Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 17:24
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
24. God that made the world, &c.] Better, The God, &c., which is specially needed when the neuter pronouns are read in the previous verse.
This was no Epicurean god, who dwelt apart and in constant repose; nor was the world a thing of chance as those philosophers taught, but God’s own handiwork, and all things in it were of His creation.
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth ] And therefore supreme possessor and disposer of all that is therein.
dwelleth not in temples made with hands ] Of which Athens had some of the most renowned in the world. A special interest attaches to these words as being so like those of Stephen (Act 7:48). If true of the temple at Jerusalem, a fortiori, it is true of all Christian churches.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
God that made the world – The main object of this discourse of Paul is to convince them of the folly of idolatry Act 17:29, and thus to lead them to repentance. For this purpose he commences with a statement of the true doctrine respecting God as the Creator of all things. We may observe here:
(1) That he speaks here of God as the Creator of the world, thus opposing indirectly their opinions that there were many gods.
(2) He speaks of him as the Creator of the world, and thus opposes the opinion that matter was eternal; that all things were controlled by Fate; and that God could be confined to temples. The Epicureans held that matter was eternal, and that the world was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms. To this opinion Paul opposed the doctrine that all things were made by one God. Compare Act 14:15.
Seeing that … – Greek: He being Lord of heaven and earth.
Lord of heaven and earth – Proprietor and Ruler of heaven and earth. It is highly absurd, therefore, to suppose that he who is present in heaven and in earth at the same time, and who rules over all, should be confined to a temple of an earthly structure, or dependent on man for anything.
Dwelleth not … – See the notes on Act 7:48.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 17:24
God.
All the Indo-European equivalents for God are the same in their ultimate root as the word day, and signify the brightness of the sky. The Latin Deus, the Greek Theos, the Sanskrit Dyaus, the Welsh Duw, and even the English God, all come from the same root, signifying the brightness of the sky. This thought has been fixed in the term Jupiter, one of the oldest appellations by which God is known in Europe. Jupiter–what is it? The first syllable Ju is the same as the Welsh Duw, and means the bright sky. The remaining two syllables mean father. Jupiter is the Latin synonym for the Saxon Sky-Father. As one of our Aryan ancestors stood on the open plain gazing upward, and meditating on the Being behind all phenomena, the Reality at the back of all appearances, he gave expression, to the deepest instinct of his nature when he pronounced in articulate language the solemn word Sky-Father. (J. C. Jones, D. D.)
That made the world.–
God and the universe
1. God that made the world and all things therein. Here is an emphatic denial of all polytheistic and dualistic notions as to the origin and government of the world.
2. God made the world. Here is an emphatic assertion that God is distinct from Nature: it is a product of His plastic hand.
3. God is Lord of heaven and earth; so that the lords many, amongst whom the Greeks believed that the presidency and control of the universe are distributed, were but the idle creations of fancy. By these few words the apostle boldly pushed aside a whole host of errors to which the Athenians had given place in their minds, and by which they had been bewildered and injured. (W. L. Alexander, D. D.)
The religious use of Nature
This must be distinguished from–
1. The mere scientific use, which stops with nature. He who handles it as so much matter to be torn apart with analysis and scrutinised with microscope or telescope, often makes the most irreligious use of it, forgetting the Artist in the work of art.
2. The mere sentimental use, which makes nature a nose of wax to be twisted into a mirror of human fancies, feelings, and passions.
3. The commercial use, which sees in nature but so many acres of woodland, or capacities for grain or grazing. Yet there is–
(1) A true science, which leads the way for religion to follow and adore.
(2) A pure sentiment, which penetrates the rare though hidden analogies with which God has crowded the natural and spiritual woods; there religion enters to admire and enjoy.
(3) And wherever the eye that measures value pursues its calculations the grateful heart may follow, saying, Fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. The religious use of Nature, therefore, is something beyond science, or sentiment, or material value, but utilising everything that is real and true in each. There is scarcely a greater need than the realisation that God is everywhere.
I. The foundation for this realisation is in the teaching of the text concerning Gods relation to nature. He is Lord of all things. God is over Nature because He was before it and is in it. You cannot touch Nature without touching God. The right use of Nature so related to God must be a religious use.
II. The duty and privilege of this use is seen in the fact that the Scriptures teach that nature is designed to be a perpetual witness to the wisdom and power of God. Nature is Gods perpetual demonstration of Himself. The crime of idolatry was its first rejection of God in Nature and then debasing His character.
III. This duty and privilege becomes plainer when we remember that man was so created as to be the interpreter of nature. For this he was–
1. Placed at the apex of the pyramid, last and greatest master work.
2. Given intellectual faculties competent to understand Nature and its relations.
3. Endowed with a moral character capable of resemblance to the God revealed in Nature.
4. Made a spiritual being capable of communion with God,
5. It must therefore be his mission to be a reflecting surface for the glory of God in Nature.
IV. This duty, etc., is seen to be rational because nature is so much more to us with God than without him. Without God it is a congeries of vast and uncontrollable forces before which we shudder; with God an ordered system no less majestic, but under the control of a beneficent will. Without Him Nature is senseless; with Him it has a meaning even where we cannot fathom it.
V. Plainer yet seems the duty, etc., when we consider the appeals which God in nature makes to all that is best in us.
1. To our reverence. Best ideas of omnipotence are from Gods rule over Nature.
2. God seeks to elevate us by exhibiting in Nature the nobler types of life. Who can be thoughtless in a world packed with thought, careless when everything is replete with arrangement, idle where everything is busy, or frivolous where all is serious?
3. God appeals to the spirit of praise everywhere in Nature, which is again designed to fill us with gladness in and by our gratitude.
4. Even growth in grace is possible by Nature.
VI. A religious use of Nature is essential to a symmetrical Christian faith and life. (S. T. Scovel, D. D.)
Dwelleth not in temples made with hands.–
Gods temples
I. Heaven, where the spirits made perfect are before His throne.
II. The visible creation, in which He has never left Himself without a witness to His power, wisdom, and goodness.
III. The Church, in which the unknown God is a revealed God in the gospel of His Son.
IV. My heart, in which He desires to dwell by His Holy Spirit. (K. Gerok.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 24. God that made the world, c.] Though the Epicureans held that the world was not made by God, but was the effect of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, yet this opinion was not popular and the Stoics held the contrary:
1. St. Paul assumes, as an acknowledged truth, that there was a God who made the world and all things.
2. That this God could not be confined within temples made with hands, as he was the Lord or governor of heaven and earth.
3. That, by fair consequence, the gods whom they worshipped, which were shut up in their temples could not be this God; and they must be less than the places in which they were contained. This was a strong, decisive stroke against the whole system of the Grecian idolatry.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God that made the world; this seems to be directed against the Epicureans, who held, that the world was without beginning.
Dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as if he could be tied to them, or circumcised by them: yet God did in some respect dwell in his temple, where he did manifest himself more clearly than in other places; but that was a type of heaven, the throne of God.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
24, 25. God that made the world andall . . . thereinThe most profound philosophers of Greece wereunable to conceive any real distinction between God and the universe.Thick darkness, therefore, behooved to rest on all their religiousconceptions. To dissipate this, the apostle sets out with a sharpstatement of the fact of creation as the central principle ofall true religionnot less needed now, against the transcendentalidealism of our day.
seeing he is LordorSovereign.
of heaven and earthholdingin free and absolute subjection all the works of His hands; presidingin august royalty over them, as well as pervading them all as theprinciple of their being. How different this from the blind Force orFate to which all creatures were regarded as in bondage!
dwelleth not in temples madewith handsThis thought, so familiar to Jewish ears (1Ki 8:27;Isa 66:1; Isa 66:2;Act 7:48), and so elementary toChristians, would serve only more sharply to define to his heathenaudience the spirituality of that living, personal God, whom he”announced” to them.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
God that made the world, and all things therein,…. In this account of the divine Being, as the Creator of the world, and all things in it, as the apostle agrees with Moses, and the rest of the sacred Scriptures; so he condemns both the notion of the Epicurean philosophers, who denied that the world was made by God, but said that it owed its being to a fortuitous concourse of atoms; and the notion of the Peripatetics, or Aristotelians, who asserted the eternity of the world; and some of both sects were doubtless present.
Seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth; as appears by his being the Creator of both; hence he supports them in their being, and governs all creatures in them by his providence.
Dwelleth not in temples made with hands; such as were the idol temples at Athens; nor in any other edifices built by man, so as to be there fixed and limited; no, not in the temple at Jerusalem: but he dwells in temples that are not made with hands, as in the temple of Christ’s human nature, in which the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and in the hearts of his people, who are the temples of the Holy Ghost. This strikes at a notion of the Athenians, as if God was limited, and circumscribed, and included within the bounds of a shrine, or temple, though it is not at all contrary to his promises, or the hopes of his own people, of his presence in places appointed for divine worship, but is expressive of the infinity and immensity of God.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The God that made the world (H ). Not a god for this and a god for that like the 30,000 gods of the Athenians, but the one God who made the Universe ( on the old Greek sense of orderly arrangement of the whole universe).
And all things therein ( ). All the details in the universe were created by this one God. Paul is using the words of Isa 42:5. The Epicureans held that matter was eternal. Paul sets them aside. This one God was not to be confounded with any of their numerous gods save with this “Unknown God.”
Being Lord of heaven and earth ( ). here owner, absolute possessor of both heaven and earth (Isa 45:7), not of just parts.
Dwelleth not in temples made with hands ( ). The old adjective (, ) already in Stephen’s speech (7:48). No doubt Paul pointed to the wonderful Parthenon, supposed to be the home of Athene as Stephen denied that God dwelt alone in the temple in Jerusalem.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
God. With the article : “the God.”
The world [ ] . Originally, order, and hence the order of the world; the ordered universe. So in classical Greek. In the Septuagint, never the world, but the ordered total of the heavenly bodies; the host of heaven (Deu 4:19; Deu 17:3; Isa 24:21; Isa 40:26). Compare, also, Pro 17:6, and see note on Jas 3:6. In the apocryphal books, of the universe, and mainly in the relation between God and it arising out of the creation. Thus, the king of the world (2 Macc. 7 9); the creator or founder of the world (2 Maec. 7 23); the great potentate of the world (2 Macc. 12 15). In the New Testament : 1. In the classical and physical sense, the universe (Joh 17:5; Joh 21:25; Rom 1:20; Eph 1:4, etc.). 2. As the order of things of which man is the center (Mt 13:38; Mr 16:15; Luk 9:25; Joh 16:21; Eph 2:12; 1Ti 6:7). 3. Humanity as it manifests itself in and through this order (Mt 18:7; 2Pe 2:5; 2Pe 3:6; Rom 3:19). Then, as sin has entered and disturbed the order of things, and made a breach between the heavenly and the earthly order, which are one in the divine ideal – 4. The order of things which is alienated from God, as manifested in and by the human race : humanity as alienated from God, and acting in opposition to him (Joh 1:10; Joh 12:31; Joh 14:18, 19; 1Co 1:21; 1Jo 2:15, etc.). The word is used here in the classical sense of the visible creation, which would appeal to the Athenians. Stanley, speaking of the name by which the Deity is known in the patriarchal age, the plural Elohim, notes that Abraham, in perceiving that all the Elohim worshipped by the numerous clans of his race meant one God, anticipated the declaration of Paul in this passage (” Jewish Church, “1, 25). Paul ‘s statement strikes at the belief of the Epicureans, that the world was made by” a fortuitous concourse of atoms, ” and of the Stoics, who denied the creation of the world by God, holding either that God animated the world, or that the world itself was God.
Made with hands [] . Probably pointing to the magnificent temples above and around him. Paul ‘s epistles abound in architectural metaphors. He here employs the very words of Stephen, in his address to the Sanhedrim; which he very probably heard. See ch. Act 7:48.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “God that made the world,” (ho theos ho poiesas ton kosmon) “The God who made the world (created universe) the existing world,” is where Paul began, Gen 1:1; Joh 1:1-3; 1Co 8:6.
2) “And all things therein,” (kai panta to en auto) “And all the things existing in it;” This God, as Creator is distinctly delineated as different from their lifeless gods, their objects of devotion and worship, Exo 20:11; Joh 1:2-3.
3) “Seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, (houtos ouranou kai ges huparchon kurios) “This one-who exists (today) as Lord of heaven and earth,” as Lord of all His creation, as Creator, Act 7:48-50, Isa 66:1-2.
