At Thessalonica Paul twice received succour from Philippi; at Corinth,
where money and commerce abounded, he does not take it, but quietly works
with two of his countrymen of the same trade as himself. He again begins
with the Jews, who oppose his doctrine and blaspheme. The apostle takes his
course with the boldness and decision of a man truly led of God, calmly and
wittingly, so as not to be turned aside. He shakes his garments in token of
being pure of their blood, and declares that now he turns to the Gentiles
according to Isaiah 49, taking that prophecy as a command from God.
In Corinth God has "much people." He therefore uses the unbelieving
indifference of Gallio to defeat the projects and malice of the Jews,
jealous as ever of a religion that eclipsed their importance, whatever
might be its grace towards them. Paul, after labouring there a long time,
goes away in peace. His Jewish friends, Priscilla and Aquila, go with him.
He was going himself to Jerusalem. He was also under a vow. The opposition
of the Jews does not take away his attachment to his nation-his
faithfulness in preaching the gospel to them first-in recognising
everything that belonged to them in grace before God. He even submits to
Jewish ordinances. Possibly habit had some influence over him, which was
not of the Spirit; but according to the Spirit he had no thought of
disallowing that which the patient grace of God granted to the people. He
addresses himself to the Jews at Ephesus. They are inclined to hear him,
but he desires to keep the feast at Jerusalem. Here he is still a Jew with
his feasts and vows. The Spirit has evidently introduced these
circumstances to give us a true and complete picture of the relationship
that existed between the two systems-the degree of freedom from the
influence of the one, as well as the energy that established the other. The
first remains often to a certain degree, where energy to do the other is in
a very high degree. The liberty that condescends to prejudices and habits
is not the same thing as subjection to these prejudices in one's own
person. In our feebleness the two mingle together; but they are in fact
opposed to each other. To respect that which God respects, even when the
system has lost all real force and value, if called to act in connection
with this system when it is really nothing more than a superstition and a
weakness, is a very different thing from putting oneself under the yoke of
superstition and weakness. The first is the effect of the Spirit; the last,
of the flesh. In us, alas! the one is often confounded with the other.
Charity becomes weakness, giving uncertainty to the testimony.
Paul takes his journey; goes up to Jerusalem, and salutes the assembly;
goes down to Antioch, and visits again all the first assemblies he had
formed, thus binding all his work together-Antioch and Jerusalem. How far
his old habits influenced him in his ways of acting, I leave the reader to
judge. He was a Jew. The Holy Ghost would have us see that he was as far as
possible from any contempt for the ancient people of God, for whom divine
favour will never change. This feeling was surely right. It appears
elsewhere that he went beyond the limits of the Spirit and of spirituality.
Here we have only the facts. He may have had some private reason that was
valid in consequence of the position in which he stood. One may be in
circumstances which contradict the liberty of the Spirit, and which,
nevertheless, when we are in them, have a certain right over us, or
exercise an influence which necessarily weakens in the soul the energy of
that liberty. We may have done wrong in putting ourselves into those
circumstances, but, being in them, the influence is exercised, the rights
assert their claim. A man called to serve God, driven out from his father's
house, walks in the liberty of the Spirit. Without any change in his
father, he goes into the paternal house: the rights of his father
revive-where is his liberty? Or a man possessed of much clearer spiritual
intelligence places himself in the midst of friends who are spiritually
altogether below him: it is almost impossible for him to retain a spiritual
judgment. However it may have been here, the link is now formed voluntarily
on the part of him who stood in the place of liberty and grace, and the
Christians in Jerusalem remain at the level of their former prejudices, and
claim patience and indulgence from him who was the vessel and the witness
of the liberty of the Spirit of God.
This, with the supplement of his work at Ephesus, forms the circle of the
active labours of the apostle in the gospel, to shew us in him the ways of
the Spirit with men.
