At Melita we find him again exercising his accustomed power among that
barbarous people. One sees that God is with him. Evangelisation does not,
however, appear in the account of his sojourn there, or of his journey.
Landed in Italy, we see him depressed: the love of the brethren encourages
and reanimates him; and he goes on to Rome, where he dwells two years in a
house that he hires, a soldier being with him as a guard. Probably those
who carried him to Rome had been given to understand that it was only a
matter of Jewish jealousy, for all through the journey they treated him
with all possible respect. Besides he was a Roman.
Arrived at Rome, he sends for the Jews; and here, for the last time, their
condition is set before us, and the judgment which had been hanging over
their heads ever since the utterance of the prophecy (which was especially
connected with the house of David and with Judah)-the judgment pronounced
by Esaias, which the Lord Jesus declared should come upon them because of
His rejection, the execution of which was suspended by the long-suffering
of God, until the testimony of the Holy Ghost was also rejected-this
judgment is here brought to mind by Paul at the end of the historical part
of the New Testament. It is their definitive condition solemnly declared by
the minister of sovereign grace, and which should continue until God
interposed in power to give them repentance, and to deliver them, and to
glorify Himself in them by grace.
We have already marked this characteristic of the Acts, which comes out
here in a clear and striking manner-the setting aside of the Jews. That is
to say, they set themselves aside by the rejection of the testimony of God,
of the work of God. They put themselves outside that which God was setting
up. They will not follow Him in His progress of grace. And thus they are
altogether left behind, without God and without present communication with
Him. His word abides for ever, and His mercy; but others take the place of
positive and present relationship with Him. Individuals from among them
enter into another sphere on other grounds; but Israel disappears and is
blotted out for a time from the sight of God.
It is this which is presented in the book of Acts. The patience of God is
exercised towards the Jews themselves in the preaching of the gospel and
the apostolic mission at the beginning. Their hostility develops itself by
degrees and reaches its height in the case of Stephen. Paul is raised up, a
witness of grace towards them as an elect remnant, for he was himself of
Israel; but introducing, in connection with a heavenly Christ, something
entirely new as doctrine-the assembly, the body of Christ in heaven; and
the setting aside of all distinction between Jew and Gentile as sinners,
and in the oneness of that body. This is linked historically with that
which had been established at Jerusalem, in order to maintain unity and the
connection of the promises; but in itself, as a doctrine, it was a thing
hidden in God in all the ages, having been in His purposes of grace before
the world was. The enmity of the Jews to this truth never abated. They used
every means to excite the Gentiles against those who taught the doctrine,
and to prevent the formation of the assembly itself. God, having acted with
perfect patience and grace unto the end, puts the assembly into the place
of the Jews, as His house, and the vessel of His promises on earth, by
making it His habitation by the Spirit. The Jews were set aside (alas!
their spirit soon took possession of the assembly itself); and the
assembly, and the clear and positive doctrine of no difference between Jew
and Gentile (by nature alike the children of wrath), and of their common
and equal privileges as members of one only body, has been fully declared
and made the basis of all relationship between God and every soul possessed
of faith. This is the doctrine of the apostle in the Epistles to the Romans
and Ephesians. [see note #34]
At the same time the gift of eternal life, as promised before the world
was, has been made manifest by being born again[see note #35]
(the commencement of a new existence with a divine character), and
partaking of divine righteousness; these two things being united in our
resurrection with Christ, by which, our sins being forgiven, we are placed
before God as Christ, who is at once our life and our righteousness. This
life manifests itself by conformity to the life of Christ on earth, who
left us an example that we should follow His steps. It is the divine life
manifested in man-in Christ as the object, in us as testimony.
The cross of Christ is the basis, the fundamental centre, of all these
truths,-the relations between God and man as he was, his responsibility;
grace; expiation; the end of life, as to sin, the law, and the world; the
putting away of sin through the death of Christ, and its consequences in
us. Everything is established there, and gives place to the power of life
that was in Christ, who there perfectly glorified God-to that new existence
into which He entered as man into the presence of the Father; by whose
glory, as well as by His own divine power, and by the energy of the Holy
Ghost, He was raised from the dead.
This does not prevent God's resuming His ways in government with the Jews
on earth, when the church is complete and manifested on high; and which He
will do according to His promises and the declarations of prophecy. The
apostle explains this also in the Epistle to the Romans; but it belongs to
the study of that epistle. The ways of God in judgment with regard to the
Gentiles also at the same period will be shewn us in the Apocalypse, as
well as in prophetic passages of the Epistles in connection with the coming
of Christ, and even with His government of the world in general from the
beginning to the end; together with the warnings necessary for the assembly
when the days of deception begin to dawn and to be developed morally in the
ruin of the assembly, viewed as God's witness in the world.
Our apostle, when brought to Rome, declares (upon the manifestation of
unbelief among the Jews, which we have pointed out) that the salvation of
God is sent to the Gentiles; and he dwells two whole years in the house he
had hired, receiving those who came to him (for he had not liberty to go to
them) preaching the kingdom of God and those things which concerned the
Lord Jesus, with all boldness, no man forbidding him. And here the history
is ended of this precious servant of God, beloved and honoured by his
Master, a prisoner in that Rome which, as head of the fourth empire, was to
be the seat of opposition among the Gentiles, as Jerusalem of opposition
among the Jews, to the kingdom and to the glory of Christ. The time for the
full manifestation of that opposition was not yet come; but the minister of
the assembly and of the gospel of glory is a prisoner there. It is thus
that Rome begins its history in connection with the gospel that the apostle
preached. Nevertheless God was with him.