4) “Dwelleth not in temples made with hands; (ouk en cheiropoietois naois katoike) “Dwells not in handmade shrines,” “has not an existence that restricts His life to an handmade shrine,” such as the handmade Parthenon, near Mars’ Hill, or the temple Theseusa, 1Ki 8:27; 2Co 12:2; Psa 115:5-8.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
−
24. God, who hath made the world. Paul’s drift is to teach what God is. Furthermore, because he hath to deal with profane men, he draweth proofs from nature itself; for in vain should he have cited − (291) testimonies of Scripture. I said that this was the holy man’s purpose, to bring the men of Athens unto the true God. For they were persuaded that there was some divinity; only their preposterous religion was to be reformed. Whence we gather, that the world doth go astray through bending crooks and boughts, yea, that it is in a mere labyrinth, so long as there remaineth a confused opinion concerning the nature of God. For this is the true rule of godliness, distinctly and plainly to know who that God whom we worship is. If any man will intreat generally of religion, this must be the first point, that there is some divine power or godhead which men ought to worship. But because that was out of question, Paul descendeth unto the second point, that true God must be distinguished from all vain inventions. So that he beginneth with the definition of God, that he may thence prove how he ought to be worshipped; because the one dependeth upon the other. For whence came so many false worshippings, and such rashness to increase the same oftentimes, save only because all men forged to themselves a God at their pleasure? And nothing is more easy than to corrupt the pure worship of God, when men esteem God after their sense and wit. −
Wherefore, there is nothing more fit to destroy all corrupt worshippings, than to make this beginning, and to show of what sort the nature of God is. Also our Savior Christ reasoneth thus, Joh 4:24, “God is a Spirit.” Therefore he alloweth no other worshippers but such as worship him spiritually. And surely he doth not subtilely dispute of the secret substance [essence] of God; but by his works he declareth which is the profitable knowledge of him. And what doth Paul gather thence, because God is the creator, framer, and Lord of the world? to wit, that he dwelleth not in temples made with hands. For, seeing that it appeareth plainly by the creation of the world, that the righteousness, wisdom, goodness, and power of God doth reach beyond the bounds of heaven and earth; it followeth, that he can be included and shut up within no space of place. −
Notwithstanding this demonstration seemeth to have been in vain, because they might readily have said, that images and pictures were placed in temples to testify God’s presence; and that none was so gross but that he knew that God did fulfill [fill] all things. I answer, that that is true which I said a little before, that idolatry is contrary to itself. The unbelievers said, that they worshipped the gods before their images; but unless they had tied the Godhead and power of God to images, and had hoped − (292) to be holpen thereby, would they have directed their prayers thither? Hereby it came also to pass, that one temple was more holy than another. They ran to Delphos that they might fet [fetch] the oracles of Apollo thence. Minerva had her seat and mansion at Athens. Now we see that Paul doth touch that false opinion, whereby men have always been deceived; because they feigned to themselves a carnal God. −
This is the first entrance into the true knowledge of God, if we go without ourselves, and do not measure him by the capacity of our mind; yea, if we imagine nothing of him according to the understanding of our flesh, − (293) but place him above the world, and distinguish him from creatures. From which sobriety the whole world was always far; because this wickedness is in men, naturally to deform God’s glory with their inventions. For as they be carnal and earthy, they will have one that shall be answerable to their nature. Secondly, after their boldness they fashion him so as they may comprehend him. By such inventions is the sincere and plain knowledge of God corrupt; yea, his truth, as saith Paul, is turned into a lie, ( Rom 1:25.) For whosoever doth not ascend high above the world, he apprehendeth vain shadows and ghosts instead of God. Again, unless we be carried up into heaven with the wings of faith, we must needs vanish away in our own cogitations. And no marvel if the Gentiles were so grossly deluded and deceived, to include God in the elements of the world, after that they had pulled him out of his heavenly throne; seeing that the same befell the Jews, to whom notwithstanding the Lord had showed his spiritual glory. For it is not without cause that Isaiah doth chide them for including God within the walls of the temple, ( Isa 66:1.) And we gather out of Stephen’s sermon, that this vice was common to all ages; which sermon is set down by Luke in − Act 7:49. −
If any man asked the Jews whose grossness the Holy Ghost reproveth, if they thought that God was included in their temple, they would stoutly have denied that they were in any such gross error. But because they did only behold the temple, and did rise no higher in their minds, and trusting the temple, and did boast that God was as it were bound to them, the Spirit doth for good causes reprehend them, for tying him to the temple as If he were a mortal man. For this is true which I said even now, that superstition is contrary to itself, and that it doth vanish away into divers imaginations. Neither have the Papists at this day any defense, saying that wherewith their errors after a sort. In some, superstition doth feign that God dwelleth in temples made with hands, not that it will shut him up as it were in a prison; − (294) but because it doth dream of a carnal (or fleshly) God, and doth attribute a certain power to idols, and doth translate the glory of God unto external shows. −
But if God do not dwell in temples made with hands, ( 2Kg 19:15,) why doth he testify in so many places of Scripture, that he sitteth between the cherubims, and that the temple is his eternal rest? ( Psa 80:1.) I answer, As he was not tied to any place, so he meant nothing less than to tie his people to earthly signs, but rather he cometh down to them that he might lift them up unto himself. Therefore, those men did wickedly abuse the temple and the ark, who did so behold those things that they stayed still upon the earth, and did depart from the spiritual worship of God. Hereby we see that there was great difference between those tokens of God’s presence which men invented to themselves unadvisedly, and those which were ordained by God, because men do always incline downward, that they may lay hold upon [apprehend] God after a carnal manner; but God by the leading of his word doth lift them upward. Only he useth middle signs and tokens, whereby he doth insinuate himself with slow men, − (295) until they may ascend into heaven by degrees (and steps.) −
(291) −
“
Pugnasset,” contended with them by citing.
(292) −
“
An inde sperassent,” could they have hoped?
(293) −
“
Pro sensu carnis nostrae,” according to our carnal sense.
(294) −
“
In ergastulis,” in houses of hard labor.
(295) −
“
Familiariter… se insinuet,” he may familiarly insinuate himself.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(24) God that made the world . . .The masculine form of the pronoun and participles throughout the sentence presents an emphatic contrast to the neuter pronoun of the previous verse.
Seeing that he is Lord.Better, He, being Lord.
Dwelleth not in temples made with hands.We note with special interest the reproduction of the thought which the then persecutor had heard from the lips of the martyr Stephen. (See Note on Act. 7:48.) As asserted of the Temple at Jerusalem, it had at that time, even though it was quoted from a Jewish prophet, driven the Pharisee Saul into the frenzy of fanaticism. Now, having learnt the lesson as regards that Temple, he proclaims the truth as applicable fortiori to all temples raised by human hands. It is obvious that this truth places the sacredness of Christian churches on a ground entirely different from that which influenced the minds of Jew or Greek in regard to their respective temples. Churches are holy, not because God dwells in them, but because they are set apart for the highest acts of the collective life of the congregation of His people. In those acts men hold communion with God, and so the Church is for them all, and more than all, that the Tabernacle of Meeting (this, as meaning the place where man met God, rather than Tabernacle of the Congregation, being the true rendering of the Hebrew term; comp. Exo. 29:42) was to the Israelites of old. Romish theory and practice, in presenting the consecrated wafer in pyx or monstrance, or carrying it in procession, as an object of adoration, revives the old Pagan view which St. Paul disclaims.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
24. God A personal being; not a blind force or law of nature; not the sum total of nature’s laws personified; but One who exists independently of nature.
Made the world The world not being a part of Him. nor emanating necessarily from him, nor he from the world; but he being the voluntary Creator of the world.
Dwelleth not in temples He is limitless, though a person; and, therefore, can be circumscribed within no temples.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life, and breath, and all things.”
But Paul does not intend for Him to remain unknown. His first emphasis is that his God is the One God Who is Creator of all things and is above all things and requires neither man’s buildings nor man’s service. He needs nothing from man. Indeed both man and all creatures owe all that they are and have to Him. Life, breath and everything else come from Him. He is the Lord of creation and the Lord of life.
‘He gives — all things.’ Rather than men providing for Him, He is man’s provider so that all that benefits mankind comes from Him (compare Act 14:17).
It will be observed that this is soundly based on Scripture, yet put in such a way as to appeal to men of all religions. It is totally Scriptural. For the oneness of God see Gen 1:1; Exo 20:11; Isa 45:5-6; Neh 9:6; for creating all things and giving them life and breath see Act 14:15; Isa 42:5; Gen 1:26; Gen 2:7; Gen 7:22; Ecc 12:7; for possession of heaven and earth see Gen 14:19; Gen 14:22; for being above all things see Deu 10:14; 1Ki 8:27; for not requiring service at men’s hands as though He needed anything see Psa 50:12-13; for having made all things, possessing all things and not dwelling in houses made with hands see Isa 61:1-2, compare Act 7:48. Compare also Mat 11:25.
