Acts 17:22 - Meaning and Application

We have here Paul’s sermon in Athens. We have seen other sermons the apostles preached to Jews, or to Gentiles who knew the Old Testament and honored the true and living God. In those cases, they mainly had to show that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah. Here, Paul speaks to pagans who worshiped false gods and did not know the true God. So his message is different.

With the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, the apostles led people by prophecy and miracles to know the Redeemer and trust in him. With these Athenians, Paul led them first by God’s work in creation and providence, which is God’s care over the world, to know the Creator and worship him. We saw one such sermon before, when he spoke to the rough idolaters of Lystra (Acts 14:15). This sermon, in front of the more polished idolaters at Athens, is also excellent and fits both his listeners and his purpose.

Paul begins by setting out the goal of his message, to bring them to know the only living and true God, the only right object of worship. He has to lay the foundation here and teach them the first truth of religion, that God exists and that there is only one God. When he speaks against the gods they worship, he is not trying to lead them into unbelief. He is trying to turn them to the worship of the true God.

Socrates, the Greek philosopher who criticized pagan worship, had been accused in that very court. He was condemned not only because he did not accept the gods the city honored, but also because he introduced new spirits or deities. Paul faced the same charge. He quietly accepts the first part, since he does deny their idols, but he guards against the second. He says he is not introducing new gods, only bringing them to the knowledge of one God, the Ancient of Days.

First, Paul shows them that they needed this instruction. They had lost the knowledge of the true God who made them, because they had turned to false gods that they themselves had made. The old saying fits them well, “The one who worships gods makes them.” Paul says, “I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious” or, as some translate it, “very religious.” His point is that they were giving to others the honor that belongs to God alone. They were afraid of and worshiped demons, spirits they thought lived in the images before which they bowed.

Paul is basically saying, “It is time for you to learn that there is only one God, even though you have more gods than your neighbors and mix idol worship into every part of life.” The word he uses could sound respectful, so he softens the charge. If taken in a good sense, it means they were very devout in their own way. If taken in a bad sense, he still speaks gently, saying only what he himself observed. They accused Paul of bringing in new spirits, but he replies, in effect, “You already have enough spirits. I am not adding to them.”

Second, Paul shows that they had already given him a fitting opening by setting up an altar with the words, “To the unknown God.” That inscription admitted that there was a God they did not yet know. It is sad to think that in Athens, a place thought to be the home of wisdom, the true God was still unknown, the only God they did not know. Paul is saying, “You should welcome me, because this is the God I have come to make known to you, the very God you admit you do not know.”

Where we know our lack, the gospel comes to fill it. Many learned people have made guesses about this altar to the unknown God. Some think it meant “To the God whose honor is to remain unknown,” and that it may have pointed to the God of the Jews, whose name is too holy to handle lightly and whose nature cannot be fully searched out. The heathen called the Jewish God an uncertain god, or the unnamed deity of Moses. Paul says, in effect, “This God, who cannot be fully found out by searching, I now declare to you.”

Others think the meaning was, “To the God whom we do not know, though it is our loss not to know him.” They say this altar may have come from a time of plague in Athens. After sacrifices to all their gods failed, they were told to let sheep wander where they wished, and wherever they lay down, to build an altar there. Because they did not know what to call the god who had power over that matter, they wrote, “To the unknown God.” Other ancient writers say they had several altars marked for the gods of different lands, and also one for the unknown God.

Paul mentions this very carefully. He does not want them to think he has snooped around in private matters or acted like a stranger prying into sacred things. He says he noticed it while passing by and looking at their objects of worship, or their sacred places. It was public, so he could not help seeing it. It was fair for him to comment on the religion of the city. And he wisely uses it as a doorway into his teaching about the true God.

He tells them that the God he preaches is already, in some sense, the God they worship. So he is not bringing in a strange or new god. “As you depend on him,” he says, “he has also received some kind of honor from you.” But that worship was ignorant, and that was a shame for a people famous everywhere for their learning. Paul comes to remove that shame, so they may worship him with understanding instead of worshiping they know not what. The same blind devotion can become reasonable service when God is truly known.

He supports his teaching about the one living and true God by pointing to God’s work in creation and providence, that is, his wise rule over all things. In effect, Paul says, “The God I am telling you to worship is the God who made the world and governs it. You can see enough of him in what he has made to know his eternal power and divine nature.”

Among the Gentiles, and especially the Athenians, religious life was shaped more by poets and myths than by their philosophers. Many philosophers, such as Plato and later Cicero, spoke well about one supreme God, his perfect nature, and his rule over all things. Yet they did little with those truths to fight idolatry, and many of them still gave in to the religion of their own culture. They were content to argue about these ideas and teach them, while never using them as they should have to turn people from false worship.

