We come now to the beginning of the direct history of the work, new in some
important respects, that is, connected with Paul's mission by the immediate
intervention of the Holy Ghost. It is not now Christ upon earth, who by His
personal authority sends forth the twelve, afterwards endowed with the
power of the Holy Ghost from on high to announce His exaltation to heaven
and His return, and to gather under the standard of the cross those who
should believe in Him. Paul has seen Christ in glory, and therefore has
united himself to the assembly already gathered. But here there is no
Christ personally present to send him forth as the witness of His presence
on earth, or of His rejection as One whom Paul had known in earth. The Holy
Ghost Himself sends him, not from Jerusalem, but from a Greek city, in
which in free and sovereign power He had converted and gathered together
some Gentiles, doubtless some Jews likewise, but forming an assembly whose
existence was first marked by the fact that the gospel had been preached to
the Greeks.
In chapter 13 we find ourselves again in the assembly at Antioch, and in
the midst of the independent [see note #19]
action of the Spirit of God. Certain prophets are there, Saul among them.
They fasted and were occupied with the service of the Lord. The Holy Ghost
commands them to separate unto Him Barnabas and Saul for the work to which
He had called them Such was the source of the ministry of these two.
Assuredly it bore testimony to Him in whom they had believed, and whom
Saul, at least, had seen, and it was under His authority they acted; but
the positive and obvious source of their mission was the Holy Ghost. It was
the Holy Ghost who called them to the work. They were sent forth (v. 4) by
Him-an all-important principle as to the Lord's ways upon earth. We come
out from Jerusalem, from Judaism, from the jurisdiction of the apostles
nominated by the Lord while He was on earth. Christ is no longer known
after the flesh, as Saul (when become Paul) expresses it. They have to
strive against the Judaic spirit-to shew consideration for it as far as it
is sincere; but the sources of their work are not now in connection with
the system which that work no longer knows as a starting-point. A glorious
Christ in heaven, who owns the disciples as members of His body as Himself
on high-a mission from the Holy Ghost on earth which only knows His energy
as the source of action and authority (bearing testimony of course to
Christ)-this is the work which now opens, and which is committed to
Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas, it is true, forms a link between the two. He
was himself a Hellenist of Cyprus; it was he who presented Saul to the
apostles after his conversion near Damascus. Barnabas had more largeness of
heart-was more open to the testimonies of divine grace-than even the
apostles and the others who had been nurtured in a strict Judaism; for God
in His grace provides for everything. There is always a Barnabas, as well
as a Nicodemus, a Joseph, and even a Gamaliel, whenever needed. The actings
of God in this respect are remarkable in all this history. Would that we
only trusted more entirely, while by the Spirit doing His will, to Him who
disposes all things!
Nevertheless even this link is soon broken. It was still in connection with
the "old cloth," the "old bottles"; blessed as the man himself was, to whom
the Holy Ghost rendered so fine a testimony, and in whom we see an
exquisite character. He determined to take his kinsman also (see Col. 4:
10), Mark. Mark returns to Jerusalem almost from the beginning of the work
of evangelisation in the Gentile regions; and Saul continues his work with
such instruments as God formed under his hand, or a Silas who chose to
remain at Antioch when (the particular service which had been committed to
him at Jerusalem being ended) he might naturally have returned thither with
Judas.
Sent forth thus by the Holy Ghost, Barnabas and Saul, with John Mark as
their ministering servant, go away to Seleucia, then to Cyprus; and being
at Salamis, a town in that island, they preach the word of God in the
synagogues of the Jews. Whatever therefore might be the energy of the Holy
Ghost, He acts in connection with the counsels and the promises of God, and
that with perfect patience. To the end of his life, notwithstanding the
opposition of the Jews, vexatious and implacable as it might be, the
apostle continues-as the ways and counsels of God in Christ had
commanded-to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles. Once brought in
where truth and grace were fully revealed in God's assembly, there was no
difference between Jew and Gentile. God is one in His character and fully
revealed, and the veil rent; sin is one in its character and is opposed to
God; the foundation of truth changes not, and the oneness of the assembly
is connected with the height of grace in God and comes down to the deep
totality of sin, in respect of which that grace has displayed itself. But,
with regard to the ways of God upon earth, the Jews had the first place,
and the Spirit, who is above all, can therefore act in full liberty in
recognising all the ways of God's sovereignty; even as Christ, who made
Himself a servant in grace, submitted to them all, and now, being exalted
on high, unites all these various ways and dispensations in Himself as head
and centre of a glory to which the Holy Ghost bears witness, in order to
accomplish it here below, as far as may be, by grace.
This does not prevent his giving a distinct and positive judgment as to the
condition of the Jews when the occasion requires it.
Even here, at the commencement of his ministry, the two things are
presented together. We have already noticed that he begins with the Jews.