Zeno, the Stoic philosopher, also stressed that the deity did not live in temples made with hands and Plutarch upbraided men for forgetting it, so they would connect with this. The Epicureans certainly firmly believed that the gods, whom they saw as keeping totally apart from men, did not require men’s ‘service’ and provision. Thus both could sympathise with some of Paul’s references, but we must not see Paul as pandering to them, for he has made it quite clear that the One of Whom he speaks has created all things separately from Himself (as against the divine reason pervading all things), and he will stress that He very much involves Himself with the affairs of men.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Act 17:24-25 . Comp. Act 7:48 ; Psa 50:10 ff.; also the similar expressions from profane writers in Grotius and Wetstein, Kypke, II. 89, and the passages cited from Porphyr. by Ullmann in the Stud. u. Krit . 1872, p. 388; likewise Philo, leg. alleg . II. p. 1087.
] is served (by offerings, etc.), namely, as regards the actual objective state of the case.
. ] as one, who needed anything in addition , [67] i.e . to what He Himself is and has. Erasmus, Paraphr.: “cum nullius boni desideret accessionem .” Comp. 2Ma 14:35 , and Grimm in loc ., p. 199. See on this meaning of the verb especially, Dem. xiv. 22; Plat. Phil . p. 20 E; and on the distinction of and , Stallb. ad Plat. Rep . p. 342 A.
. . .] a confirmatory definition to : seeing that He Himself gives , etc.
] to all men , which is evident from the relation of to the preceding .
. ] The former denotes life in itself , the latter the continuance of life , which is conditioned by breathing . . , Eur. Herc. f . 1092. The dying man (Pind. Nem . x. 140) . Erasmus correctly remarks the jucundus concentus of the two words. Comp. Lobeck, Paral . p. 58; Winer, p. 591 [E.T. 793]. Others assume a hendiadys, which, as regards analysis ( life, and indeed breath ) and form (namely, that the second substantive is subordinate, and must be converted into the adjective), Calvin has correctly apprehended: vitam animalem . But how tame and enfeebling!
] and (generally) all things , namely, which they use.
Chrysostom has already remarked how far this very first point of the discourse (Act 17:24-25 ) transcends not only heathenism in general, but also the philosophies of heathenism, which could not rise to the idea of an absolute Creator. Observe the threefold contents of the speech: Theology , Act 17:24 f; Anthropology , Act 17:26-29 ; Christology , Act 17:30 f.
[67] Luther takes as masculine, which likewise excellently corresponds with what precedes, as with the following . But the neuter rendering is yet to be preferred, as affecting everything except God (in the there is also every ). Comp. Clem. ad Cor . I. 52.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Act 17:24-29 . Paul now makes that unknown divinity known in concreto , and in such a manner that his description at the same time exposes the nullity of the polytheism deifying the powers of nature, with which he contrasts the divine affinity of man. Comp. Rom 1:18 ff.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Chapter 62
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art the God of gods and the Lord of lords, yea the King of kings; the root of all life; the glory of all light. We know thee not except by our love. We know thee through our holiness, and that holiness is thine own work; for in us that is in our flesh there is no good thing. We are saved, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to thy mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. So, what we have of pureness in our hearts is the snow and the wool which thou hast made out of the crimson sin and the scarlet transgression. The blood of Jesus Christ, thy Son, hath wrought this miracle in us. We do not understand it, nor do we ask for it to be explained. We open our hearts and receive the great gospel which we need. We feel our need of it, and when it comes, it fills the heart with a strange glowing of love unfelt before, the very warmth and tenderness of God’s own grace. Sweet is the day thou hast set among the days that are common. It has a light of its own; it dawns upon the weary world like no other day. We are glad of its peacefulness; we are thankful for its rest may we enter into it as of right Divine, and enjoy the calm, and be healed and soothed by the heavenly serenity. This is the day the Lord hath made: we will rejoice and be glad in it. We would have all days touched by its glory; we would that into every other day some breath of its peace might quietly steal; so that the tumult of the week might be checked as by a presence from heaven. We thank thee for strength and health and spirit, with which to do our daily work; it is no more a toil to us if thy strength be in our soul. Then we stand upon it, and speak to it, and lift it up, and set it down, and keep it at arm’s length; it is no longer our master, because of the kingdom of heaven which rules in our hearts. Thou art bringing us onward a day at a time. We bless thee for the black night when we can see nothing: it is good for us to have no eyes. We bless thee for letting down a great curtain we cannot see through, though our curiosity would peer into the secret so near as to-morrow. This is thy way of teaching us, and behold, we know it to be good. Thou hast brought us to this acquiescence in thy method. Once we chafed as Ephraim, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; but now we have become used to God’s light burden. Thou dost also lead us forward into truth a day at a time; thou wilt not allow us to read two lessons at once. We bless thee for this care of our sanity; thou hast many things to say unto us, but we could not bear them now. So we may not turn over one leaf until we have read it well. Thou dost turn the pages not we. Help us to read every syllable, and to print the whole lesson upon our heart, so that we may be able to say it over to ourselves when we walk the earth or travel on the sea; when we are alone in the night-time, or when we are hurried by the crowd. We would that thy truth might be in us part of us; so that we shall feel it to be no burden to carry, but a source of new life and new hope day by day, till the winter of earth is quite gone, its last snowflake melted, and the great warm summer of the eternal heavens is upon us, with infinite beauty and fragrance. By thy good hand upon us, we have conquered another week and set it up amongst our victories. If we feared it, our fear is now forgotten. We have slain every giant not with our own arm, but with thy strength; we have wrestled with the foe and flung him in the encounter, so that he cannot rise again; and this we have done, not by our own skill or power, but by the indwelling strength of God. We come to thee in the sweet spring-time, when the earth is young, and every living thing is going back to its early childhood, and showing all the beauty of its heart. May we, too, feel the vernal breeze in our inmost life and root of thought; and about us may there be an upspringing of things beautiful and good! The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. May our hearts welcome thy descending kingdom, as the earth welcomes the growing light and warmth of the sun! Be with those for whom we ought to pray who are not here to join the common speech at thy throne; the sick ones; the weary toilers who are almost stealing unconsecrated rest today; men who are bringing earth’s weariness to be refreshed by Heaven’s bounty. Be with our loved ones far away in the little house at home, in the quiet village, in the middle of the wood, in the new country, in the colony unformed, in missionary lands speaking unknown speeches, on the sea, torn between two continents, leaving love and coming to love. Do thou bind up the divided heart, and grant safe landing to those now on the deep. As for those who are beyond our reach, slipping over the brink, dear old friends, who have only now to say good-bye, may they be stronger than those who watch them! In death may there be more than there is in life, and through the closing eyes may the light Divine stream into the waking heart! And when all is over, the battle and the feast, the dark night and the bright day, may we meet through the blood of the everlasting covenant and the washing of regeneration “no wanderer lost” a congregation in the skies! Amen.
Act 17:24-28
24. The God [comp. Rom 1:18 ff.] that made the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
25. Neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything [any additional thing], seeing he himself giveth to all life and breath and all things.