Paul begins by correcting the Athenians’ ideas about God, then goes further and calls them to reform their worship. He wants them to turn from many gods and idols to the one true God. The first great truth he gives them is this: God made the world and everything in it, the Father almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Some philosophers agreed with that, but others did not. Aristotle’s followers claimed that the world had always existed, and Epicurus’s followers said it came from atoms that happened to join together by chance. Paul rejects both ideas. He teaches that God, by his infinite power and wisdom, made the world in the beginning of time, and that creation came from an eternal mind, not from eternal matter.

Since God made heaven and earth, he is also Lord of heaven and earth. That means he is the rightful owner and ruler of all beings, powers, and riches, both seen and unseen. What he creates, he has the right to govern. If he gives life and being, he also has the unquestionable right to set the rules.

Paul then says that God is in a special sense the Creator of all people. He “made of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17:26). He made the first man and still makes every person. He is the maker of each body and the giver of each human spirit. He also formed nations and placed people into communities for their protection and good.

All people share one nature and come from the same common family line. In Adam, and also in Noah, they are all related. That should lead to kindness, help, and brotherly concern, because we are fellow creatures. As Malachi says, “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10). God also made people to live across the whole earth, which he has given to the children of men with its fullness. Since all nations come from the same blood, one nation should not look down on another. That proud Greek idea, and especially the Athenians’ boast that they were born from their own soil and related to no one else, is brought down by Paul’s words.

God is also the great benefactor of all creation. “He gives to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25). He did not only breathe life into the first man, but continues to give life to every person. He formed the spirit of man within him, and he keeps that life going from moment to moment. Our breath is in his hand, and every moment he gives it again. Even the strongest rulers and the wisest philosophers cannot live without him.

This care extends beyond human beings to all living creatures. All animals receive their life and breath from him. And where he gives life and breath, he also gives what is needed to support that life. The earth is full of his goodness (Psalm 104:24, Psalm 104:27).

Finally, God is the sovereign ruler of human affairs, working out everything according to his will. “He has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). This shows, first, God’s power over us. He has fixed every event, so his providence cannot be challenged or changed. Second, it shows his wisdom, because his decisions are not sudden or random. They are the expression of an eternal plan. What God brings to pass was already hidden in him before the world began.

It also shows the range of his providence: time and place. The times and places of our lives in this world are arranged by the God who made us. He determines our days, which may seem changeable to us, but are fixed with him. Our times are in his hand, to lengthen or shorten them, or make them sweet or bitter, as he pleases. He appoints the time of our coming into the world and the time of our leaving it, our time to be born and our time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:1, Ecclesiastes 3:2), and everything in between.

Whether the times are prosperous or full of trouble, God has fixed them. We must depend on him for the days still ahead. He has also set the boundaries of where people live. The God who made the earth a home for humanity has also divided up places on earth and established property, with limits that keep people from taking what belongs to others.

The specific places where we are born and where we settle are also under God’s wise rule. That should teach us to accept the place we are in and make the best of it. He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27). God is everywhere present. He is not only near us, but he has laid hold of us completely and watches us at all times (Psalm 139:13). He knows us better than we know ourselves.

Idolaters made images of God so they could feel as if he were with them in those images. Paul shows how foolish that is. God is an infinite Spirit, not far from any of us, and yet never closer because of any image. In one sense, an image makes him seem farther away, because it tries to make him fit our imagination. He is near us to receive the honor we give him and to answer the mercies we ask for, wherever we are, even if there is no altar, image, or temple nearby.

The Lord of all is rich (Romans 10:12), and he is near to all who call on him (Deuteronomy 4:7). He tells us to pray everywhere, so we can be sure he is nowhere far from us. Whatever country, nation, work, rank, or condition we belong to, God is not far from us. Whether we are in a palace or a cottage, in a crowd or alone, in a city or a desert, at sea or far out on the sea, this is true.

Paul also says that in God we live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). Our whole life depends on his care, just as streams depend on a spring and beams depend on the sun. In him we live, meaning our life continues only because of his constant care. He is our life and the length of our days. Our lives are not only spared because of his patience and pity. They continue because of his power, goodness, and fatherly care. If he simply stopped giving his good gifts, we would die at once.

In him we move. Our souls act because his providence never stops working. Our thoughts run over many things, and our affections reach toward their proper objects, because of him. He also makes our bodies move. We cannot lift a hand, a foot, or a tongue except by his power. As he is the first cause, he is also the first mover.

