GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ACTS 17:29-31
With these three verses, Paul completes his “Athenian Catechism.” In the fourth part (verse 29) he draws a conclusion, what he has proved about God and God’s nature. In the fifth part (verses 30-31) he proclaims what God wants and what God offers.
29 Since we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the design or skill of man. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance…
All around the Areopagus were streets and houses extending out to the limits of the city. On every street and in front of almost every house were little shrines and altars to pagan gods, little stone boxes or pillars. But God does not dwell in stone, nor is he made of stone. We are his offspring (he even quoted a Greek author to illustrate this point), and stone or gold does not beget flesh. No matter what God might be made of, he is certainly not the product of man’s imagination. In no way does the child decide upon the form of the parent or his ancestors. So, (a) if God is our Father, then (b) he is not made of anything like “gold or silver or stone,” nor is he a mere image formed by human art or craftsmanship.
If anyone in Paul’s Greek audience might want to veer off at this point to discuss the material from which God is made, Paul quickly shows that not only is that the wrong question to consider (God is not made at all, he simply is, and “God is Spirit,” John 4:24), but its implication is disastrous for all sinners. Here is Paul’s third point: (c) If God is not made of perishable things like stone or metal, but is infinite and all-powerful as we know that he is, then his wrath over our sins is equally powerful and equally infinite. But by the grace of God alone, and not because of anything we have done or deserve, “God overlooked such ignorance.” This is a profound and terrifying preaching of the law, because, Paul says, “in the past” God overlooked their sins. But the past ends with this moment. God will overlook their idolatry and their ignorance no more. Paul is preaching Christ, and therefore our sins are all laid bare. Christ came to forgive them, but if anyone rejects Christ, then his sins exposed and laid bare are all gathered up into that sinner’s lap, and the punishment for them becomes the sinner’s sentence and God’s righteous judgment.
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.”
The final article of the Athenian Catechism is an explanation of what God wants and offers. First, he commands “all people everywhere to repent.” In what way would the Greeks of Athens understand the term “repent” (Greek metanoeo, μετανοέω)? In Classical Greek, this word was most often used either to show that someone came to an understanding or agreement about something too late (as in a tragedy), or else it meant to change one’s mind or adopt another point of view; a radical break with the view or the sins of the past. This is the beginning of repentance in the Christian sense of the word, and the other part of repentance, trust in Christ, was what Paul was preaching and offering to them. The idea that it is not too late to turn from sin and to turn to Christ is the miracle of the gospel. While there is life, each of us still has hope for salvation.
Second, Paul shows that judgment day is a certainty, and it is coming. There is no one who can embrace a sin and simply live in that sin with the idea that life will go on and on, and he can enjoy the temptation and the sin he has adopted for his pleasure, and that there will never be any consequence for it. The day of reckoning will come, and there will indeed be a Judge, “a man whom God has appointed.” Paul might have explained this further. Zephaniah, for example, calls it “a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, and day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (Zephaniah 1:15). And Ezekiel says, bluntly, “Their silver and gold will not be able to save them in the day of wrath” (Ezekiel 7:19). But Paul moves along quickly to the gospel; he can explain the law more fully on another day.
The third point he makes, which is the final point of his catechism, is that “He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.” The “him” who is raised is the man who is appointed, Jesus Christ. The promise of the resurrection in Jesus is the promise we grab hold of because through Jesus comes our forgiveness, our adoption as true children of God, and our salvation in every way.
The Athenians had wanted to find out more about Jesus and the resurrection (Acts 17:18-20). Now they had heard. The resurrection would be a terrible thing if it meant that we carried the burden and the guilt of our sins with us into eternity. But the truth of the resurrection is that our sins are covered by Jesus, and we will rise, transformed, but essentially the same. God will make our mortal bodied come to life (Romans 8:11). He will transform these bodies of ours, giving them another sinless form, yet still our bodies (Philippians 3:21). We would not be able to speak of our bodies being transformed (1 Cor. 15:53) if these bodies of ours, mortal though they are now, did not rise. In the resurrection our bodies will be changed according to quality: immortal, sinless, and without defect. But we will be of the same quantity; none of us will reproduce any longer. We will be without any flaw, every man like Adam and every woman like Eve, before they fell, and there will be no fall, no sin, ever again. In Christ, all will be made alive, and in Christ, we who put our faith in him will live with him forever in Paradise.
So ends Paul’s Athenian Catechism.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Acts 17:29-31 The Athenian Catechism (part 4)