26. And he made of one? [“blood” had offended these autochthonous Greeks] every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation;
27. That they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28. For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said [ Ovid said of the Cilician Oratus that his astronomical poems would make him immortal “as the sun.” But to this half-line from Phn. 5, quoted by his countryman on this occasion, he owes his rescue from oblivion. The Stoic poet Cleanthes in Jov. 5, and a number of other Greeks, had expressed the thought]. For we are also his offspring.
Paul’s Theistic Argument
HOW to address a reluctant assembly; how to conduct a difficult case in the presence of men who are filled with unbelief? This was Paul’s task. He is now in comparatively new circumstances. He could fight with Jews; he could bear opposition; he had an answer to the tempest of antagonism how will he deport himself under the pressure of indifference? This will try his mettle, and he will fail! Indifference will kill him antagonism never! Athens will be too many for Paul, because Athens will not fight. Athens will go home to its dining and refining and speculation. Indifference has killed many a noble soul. It is killing many of you, mayhap, at home. You do not feel it because you are not public characters as Paul felt it, but you may have some idea of it in the domestic sphere. You could get through a controversy, but the indifference that never looks at you, never caresses you, never speaks one gentle word to you, the Athenian coldness that never appears to live, except when it sneers, will kill the youngest, freshest heart amongst you.
How does Paul begin his work? Like a master builder. He lays before himself one clear, distinct purpose which is to be accomplished. He takes the text from his congregation and says: “Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” Jesus Christ always found his texts in the congregation. When a man looked at him, he saw in that look the beginning of a new discourse. Paul did not open a scroll which had no relation whatever to Athenian tradition and Athenian education; he read the marble slab, and said, in effect: “You shall be your own Bible; I begin where you have ended; I will supersede that inscription, ‘To the Unknown God,’ by revealing him to every one of you.” Find in the man himself the beginning of your speech. Find in the little child, in home or school, the text. The child will then follow you with interest. Do not lay a heavy volume upon its young head and say: “You must carry all this.” No. The child will smile, or cry, or sigh, or look, or lay its little hand upon you. In every one of these actions find your initial Bible, and bring the other Bible in now and again as you go along; but begin with natural instinct, inborn reason, conscious necessity, dumb prayer, sighing that has in it the beginning of supreme religious desire. Paul said, “You are in search of a God, and I have brought you one.” Instantly attention was arrested. Had Paul begun at the Christian end of the argument, the people would have turned away from him with unbelief; but Paul was a workman not needing to be ashamed, handling the word skilfully; so he began where Socrates himself might have begun, he joined the great speculation just where the door happened to open. Christianity identifies itself wherever it can with ancient thinking, and current systems, and traditional practices; and from these starting-points, supplied by others, it works its way up to its own Cross and its own heaven! We should be crafty in this business; herein men should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. This was Paul’s purpose. Paul announced his text and kept to it. Let us hear him.
The twenty-fourth verse is the first chapter of Genesis and the first verse over again. How often in our teaching have we seen that there is but one verse in the Bible, and that the very first! The other verses are all “Amen.” Away they pass like many-coloured and many-toned anthems; but they come back again to the original note, and constitute in relation to the opening verse in the Bible one all-reconciling and all-contentful Amen. Listen to Paul’s retranslation of the Bible’s opening words: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth.” That is Moses. All complete preaching must begin with Moses and go on to the Lamb. What other names are there in heaven or on earth but “Moses and the Lamb”? law and grace, stern beginnings; tender endings, foundations of granite, pinnacles tipped with light. This is ideal, because Divine, completeness.
Paul revealed the spirituality of God, saying, “He dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” No explanation was attempted. To explain is to lose. Religion is not a thing of explanations, a riddle with an answer; but the Divine angel has been debased into a church conundrum with a clever answer! On the contrary, we should have said, “God is a Spirit.” What is the meaning of “Spirit”? It has none to us in our present fleshly condition. What is God? No man can tell. It is the Mystery of being; the Glory of light; the Secret of all things. There is no explanation. He who attempts to explain God blasphemes the God whom he explains. The best explanation is silence. The noblest prayer is a speechless look. How far you have realized the true spirituality of God will appear in your life. The proof is not intellectual but practical. By noble character, by charity of soul, by love that would die for its object, you will know whether your God is a nightmare or an inspiration. This is not an affair of words. You have none other than an Athenian marble god if you have a marble heart. If you can forgive till seventy times seven a thousand multiplied, then you have the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ glowing in your heart like an infinite fire which burns but does not consume. The marble heart always means a marble god. The proof of your deity is in your spirit. Some doctrines are not to be explained as some spaces are not to be used. How little even of the universe that is about us do we use! Whatever we have to set down we are obliged to set down on the ground. Yes, now I think of it, that is true. I wanted to hang something upon the horizon, and I could not reach it! What a magnificent ring for hanging things on is the horizon! And yet we, who can see it and talk about it, are obliged to set down everything on the cold ground! The flying bird dear little self-deceiver! thinks it is suspending the law of gravitation when it goes up to sing in the air. It says, as it flaps its tiny wings, “You talk about things seeking the centre of the earth; I know nothing about your centripetal force see! I am going away from the centre of the earth all the time.” Sweet rationalist! Watch it. It is coming down again why come down? Because the centre of the earth is stronger than any wing that ever attempted to compete with its infinite pressure. At night the bird will be glad to rest in the earth which in the morning it avoided with a song! There will be a good deal of coming back again amongst many flying minds; let us not object to their flying in the meantime. Learn that the air is but a larger earth.
This nobility of expression on the part of Paul does not interfere with the solemn roll of his logic. “Seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything.” A spiritual God requires spiritual worship. That is the philosophy of the whole case. You determine your worship by the nature of the object which is worshipped. Do you worship a marble slab? You will be as cold as the marble. Do you follow a God that answereth by fire? Then there will be fire in your prayer, and there will be fire in your pure and purifying life. Men like a god they can patronize. To be able to “do something” for God pleases the little vanity of little minds. But we cannot do anything for the God of the Bible except obey, and we cannot obey unless we love. You cannot keep the law in the letter; he who keeps the letter of the law breaks the law itself. The law can only be kept by love. You may do it all, and do nothing of it. A regulation-life is a life of self-idolatry.
Another view of God is given in these wondrous words: “Seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things.” How infinitely Paul has gone beyond the point which he found in the text! The Athenians had wrought their way up to Unknown; Paul makes the dumb speak; he turns the store into a living revelation. Read the words again, for in their repetition you find their best explanation: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” And this was said on Mars’ Hill! This was said in the presence of the Parthenon! This was said in presence of pillared temples and majestic edifices, raised to deities fancied and unknown. “Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.” Who could read these words without feeling that they carry with them their own proof? This is the peculiarity of the Gospel. It brings with it its own fire; it carries along with it its own eloquence. The Gospel only asks to be stated or preached that it may be heard in its own tongue. In Paul’s speech there is no uncertainty of speculation; there is no hesitancy of doubt, as if the speaker ventured to make a mere suggestion in elucidation of another scheme of cosmogony.