In him we have our being. We did not only receive life from him at the beginning, we still depend on him for life now. Because of his ongoing care and goodness, we not only exist, we exist as the kind of beings we are. We are able to know and enjoy God. We are not reduced to the level of animals, nor handed over to the misery of demons.

On the whole, we are God’s offspring. He is our Father, who formed us (Deuteronomy 32:6, Deuteronomy 32:18), and he has fed and raised us as his children (Isaiah 1:2). Paul uses a saying from the Greek poet Aratus, a man from Cilicia, Paul’s own region. In his poem, Aratus said, “We are also his offspring.” A confession like that from an opponent is useful as a direct argument against him.

Paul could have quoted other poets to show that we live and move in God. He chooses Aratus because the line is short and strong. This also shows that Paul was a learned man, and that human learning can be useful in a gospel minister, especially when dealing with outsiders. It helps him answer them with their own tools, like David cutting off Goliath’s head with Goliath’s sword. How can truth’s enemies be beaten in their own strong places by people who do not know those places?

This should also shame God’s own people when they forget who they are. Even a heathen poet could say, “We are his offspring.” We are formed by God and for God, and we are more carefully watched by his providence than children are by earthly parents. So we ought to obey his commands, accept his dealings with us, and live for his honor and praise. Since we live in him and by him, we ought to live to him. Since we move in him, we ought to move toward him. Since we have our being from him, and receive all the supports and comforts of life from him, we ought to give our whole being to him and seek from him a new life, a better life, and eternal well-being.

From these great truths about God, Paul draws the conclusion that their idolatry is foolish, just as the prophets had done before him. If this is true, then God cannot be represented by an image. If we are God’s offspring, and we are spirit united with flesh, then surely the Father of our spirits is himself a Spirit. The Godhead, the divine nature, is not like gold, silver, or stone shaped by human skill and imagination (Acts 17:29). We dishonor God when we think so. God honored human beings by making the soul in his own likeness. But people dishonor God when they try to make him in the likeness of the body.

God’s nature is spiritual, unlimited, not made of matter, and beyond full understanding. So any image that tries to show God gives a false and unfair idea of him, no matter how costly the material, how careful the carving, or how meaningful the shape may seem. It teaches a lie.

Then Paul says that God does not live in temples made by human hands (Acts 17:24). He is not invited into any temple people can build for him, and he is not confined to any temple either. A temple does not bring him any closer to us, nor does it keep him with us any longer.

A temple is useful for us when we come together to worship God, but God does not need any place to live or rest. The beauty or splendor of a building cannot add anything to the glory of his appearing. What he delights in is a godly, honest heart, a temple not made by hands but by the Spirit of God. That is where he lives, and where he loves to dwell (1 Kings 8:27; Isaiah 66:1, 2).

Then God is not worshiped, or served, by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25). He who made all things and keeps all things going cannot gain anything from our service. He does not need us, because he already has all perfection in himself. He is the source of all good, and we have nothing good apart from him. Philosophers understood that God has no need of us or our offerings, but ordinary pagan worship often treated idols as if they needed houses and food for their gods (Job 35:5-8; Psalm 50:8).

This means it is important for all of us to seek after God (Acts 17:27). That is, we should fear him and worship him rightly. God has kept human life full of dependence on him for life itself and for every comfort, so that we would stay under a constant duty to honor him. We see clear signs of his presence, his rule over us, his care in providence, and his generosity to us. All of this should lead us to ask after God our Maker, who gives songs in the night, teaches us more than the beasts, and makes us wiser than the birds of heaven (Job 35:10, 11).

Nothing should move us more than the way God made us, especially the noble powers of our own souls, to convince us that there is a God and to lead us to seek his favor and love. If we think carefully about ourselves, we can see both our relation to God and our duty toward him. Yet this knowledge is dim when compared with the clearer light of divine revelation, and people are so slow to receive it that those without that revelation can only feel after God and perhaps find him.

Even then, it is uncertain whether they really find him, and if they do, their idea of him is confused and incomplete. It is like feeling around in the dark, or like a blind person grasping at something without knowing what it is. The poet Paul quotes had only a general thought of our relation to God, saying that we are his offspring, and some of their philosophers said similar things. Pythagoras said that humans have something of a divine nature. Heraclitus was asked, “What are men?” and answered, “Mortal gods.” Asked, “What are the gods?” he answered, “Immortal men.” Pindar also said that God and man are closely related.

