-118.

haply = at least.

feel after = grope for. Greek. pselaphao. Only here, Luk 24:39. Heb 12:18. 1Jn 1:1.

be. Greek. huparcho. See note on Luk 9:48. Compare “seeing” &c., Act 17:24.

every = each. Figure of speech Association. App-6.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

27.] does not depend on , but gives the intent of the above-mentioned providential arrangement: that they might seek God. (as rec. and two uncial MSS. have) has probably been a careless mistake of a transcriber: , which appears to have been the reading of [87], is one of its own strange glosses.

[87] The CODEX CANTABRIGIENSIS, or BEZ,-so called because it was presented by Beza in 1581 to the University Library at Cambridge; where it is now exposed to view in a glass case. He procured it in 1562, from the monastery of St. Irenus at Lyons. It is on parchment, and contains the Gospels and Acts, with a Latin version. Its lacun, which are many, will be perceived by the inner marginal letters in this edition. It once contained the Catholic Epistles: 3Jn 1:11-14 in Latin is all that now remains. It was edited with very accurate imitative types, at the expense of the University of Cambridge, by Dr. Kipling, in 1793. A new edition carefully revised and more generally accessible was published by Mr. Scrivener in 1864, and has been collated for this Edition. In the introduction some ten or twelve correctors are distinguished, whose readings are found in the notes at the end of the volume. The text of the Codex Bez is a very peculiar one, deviating more from the received readings and from the principal manuscript authorities than any other. It appears to have been written in France, and by a Latin transcriber ignorant of Greek, from many curious mistakes which occur in the text, and version attached. It is closely and singularly allied to the ancient Latin versions, so much so that some critics have supposed it to have been altered from the Latin: and certainly many of the phnomena of the MS. seem to bear out the idea. Where D differs in unimportant points from the other Greek MSS., the difference appears to be traceable to the influence of Latin forms and constructions. It has been observed, that in such cases it frequently agrees with the Latin codex e (see the list further on). Its peculiarities are so great, that in many passages, while the sense remains for the most part unaltered, hardly three words together are the same as in the commonly received text. And that these variations often arise from capricious alteration, is evident from the way in which the Gospels, in parallel passages, have been more than commonly interpolated from one another in this MS. The concurrence with the ancient Latin versions seems to point to a very early state of the text; and it is impossible to set aside the value of D as an index to its history;-but in critical weight it ranks the lowest of the leading MSS. Its age has been very variously given: the general opinion now is that it was written in the latter end of the fifth or the sixth century.

] if by any chance, denoting a contingency apparently not very likely to happen, see Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 440.

] Originally an olic form, but frequent in Attic Greek, for , sec Luk 6:11. On the word itself, compare Aristoph. (Pax, 691): | , | . These lines, as Mr. Humphry observes, seem at once to illustrate the figurative use of the verb, and to express the condition of man prior and subsequent to revelation.

.] Not that HE is distant from us, but that we are ignorant of Him. See Rom 10:6; Rom 10:8; Jer 23:23-24. , et quidem: see Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 398 f.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Act 17:27. , if) The way lies open: God is prepared (ready) to be found; but He does not compel a man. He wishes him to be free, in such a way as that, when a man seeks and finds God, this in respect to GOD may be, in some measure, as it were a matter (an act) contingent.-) This particle implies that the attempt is an easy one.-, if haply [as well they might] they might feel after) This is a middle term between seek and find. The touch, the coarsest and lowest of the senses, is here appropriately applied to the Gentiles.-, although) The particle in this place has not so much a concessive force as an intensive force, so as that by it the facility of the finding is augmented. It is not necessary that this universe should be thoroughly known: each one may take (derive) an argument from himself.- , not far) A Litotes [See Append.]; that is to say, He is altogether near and intimately close to us; namely, in the propinquity of His presence, and the tie of connection which binds us to Him. Perverse reason supposes Him to be far off.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

they: Act 15:17, Psa 19:1-6, Rom 1:20, Rom 2:4

he be: Act 14:17, 1Ki 8:27, Psa 139:1-13, Jer 23:23, Jer 23:24

Reciprocal: Zec 14:17 – all

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE NEARNESS OF GOD

He is not far from each one of us.

Act 17:27 (R.V.)

The words are taken from the great speech of St. Paul to the men of Athens. Standing on Mars hill, in the metropolis of earthly wisdom, the Apostle discourses of the eternal wisdom, of the beginning of all real wisdom, the knowledge of the living and true God. God is not far off, sitting on high Olympus, holding Himself aloof from men and their affairs, as they vainly believed, but is nigh to each one of us.

I. He is near to us in His essential Presence.As the Eternal Spirit, we believe His presence pervades all space. This essential presence of God is recognised by every true believer, and is a sustaining power in His life as a Christian man.

II. He is near to us in the workings of His providence.How God draws near to us in those daily mercies which are gifts of His love His children bear witness to with a joy unspeakable. His fatherly hand is ever over us, His fatherly heart is ever bestowing upon us the necessaries of life, the comforts of our home, and all the blessings which we so richly enjoy. We confess with shame that too often we have received good at the hand of our God without one thought of the Giver.

III. He is near to us in the manifestation of His Divine pity.The text embodies the great truth of the Nativity, God with us. When there was no eye to pity, no arm outstretched to save, God stooped in His eternal pity from the throne of the universe to the manger at Bethlehem.