Paul stands on Mars’ Hill in another sense than that which is indicated in the mere letter of the text: he stands above it, and looking from the heavens down upon Areopagus, the Acropolis shrinks into a handful of dust, and is viewed by the inspired and heaven-illuminated eyes with contempt and disdain. Athens had to climb its Mount Zion foot by foot, yard by yard, up to its top; but the Christian revelationist came down upon it from the clouds, stood upon it for a moment, and reduced it to contempt by the eloquence of an infinite contrast. Your god will determine your prayer; your god will be the measure and force of your preaching. If you have come to pit one little god against another, then you will be but jostling a whole crowd of godmongers, and you will be poor preachers, not deserving sleep when night comes, for you have toiled in a bad cause; but if upon every infidel Areopagus, every speculative rock, you come down from immediate face-to-face talk with God, your face will burn and your voice will be charged with a tone which will throw all other tones into grating discord. The Church will be worsted through not knowing God. If the Church has been patronizing God, she has not been living in the heavens. If the Church betake herself to the revelation of God, rather than to his explanation, she shall always have a hearing in the world.
I hold God because I need him. I do not explain him, because I cannot; I do not defend him, because he needs no defence. I prove him by reasoning higher than formal logic: by the reasoning of a life that goes upward in daily prayer, and outward in continual sacrifice. This may give peace perhaps to some disquieted minds who have imagined that mechanical theology was to be mastered before Divine communion could be realized. Have nothing to do with mechanical theology. You can make nothing of it, neither can any man. Theology-making is an attempt to serve God with hands, and God is not worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything. All mechanical theology is untrue, because it is incomplete. What you have to struggle after is to feel God a rebuke to all evil, a judgment of all crookedness, an inspiration to all nobleness, the fountain of purity, the pavilion of defence. Do you so feel your need of God? Then the only explanation you can now have of him is to be found in Jesus Christ. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father; no man hath seen the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. So we must go to Christ’s words, Christ’s life, Christ’s whole priesthood; and there we see the beginning of a light which the universe is too small to contain or express in all its intensity and fulness. A little ray comes down to gild the disc of time, but for the whole glory we shall want the immeasurable fields of eternal duration.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Ver. 24. Dwelleth not in temples ] See Trapp on “ Act 7:48 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
24. ] ‘No wonder, that the devil, in order to diffuse idolatry, has blotted out among all heathen nations the recognition of Creation . The true doctrine of Creation is the proper refutation of all idolatry.’ Roos. Einl. in die bibl. Geschicht., cited by Stier, Red. der Apost. ii. 140, who remarks, ‘Only on the firm foundation of the Old Testament doctrine of Creation can we rightly build the New Testament doctrine of redemption: and only he, who scripturally believes and apprehends by faith the earliest words of Revelation, concerning a Creator of all things, can also apprehend, know, and scripturally worship, THE MAN, in whom God’s word, down to its latest canonical Revelation, gathers together all things.’
. ] A remarkable reminiscence of the dying speech of Stephen: see ch. Act 7:48 .
Mr. Humphry notices the similarity, but difference in its conclusion, of the argument attributed to Xerxes in Cicero, Leg. ii. 10: ‘Xerxes inflammasse templa Grci dicitur, quod parietibus includerent deos, quibus omnia deberent esse patentia et libera, quorumque hic mundus omnis templum esset et domus.’
Where Paul stood, he might see the celebrated colossal statue of Athena Polias, known by the Athenians as , standing and keeping guard with spear and shield in the enclosure of the Acropolis.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 17:24 . : “the God Who made all,” R.V., the definiteness of the words and the revelation of God as Creator stand in marked contrast to the imperfect conception of the divine nature grasped by the Athenian populace, or even by the philosophers: , . , . , . St. Paul’s language is that of a Jew, a Monotheist, and is based upon Gen 1:1 , Exo 20:11 , Isa 45:7 , Neh 9:6 , etc., but his use of the word (only here in Acts, only three times in St. Luke’s Gospel) is observable. The word is evidently not used in the moral sense, or in the sense of moral separation from God, which is so common in St. John, and which is sometimes employed by the Synoptists, and it may well have been chosen by Paul as a word familiar to his hearers. Both by Aristotle and Plato it had been used as including the orderly disposition of the heaven and the earth (according to some, Pythagoras had first used the word of the orderly system of the universe), and in this passage may perhaps both be taken or included in the , cf. Act 4:24 , Act 14:15 . In the LXX is never used as a synonym of the world, i.e. , the universe (but cf. Pro 17:6 , Grimm, sub v. ), except in the Apocryphal books, where it is frequently used of the created universe, Wis 7:17 ; Wis 9:3 ; 2Ma 7:23 ; 2Ma 8:18 ; 4Ma 5:25 (24), etc., Grimm, sub v. , and Cremer, Wrterbuch . : “He being Lord of heaven and earth,” R.V., more emphatic and less ambiguous than A.V., “seeing that”. “being the natural Lord” (Farrar), “He, Lord as He is, of heaven and earth” (Ramsay); see Plummer’s note on Luk 8:41 ; the word is Lucan, see above on . ., cf. Isa 45:7 , Jer 10:16 , and 1Co 10:26 . .: as the Maker of all things, and Lord of heaven and earth, He is contrasted with the gods whose dwelling was in temples made with hands, and limited to a small portion of space, cf. 1Ki 8:27 ; Jos., Ant. , viii., 4, 2, and St. Stephen’s words, Act 7:48 , of which St. Paul here as elsewhere may be expressing his reminiscence, cf. for the thought Cicero, Leg. , ii., 10, and in early Christian writers Arnobius and Minucius Felix (Wetstein), see also Mr. Page’s note.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
world. Greek. kosmos. App-129.
therein = in (Greek. en) it.
seeing that He is = This One being essentially (Greek. huparcho. See note on Luk 9:48).
heaven. No art. See note on Mat 6:9, Mat 6:10.
earth. Greek. ge. App-129.4.
dwelleth. See note on Act 2:5.
temples = shrines. Greek. naos. See note on Mat 23:16.
made with hands. See note on Act 7:48. This is a direct quotation from Stephen’s speech.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
24.] No wonder, that the devil, in order to diffuse idolatry, has blotted out among all heathen nations the recognition of Creation. The true doctrine of Creation is the proper refutation of all idolatry. Roos. Einl. in die bibl. Geschicht., cited by Stier, Red. der Apost. ii. 140, who remarks, Only on the firm foundation of the Old Testament doctrine of Creation can we rightly build the New Testament doctrine of redemption: and only he, who scripturally believes and apprehends by faith the earliest words of Revelation, concerning a Creator of all things, can also apprehend, know, and scripturally worship, THE MAN, in whom Gods word, down to its latest canonical Revelation, gathers together all things.
.] A remarkable reminiscence of the dying speech of Stephen: see ch. Act 7:48.
Mr. Humphry notices the similarity, but difference in its conclusion, of the argument attributed to Xerxes in Cicero, Leg. ii. 10: Xerxes inflammasse templa Grci dicitur, quod parietibus includerent deos, quibus omnia deberent esse patentia et libera, quorumque hic mundus omnis templum esset et domus.
