For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found
an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye
ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you (Acts 17:23).
(I)
[Source:
The Standard Bearer, vol. 41, issue 18]
Paul is here not teaching or suggesting that the
Pagan was in real spiritual quest after the living God. They were not seeking God. Paul only cites this
as evidence that the Athenians’ multiplicity of “gods” shows that none of these
are truly gods, for else they would not have still built an altar to another.
Paul points to the “Achilles’ heel” in their idolatry. It is here that he
points to the deep spiritual-psychological bankruptcy of idolatrous man. This
one altar points up the bankruptcy of all the other “gods,” and even this “unknown
god” does not avail them aught. Notice well that Paul is here not merely
engaging himself in some clever witticism, but is giving, by implication, a
profound, basic and soul-searching psychoanalysis of the basic problem of all
their religiosity. With this one observation he points out the “Achilles’ heel”
of the vaunted invulnerableness of the religion of these Epicureans and
Stoics!
All their “gods” are found wanting! The altar to the “UNKNOWN
GOD” attests to this fact. And the imaginary impregnable fortress topples, as
did Dagon of old when he fell prostrate to the ground!
---------------------------------------------
(II)
Rev. George C. Lubbers
[Source:
The Standard Bearer, vol. 41, issue 18]
There is a very fine touch in
the Greek text which we must not overlook in what Paul says concerning the
subject which he preached. Paul does not say, according to the better reading
of the text, “Whom ye ignorantly worship Him I
proclaim unto you,” but he says “What ye ignorantly worship that I
proclaim unto you.” This touch we should not overlook. There are expositors who
hold that Paul here very subtly avoided preaching “another god,” so as not to
come under the wrath of the authorities of Athens and of the Roman Emperor.
With this we disagree. Paul preached very definitely another GOD than what
these Athenians worshipped, even in their “UNKNOWN GOD.” We must look in
another direction for the correct interpretation. That Paul says “what” and not
“Him” shows that in the mind of Paul these Stoics and Epicurians never really
rose higher than “what” (ho) and never could rise to the person of
the “UNKNOWN GOD.” They did not even have in mind a personal,
transcendent GOD! They had changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, birds,
four-footed beasts and creeping things. (Rom. 1:23). Paul could not possibly
have said: him whom ye ignorantly worship Him I declare unto you! For they were
not worshippers of God, but of idols!
What then?
You can see
in the ruins of idolatry a certain “what!” It is, that God is the “Thesis,” and
that the “antithesis” of idolatry can only exist because of this “Thesis.” We
can see in the “what” of idolatry’s worship that it is dependent upon something
which it denies. The German expresses this well and calls it “Ab-gotterei.”
It is a “From—God activity”! It is an away-from-God worship! It is
really never a true worship toward its object which is ever mere creature! For
this reason, we believe that the reading which has “ho—touto” is correct
and not the “ton—touton”; the latter is a reading which an “old
alteration” already in the days of Clement, and is, incidentally, followed by
the KJV which used the Textus Receptus. However, Paul was not
preaching Him whom these Greeks served, but rather “what” they worshipped, in
order to lead their minds to “Him” whom they ought to worship and seek in Jesus
Christ. He will lead their thoughts from idolatry to the worship of the true
and living God. If they do not repent and turn to the true God, it is not
because it was not preached to them! Then it is a savor of death unto death
unto them; Paul in that case, too, is triumphant with a great victory!
Paul does
not argue that God is; he preaches God without attempting to prove. The latter
is neither necessary nor possible. But he does point to the evidence of
God all about us. He takes his point of departure in what Moses writes in Genesis
1:1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the beginning
God was! He did not become. He is the eternal and self-subsistent
God. And He is the Creator, who brought forth all things by His counsel and
providence. That is the starting point of all things. That is the starting
point in all mission preaching, for all preaching must go back to how things
were “from the beginning,” before the Fall of man! Thus did Jesus speak to the
Pharisees in the streets of Jerusalem (Matt. 19:8). Men often have a
mistaken notion about how one must preach, and what one
must preach on the “mission field.” One does not preach one iota different
truth in the midst of the heathen than he does in the church. There is but one “truth”!
It is all in that sentence in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth.” Thus did Paul here on Mars Hill; only, he
did it in a masterfully pedagogical way. Yet, he builds here upon the
foundation besides which there is none other. Paganism is foundationless! Both
Stoicism and Epicureanism have lost their moorings!
Hence, Paul
says emphatically: What you ignorantly worship that I, who seem
to you as a setter forth of some strange doctrines, proclaim unto you. I
proclaim to you the only truth, the only wisdom, the only view of all things
and of history! And, in so doing, he is not a Christian “philosopher” who
reasons from some “Calvinistic principles,” but he is a messenger from
God who declares “Thus saith the Lord in His Word,” and “Thus the Lord spoke
through Moses to the church in the Old Testament dispensation.” And now this is
Moses’ word fulfilled in Christ, preached here by the latter’s ambassador on
Mars Hill. It is the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God unto salvation
in those who believe, but foolishness to those who are perishing while it is
preached to them, being not believed.
The wrath of God abides upon
them.
Such is the
only point of departure!
He who is not led back to the “beginning”
of Genesis 1:1 will never be led to the cross and resurrection
of Jesus Christ!
With this,
we have also touched upon the matter of the so-called “natural theology.” If
Paul had preached “Him” whom they ignorantly worshipped, then the proponents of
the teaching that the heathen know God by means of creation would have some
basis for their contention. But now Paul cuts off all knowledge of God by
saying “what” ye served I proclaim to you to bring you to “Him” whom the
Christian serves. Yes, and this too removes the basis for a “commonness” of
worship of pagan and Christian. We do not believe that there is an iota of
evidence for the teaching of “common grace” which would unite Jerusalem and
Athens. One must be “plucked out” of the evil world of Athens and be translated
into the Kingdom of God to be a worshipper in the heavenly Jerusalem. Lest one
be taken out of the “antithesis” of Athens against the “thesis” of Jerusalem he
will surely perish with Athens in his sins!
Let it not be forgotten that
our Reformed fathers in the Belgic Confession do not confess that the
world knows God by the book of nature, and that the Christian knows God by the
book of the Bible! Perish the thought! Rather, they confess in Article 2, “We
know him [God] by two means.” Notice this “we.” This is the church which speaks
here. “We know Him by creation, preservation and government of the universe,
which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great
and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things
of God, namely, his power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith, Romans
1:20. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy
and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this
life, to his glory and our salvation.” We, the church, know God by these
two books.
Paul is
here preaching these “two books” and blends their testimony together in a
revealing, pedagogical way!
The order
of these two books according to Paul’s address is correct; the “starting point”
must needs be in God, the Creator. It is, too, the basis of all morality and
religion!
---------------------------------------------
(III)
More to come! (DV)
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