Having traversed the island, he arrives at the seat of government. There
the proconsul, a prudent and thoughtful man, asks to hear the gospel. Beset
already by a false prophet (who took advantage of the felt need of a soul
which, while ignorant, was earnestly desirous of something that could fill
up the void it experienced in the nothingness of pagan ceremonies, and in
its disgusting immorality), he sends for Barnabas and Saul. Elymas
withstands them. This was natural. He would lose his influence with the
governor if the latter received the truth that Paul preached Now Elymas was
a Jew. Saul (who is henceforth named Paul) filled with the Holy Ghost,
pronounces on him the sentence, on God's part, of temporary blindness,
executed at the moment by the mighty hand of God. The proconsul, struck
with the power that accompanied his word, submits to the gospel of God.
I do not doubt that in this wretched Bar-jesus we see a picture of the Jews
at the present time, smitten with blindness for a season, because jealous
of the influence of the gospel. In order to fill up the measure of their
iniquity, they withstood its being preached to the Gentiles. Their
condition is judged: their history given in the mission of Paul. [see note #20]
Opposed to grace, and seeking to destroy its effect upon the Gentiles, they
have been smitten with blindness-nevertheless only for a season.
Departing from Paphos, they go into Asia Minor; and now Paul definitively
takes his place in the eyes of the historian of the Spirit. His whole
company are only those who were with Paul, an expression in Greek which
makes Paul everything (Paul's company Lit. "those around Paul"). When they
reached Perga, John Mark leaves them to return to Jerusalem-a milder and
more moderate form of the Judaic influence, but shewing that, wherever it
exercised itself, if it did not produce opposition, it at least took away
the vigour needful for the work of God as it was now unfolding among the
Gentiles. Barnabas however goes farther, and still continues with Paul in
the work. The latter, when they were come to Antioch, [see note #21]
again begins first with the Jews. He goes on the sabbath day into the
synagogue, and, on the invitation of the ruler, proclaims Jesus, rejected
by the Jews at Jerusalem and crucified, but by the power of God raised up
again, and through whom they might be justified from all things, from which
they could not be justified by the law of Moses. Here the testimony of Paul
is very like that of Peter, and is very particularly allied to the
beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, with regard to the character of
the testimony: verse 33 is quite Peter's testimony in Acts 3. In verse 31
he sets the twelve distinctly in the place of testimony to Israel, as those
who had personally accompanied the Lord, and who had seen Him after His
resurrection. "They are," he says, "his witnesses unto the people." But
Paul's testimony (which, as to the fulfilment of the promises by the coming
of Christ, and the mercies of David made sure in His resurrection, returns
into the order of Peter's preaching) departs from it in an important point.
He says nothing of God's having made Jesus both Lord and Christ. He
announces that the remission of sins is proclaimed in His name, exhorting
his hearers not to neglect this great salvation.[see note #22]
Many follow Paul [see note #23]
and Barnabas in consequence of this announcement, and are exhorted by them
to continue in the grace which had been proclaimed to them. The mass of the
people come together the following sabbath to hear the word of God; the
Gentiles having besought that this gospel of grace might be preached to
them again. Their souls had found more truth in the doctrine of the one
only God, acknowledged by the Jews, than in the senseless worship of the
Pagans, which, to an awakened and unsatisfied mind, no longer presented any
food that could appease it-a mind that was too active to allow the
imagination to amuse itself with ceremonies which had no charms but for
ignorance, which could be captivated by the pageantry of festivals, to
which it was accustomed, and which gratified the religious element of the
flesh. Still, the coldly acknowledged doctrine of one only true God,
although it set the mind free from all that shocked it in the senseless and
immoral mythology of Paganism, did not at all feed the soul as did the
powerful testimony of a God acting in grace, borne by the Holy Ghost
through the mouth of messengers whom He had sent-a testimony which, while
faithful to the promises made to the Jews, yet addressed itself as a "word
of salvation" (v. 26) to all those who feared God. But the Jews, jealous of
the effect of the gospel which thus met the soul's need in a way that their
system could not, withstand Paul and blaspheme the doctrine of Christ. Paul
therefore and Barnabas turn boldly to the Gentiles.
It was a decisive and important moment. These two messengers of the Holy
Ghost quote the testimony of the Old Testament with regard to God's purpose
towards the Gentiles, of whom Christ was to be the light-a purpose which
they accomplished according to the intelligence in it that the Spirit gave
them, and by His power. The passage is in Isaiah (chap. 49), where the
opposition of Israel, that made the testimony of Christ useless to
themselves, gave God occasion to declare that this work was but a small
thing, and that Christ should be a light to the Gentiles, and great even to
the ends of the earth.
We shall do well to observe this last circumstance, the energy in action
imparted by spiritual intelligence, and the way in which prophetic
declarations turn into light and authority for action, when the Spirit of
God gives the true practical meaning-the application. Another might not
perhaps understand it; but the spiritual man has a full guarantee for his
own conscience in the word which he has understood. He leaves the rest to
God.
The Gentiles rejoice at the testimony, and the election believe. The word
spreads through all the region. The Jews now shew themselves in their true
character of enemies to the Lord and to His truth. With regard to them Paul
and Barnabas shake off the dust of their feet against them. The disciples,
whatever might be their difficulties, are no hindrance to this. The
position here taken by the Jews-which, moreover, we find everywhere-makes
us understand what a source of grief and pain they must have been to the
apostles.