Where Paul stood, he might see the celebrated colossal statue of Athena Polias, known by the Athenians as , standing and keeping guard with spear and shield in the enclosure of the Acropolis.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 17:24. , who hath made) So He is demonstrated to be One God, true, good, different from His creatures, and manifested by creation.-, the world) Presently after, the heaven and the earth.-, Lord) Psa 50:9-10.-, made with hands) There follows, Act 17:25, by mens hands.-, dwells) The antithesis concerning men is twice stated in Act 17:26.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
52. GOD, MAN, AND THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
Act 17:24-31
In these verses the Apostle Paul describes the character of the only true and living God and the responsibility of men before him. Obviously, he does not tell us everything about God’s character. The infinite God can never be fully known by finite man. But the Apostle’s purpose in this passage is to distinguish God from all the false gods worshipped by men. He does this by declaring seven things.
1. THE LORD OUR GOD IS THE SOVEREIGN CREATOR AND RULER OF ALL THINGS (Act 17:24). He who created all things owns all things, rules all things, and disposes of all things as he will (Mat 20:15; Psa 15:3; Psa 135:6; Dan 4:34-35; Rom 11:36). Everything and everyone in the universe is absolutely governed by God for the accomplishment of his will (Eph 1:11; Isa 45:7; Pro 16:4).
2. THE HOLY LORD GOD CANNOT BE ENSHRINED IN TEMPLES OR WORSHIPPED BY PHYSICAL ACTS OR OBJECTS (Act 17:24-25). God is Spirit. All who worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth (Joh 4:24; Php 3:3). It is true, in the Old Testament, God did establish his worship in the tabernacle and later in the temple at Jerusalem. However, like the sacrifices, the priesthood, and the laws of Israel, temple worship was a temporary, carnal ordinance designed to portray what Christ would do for the redemption and salvation of his people. Now that he has finished his work, the carnal ordinances have been abolished forever (Col 2:8-23; Heb 10:1-14). Any worship of God in “holy places”, the use of images, icons, or crosses is nothing less than idolatry (Act 17:29). All true worship is spiritual worship.
3. GOD ALMIGHTY, FROM ETERNITY, DETERMINED ALL THINGS REGARDING THE LIVES OF ALL PEOPLE UPON THE EARTH (Act 17:26). Before the world was made he determined that all men would spring from one man, our father Adam. He “hath made of one blood all nations of men.” All the races of men in the world have their origin in one man. In reality we are not many races, but one race with many distinguishing traits. This verse also declares that God determined the time and place of every man’s birth, the length of his life, the space which each would occupy upon the earth, and the time and means of every man’s death (Job 7:1). Fully recognizing the responsibility of all men to properly take care of their health, it must be understood that the most careful shall not extend his life and the most careless shall not shorten his life by so much as a tithe of a second. Our times are in God’s hands!
4. IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO SEEK THE LORD IN THE TIME HE HAS ALLOTTED US (Act 17:27). Every person has one life to live, one death to die, one judgment to face, and one eternity to spend. If we hope to spend eternity in the bliss of God’s eternal glory, we must seek him now, while we have both the opportunity and the ability to do so. “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near” (Isa 5:6). “The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh him” (Lam 3:25).
5. THE LORD GOD IS NEAR EVERY ONE OF US (Act 17:27-28). The Lord God is omnipresent, everywhere present at one time, in all the fulness of his glorious, triune Being! God is the infinite Spirit. He has no limitations. He is near us all, believers and unbelievers, so near us that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” (See Psa 139:7-12). Augustine wrote, “God is an infinite circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere!” Nothing is more serious and sobering than the realization that we are always in the presence of God! When our father Adam rebelled against God and died spiritually, we died in him, because we sinned in him (Rom 5:12). This spiritual death is the separation of our souls from God. Because man is far off from God, he imagines that God is far off from him; but it is not so. The living God is “not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.” God is everywhere! He is so fully present in all places that he is especially near to every person on earth. God is as much with you as if there were no other persons in the universe but you and God! Yet, his being near you does not make him far off from anyone else. God is so near to every person that he observes us with exactness. He clearly perceives the inmost, secret thoughts and intents of every heart. He feels for us. He thinks of us. He is near us in all the power of omnipotence, ready to intervene and help us. He is near us in all places and at all times. By day and by night he surrounds us. Understand Paul’s words and be filled with awe – “He is not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.”
This is a matter of great assurance and peace to the believer. “The Lord is at hand” (Php 4:4). He is near to preserve us in trial, to protect us from danger and to provide for our every need. He is near to hear our prayers and answer them, to commune with us and make himself known to us, and to renew and revive us with his grace. As the fish finds all it needs in the pond, so the believer finds all he needs in Christ, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. If the Lord is near, then all is well (2Ti 4:9-18).
This is a matter of great encouragement to those who know their need of Christ and seek him. Paul’s argument is – The Lord is near everyone of us so that all who seek him may feel after him and find him (Act 17:27-28). If the Lord is near and you seek him, you will surely find him (Rom 10:6-10; Jer 29:13). If you seek him, you may be assured of the fact that he is seeking you. Otherwise, you would never seek him. And when the sinner seeks God and God seeks the sinner, the two will soon come together! The Lord is near to save, to pardon, and to justify all who seek him.
This is a word of warning to every rebel. “He be not far from every one of us.” All sin, all rebellion, all unbelief is committed in the immediate presence of the holy Lord God! It is impossible for any sinner to escape the wrath of God, who is near to everyone of us, except by taking refuge in Christ, who is himself the omnipresent God.
6. GOD COMMANDS ALL MEN EVERYWHERE TO REPENT (Act 17:30). When Paul says that God “winked at” the ignorance, idolatry, and unbelief of the Gentiles in ages past, he does not mean that God ignored it, or did not notice it, or excused it. He means, in those days God passed by the Gentile nations in judgment and revealed himself only to the children of Israel. But now, in this gospel age, God “commands all men everywhere to repent.” Because it is the commandment of God, it is also the duty of all men to repent of their sins and trust the Lord Jesus Christ (1Jn 3:23; Eze 36:31). All who obey the command of the gospel shall be saved. All who refuse to obey shall be damned (Pro 1:22-33).
7. AT THE DAY APPOINTED GOD WILL JUDGE ALL MEN IN RIGHTEOUSNESS BY THE GOD-MAN JESUS CHRIST (Joh 5:28; 2Co 5:10-11; Rev 20:11-15). The day of judgment will be the day of settling. In that great day everyone will receive exactly what justice demands, exactly what he lawfully deserves. When the books are opened and each person is examined by the omniscient eye of strict justice, the unbelieving, standing before God without a Substitute, will be rewarded with everlasting wrath, in exact proportion to their measure of wickedness. The redeemed, being totally free from sin and perfectly righteous in Christ their Substitute, shall inherit all the fulness of heaven’s glory, because justice declares they are worthy!