IV. He is near to us in His spiritual provision.We know that He is present in the midst, where two or three are gathered together in His name. In the sweet hour of prayer He draws nigh to His people, and His ear is open unto their cry. This is the highest privilege of prayercommunion of spirit with Spirit, and of us as children with God Who is our Father. We know, too, that He is not far from each one of us in the Holy Sacramentthe sacrament of His dying love. There, at the feast Divine, we see Him face to face; there we feed upon Him in our hearts by faith. Remember all that this full realisation of this nearness of God means to your soul, to your whole life.

Archdeacon Madden.

Illustration

The inscription on Ruskins monument near Derwentwater runs as follows: The Spirit of God is around us in the air we breathe; His glory in the light we see, and in the fruitfulness of the earth and the joy of His creatures.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

7

Act 17:27. This restricted location for man’s habitation away from the visible presence of God made it necessary that they seek the Lord. If haply, etc., is said in the sense as if it said, “with the intent that man would seek or feel after the invisible God and succeed in finding Him through the evidence shown in chapter 14:17.”

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Act 17:27. That they should seek the Lord. The older MSS. here read God instead of the Lord. The design of Gods overruling providence was that men should seek after a knowledge of the Divine Ruler of all things, and also after a living union with this gracious and all-powerful Being. The Greek words, however, which begin the next clause ( ), and the mood of the verbs in the sentence, indicate very plainly that the result is doubtful. The speaker on the whole implies in a delicate manner that mankind had missed the mark at which they aimed. This is still more clearly implied by the general exhortation to repentance contained in Act 17:30 below.

They might feel after him. The Greek word translated feel after denotes the action of one blind who gropes after what he desires to find. Paul, says Schleiermacher, represents it as the ultimate purpose of all the great arrangements of God in the world that man should seek Him, He regards mans noblest aim and perfection as consisting in such seeking after and finding. Let us consider, he adds, (1) the great object of our search; and (2) the path which conducts to that object.

Though he be not far from every one of us. Act 17:28. For in him we live and move and have our being. So near is He to all men, if they would but believe it. But the human race would prefer that He should be far distant; it continues to imitate our first parents, who hid themselves from the presence of God in Paradise (Gossner quoted by Lange).

The words of Act 17:28 explain the meaning of the assertion of Gods being not far from every one of us. On God we must depend every moment for our life. We owe to Him our existence here, and every instant of our continuance in this world; and the apostle in the next sentence appeals to a then well-known saying of a famous writer in proof that this dependence upon and close connection with the Deity was a generally acknowledged fact.

As certain also of your poets have said, For we are also his offspring. The quotation is the beginning of an hexameter line taken verbatim from Aratus, a Cilician poet who wrote about two hundred years before Pauls visit to Athens. The work from which the citation is made was the Phenomena, an astronomical poem. Cleanthes, in his Hymn to Zeus (Jupiter), uses almost the very same words: For we thine offspring are. Cleanthes was a Stoic, he lived about the same time as Aratus. There is no doubt that Paul was well read in Greek literature; elsewhere he quotes directly from Menander (1Co 15:33), from Epimenides (Tit 1:12), besides other expressions in his epistles which are probably memories of his studies in Greek poetry and philosophy.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Act 17:27-28. That they should seek, &c. As if he had said, This most wise and free government of the nations of men, God carries on through all ages for this purpose, that they may be led to seek the Lord That is, to seek the knowledge, fear, and love of him; to seek his favour, his Spirit, and communion with him: if haply The way is open; God is ready to be found; but he will lay no force upon any man; they might feel after him Feeling is the lowest and grossest of all our senses, and is therefore applied to that low kind of the knowledge of God which some of the heathen possessed, and which is first attained before higher discoveries of him are made. Though he be not , and truly indeed he is not, far from any one of us Therefore, though he be not the object of mens senses, we need not go far to seek or find him. He is very near us; yea, in us. It is only blind, perverse reason which thinks he is far off. For in him Not in ourselves; we live, move, and have our being This denotes his necessary, intimate, and most efficacious presence. The structure of our bodies, and the union of our souls to these exquisite pieces of material mechanism, together with the noble faculties of our minds, wherein we resemble God, and the admirable end for which this wonderful composition of soul and body is formed, afford to every man, not only an idea, but a proof of the Deity supporting and animating him: so that no words can better express, than these of the apostle do, the continual and necessary dependance of all created beings, in their existence and all their operations, on the first, the universal, and almighty Cause, which the truest philosophy, as well as divinity teaches. As certain also of your own poets have said Aratus, whose words these are, and who also added another sentence, equally just and striking, namely, We are his offspring, especially in respect of intelligence, and other mental powers, similar to his, with which we are endowed. This poet, Aratus, was an Athenian, who lived almost three hundred years before this time. The words are also to be found, with the alteration of one letter only, in the hymn of Cleanthes to the Supreme Being, one of the purest and finest pieces of natural religion in the whole world of pagan antiquity.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

See notes on verse 22

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might {p} feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

(p) For as blind men we could not seek out God except by groping, before the true light came and enlightened the world.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

God’s purpose in regulating times and boundaries was that people would realize His sovereignty and seek Him (cf. Romans 1; Joh 6:44; Joh 12:32). God, Paul said, is not far from human contact. This again harmonized with some Greek philosophy, but it contradicted the teachings of other philosophers.

"It is implied in Acts xvii that the pagan world had made little progress in searching for its Creator. In Romans it is more vigorously stated that, for all God’s visible presence in His creation, the world at large had failed to find Him." [Note: Blaiklock, p. 142.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)