It is true that thinking carefully about ourselves can lead us toward knowledge of God, but it is still a confused kind of knowledge. It is only feeling after him. So we should be thankful that through the gospel of Christ we now have a much clearer knowledge of God than nature alone could give us. We no longer feel after him in the dark, but with open face we behold, as in a mirror, the glory of God.

Paul then calls them to repent of their idolatry and turn from it (Acts 17:30, 31). This is the practical part of his sermon before the university. After he has shown them who God is, he rightly presses them to repent toward God. He would also have taught faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, if they had stayed long enough to hear him. Since he has shown the foolishness of worshiping other gods, he urges them to stop that empty worship and return to the living and true God.

We should notice how God dealt with the Gentile world before the gospel came to them: he overlooked the times of this ignorance. These were times of deep ignorance. Human learning had grown greatly among the Gentiles before Christ came, but they were still very ignorant about the things of God. People are truly ignorant when they do not know God, or when they worship him in ignorance, and idolatry came from that ignorance.

God overlooked those times of ignorance in one of two ways. Some understand it as an act of justice, meaning he set those times aside and did not send them the gospel, as he now does. It was deeply offensive to him to see his glory given to another, and he hated those times. A better understanding is that this was an act of patience and restraint. He overlooked those times by not stopping their idolatries with prophets, as he did for Israel. He did not punish them for those idolatries as he did Israel, but still gave them the good gifts of his providence (Acts 14:16, 17). He could say, “These things you have done, and I kept silent” (Psalm 50:21). He did not give them the same strong calls to repentance that he gives now. He let them go their own way. Since they did not use the light they had, and were willing to remain ignorant, he did not give them more light. Or, he was patient with them and did not deal with them quickly or severely, because they acted in ignorance (1 Timothy 1:13).

Now, through the gospel, God gives the Gentile world a clear command: he commands all people everywhere to repent. This means to change their minds and their way of life, to be ashamed of their folly, and to begin living more wisely. It means turning from idol worship to the worship of the true God. More than that, it means turning with sorrow and shame from every sin, and with willing hearts and firm purpose to every duty.

This is God’s command. It would have been a great mercy if he had only told us that repentance was still possible and that we might be received to it. But he goes further and uses his own authority for our good. He has made what is our privilege into our duty. And this command is for all people everywhere, for men, not angels who do not need it, and not devils who are shut out from its benefit. It is for all people in all places. All have sinned and need repentance, and all are invited to repent and receive its benefit. The apostles are sent to preach this everywhere. The prophets were sent to call the Jews to repentance, but the apostles were sent to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.

In gospel times, this command comes with even greater urgency, because it is encouraged more fully than before.

Now the way of forgiveness is opened more fully than before, and the promise is more clearly confirmed. So God now calls on all people to repent. Now is the time to turn back. You have gone on in sin too long already, and it will soon be too late.

The strongest reason for this command is the coming judgment. God commands us to repent because he has appointed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). Under the gospel, he has given a clearer picture than ever before of life after death, where people will receive what they deserve.

The God who made the world will judge it. He gave people life and abilities, and he will call them to account for how they used them. He will reward them according to whether they used body and soul to serve him, or whether they made the soul a servant to the body, caring only for earthly pleasures. Each person will receive what is due for what has been done in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10). The God who now rules the world will also judge it. He will reward those who faithfully supported his rule, and punish those who rebelled.

There is also a day set for this final review of all that people have done in time, and for the final settling of their eternal state. This day is fixed in God’s plan and cannot be changed, but no one on earth knows when it will be. It will be a day of decision, a day of reward, and a day that brings an end to all the days of this life.

The world will be judged with complete justice, because God is never unjust when he punishes evil. He knows every person’s character and actions perfectly, so his sentence will be perfectly right. No appeal will be possible, and no one will have a valid complaint against it.

God will judge the world through the man he has appointed, and that can be no one but the Lord Jesus, to whom all judgment has been given. Through him God made the world, through him he redeemed it, through him he rules it, and through him he will judge it. Christ’s resurrection from the dead is the great proof that he has been appointed Judge of the living and the dead. When God honored him in this way, he showed his purpose to give him that office.

Christ’s resurrection was the beginning of his exaltation, and his judging the world will be the completion of it. God who begins this work will finish it. He has given all people enough proof to trust that judgment is coming, and that Christ will be the Judge. This is not uncertain. Let Christ’s enemies be sure of it and tremble before him. Let his friends be sure of it and rejoice in him.

Thinking about the coming judgment, and about the part Christ will play in it, should move us all to repent of our sins and turn to God. This is the only way to make the Judge our friend on that day. It will be a fearful day for all who live and die without repentance. But true repentant people will then lift up their heads with joy, knowing that their redemption is near.