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
that made: Act 17:26-28, Act 4:24, Act 14:15, Psa 146:5, Isa 40:12, Isa 40:28, Isa 45:18, Jer 10:11, Jer 32:17, Zec 12:1, Joh 1:1, Heb 1:2, Heb 3:4
seeing: Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22, 2Ki 19:15, Psa 24:1, Psa 115:16, Psa 148:13, Jer 23:24, Dan 4:35, Mat 5:34, Mat 11:25, Luk 10:21, Rev 20:11
dwelleth: Act 7:48, 1Ki 8:27, 2Ch 2:6, 2Ch 6:18, Isa 66:1, Joh 4:22, Joh 4:23
Reciprocal: Gen 1:1 – God Gen 1:29 – I have Exo 6:2 – I am the Lord Psa 100:3 – Know Jer 27:5 – made Jer 51:15 – hath made Dan 4:37 – the King Joh 1:10 – was in Col 2:11 – without Heb 9:11 – not made Heb 11:3 – faith Rev 4:11 – for thou
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
4
Act 17:24. The God who made everything in the universe could not be expected to dwell (be confined) in manmade temples, and certainly not in as small and lifeless a thing as an altar of earth or stone, such as the Athenians had erected for the purpose.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 17:24. Dwelleth not in temples made with hands. Commentators call attention to the remarkable reminiscence of the dying speech of Stephen before the Sanhedrim, which the Pharisee Saul must have listened to, and which so powerfully influenced his future life. Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands (Act 7:48-49). These words, uttered in full view of the magnificent fanes of the gods of which Athens was so proud, must have rung with a strange emphasis on the ears of the listening Areopagites.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here begins St. Paul’s famous sermon to the men of Athens; in which the first thing that occurs to our observation is, how the preacher doth adapt and accommodate his discourse to the capacity of his hearers, as also to their sentiments and opinions. His auditory consisted of philosophers, particularly of Epicureans and Stoics; the former instead of a God and a wise Providence to make and govern the world, brought in Fortune or blind Chance, to bear all the sway. The latter though they acknowledged a God, yet introduced a rigid fatality, as superior to the Deity, denying to man all freedom and liberty of choice.
Accordingly, St. Paul addresses himself, first to prove a God and a Providence, to the exclusion both of Fate and Fortune; and then, secondly, from the very nature and notion of God, he infers the folly and absurdity of their Pagan superstition.
Observe next, The apostle’s arguments to prove the being of a God, and a Providence:
1. From the work of creation: He made the world and all things therein; he giveth life, and breath, and all things. The whole universe is his work, and he planted the earth, and replenished it with inhabitants. The invisible God is more visible in his creatures, and the being of God demonstrated from the formation of a world of creatures.
2. From the formation of man in particular: In him we live, and move, &c.
Here are three great benefits enjoyed by human nature; life, motion, and being, all derived from God, and demonstrating the being of God.
1. Life: this is valuable above all blessings, because it renders us capable of enjoying all blessings.
2. Motion: a great mercy, but little considered. How uncomfortable would life be without it! Were we staked down to the earth as trees, or did we move by a constant law of nature, as the sun and moon do move, it had been a favour beyond our desert; but to move as we do at pleasure, with choice and ease, to help ourselves, and to assist others, is at once a demonstration of God’s being, and an evidence of his bounty.
3. Being: this is essential and necessary to none but God. To us it is an act of divine favour, and this being is a mercy; then being what we are, is a double mercy, that we do not creep and crawl upon the earth, as worms and toads, but are built high upon the earth, with wonderful wisdom and care; and that a soul, which is an immortal and an eternal being, inhabits within us; a being which shall continue when heaven and earth shall be consumed.
Observe next, The apostle having proved the being of a God, next demonstrates the certainty of a divine Providence: He hath determined the times that are fore-appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.
That is, God has, as it were, chalked out, and drawn a line, where the bounds and habitations, whither the dominions or possessions of men should be extended, and where they shall be confined. The common blessings of God are not dispensed without a special providence; and the special providence of God, in upholding, disposing, and governing the world, doth as much prove the being of a God, as the general creation of it. Every hour’s preservation is virtually a new creation, and both of them sufficient demonstrations of the divine being and bounty.
Observe, lastly, The duty which the apostle infers on man’s part, for all this goodness and bounty demonstrated on God’s part; That they shall seek the Lord, who shall find him, who is not far from every one of us. It is the duty of all men to follow after God; that God hath made man, should draw men after God; inasmuch as we are his offspring, (ver. 29) our hearts should spring and rise up to him in love and thankfulness; as the rivers, because they come from the sea, go back thither, so we being the offspring of God, and derived from him, should be always returning to him.
And if it be the duty of all men to follow after God, because they have natural life, breath, and motion from him, how much more should the new creature, who has a spiritual life breathed into him and bestowed upon him, follow hard after God, in the enjoyment of whom his present happiness and future felicity doth consist? To follow God in his way, and to propose God as our end, contains the sum of all duty.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Act 17:24-26. God that made the world Thus is demonstrated, even to reason, the one, true, good God; absolutely different from the creatures, from every part of the visible creation. Seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands God hath no need of temples to dwell in, seeing he hath made the world, and is the Lord, or possessor, of the universe. Ye, therefore, greatly err in thinking, that by erecting magnificent temples and images, and by consecrating them, ye draw God down into them, and prevail with him to reside among you in an especial manner. That vulgar notion is unworthy of men whose minds are improved by science, and who, from Gods having made the world, ought to know that his presence is not confined to temples made by men. Neither is worshipped with mens hands, as though he needed any thing Or, person, the word equally taking in both: that is, Neither is the true God worshipped with sacrifices and meats prepared by mens hands, if these things are offered to him, as though he needed to be fed with the fruits of the earth, and with the flesh of beasts, and refreshed with the steams of sacrifices and incense: seeing he giveth to all That live and breathe, whether men or beasts; life For in him we live; and breath In him we move; and all things For in him we are: whence it is evident that men can contribute nothing to his life or happiness. And hath made of one blood all nations of men Hath from one man and woman multiplied the human race, so as to form those different nations which cover the face of the whole earth; and hath everywhere made a liberal provision for them, of all the necessaries of life. How then can ye fancy that he himself needs to be lodged, and clothed, and fed by men! By speaking thus, the apostle also showed them, in the most unaffected manner, that though he was a Jew, he was not enslaved to any narrow views, but looked on all mankind as his brethren. And hath determined the times before appointed Hath also assigned to each of these nations their times of existence; and the bounds of their habitations By mountains, seas, rivers, and the like; that is, the particular countries they were or are to inhabit, according as he had before appointed these things. By all which he shows, that he governs the world by a most wise providence, contrary to what you Epicureans teach, and also that his government is most free, contrary to the doctrine of the Stoics.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
See notes on verse 22
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
17:24 {13} God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
(13) It is a most foolish and vain thing to compare the Creator with the creature, to limit him within a place who can be comprehended in no place, and to think to allure him with gifts, from whom all men have received all things whatever they have: and these are the fountains of all idolatry.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The true God created all things. Since He is Lord of heaven and earth, human temples cannot contain Him. He is transcendent over all (cf. Act 7:48-50). This harmonized with the Epicureans’ idea of God as above the world, but it corrected the Stoics’ pantheism. Some Greek philosophers, including Euripides, agreed that temples did not really house their pagan gods, but many Greeks thought they did. [Note: Bock, Acts, p. 565.]