An act of such uncompromising decision as well as power roused the enemy acting on human covetousness. But it is well to note that the apostle did not act in divine energy till Satan's persistence made it a duty.
And when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they laid hold on, and dragged, Paul and Silas, into the market place, before the rulers, and when they had brought them unto the praetors, they said, These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or practice, being Romans. And the crowd rose up together against them; and the praetors rent their garments off them, and commanded to beat [them] with rods. And, having laid many stripes on them, they cast [them] into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely; who, having received such a charge, cast them into the inner prison and secured their feet into the stocks (ver. 19-24).
Defeated in his effort to mix himself up with God's work, the enemy flees to his ordinary and natural opposition, through human interests and passions. Covetousness is a mainspring of the world's activity, “covetousness, which is idolatry.” Those whose hope of gain vanished with the cast out spirit lawlessly apprehended Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the market place, where the local rulers then, even more than now, wore found. It may be noticed that here only the inspired historian specifies the magistrates in Philippi with the Greek term which answers to praetors: a striking evidence of minute accuracy, for the city was a colony, and a colony was but Rome on a small scale, with its two chiefs (sometimes modified by need, but in general duumviri). We shall see the city governors of Thessalonica quite differently designated in the next chapter, but there too with similarly characteristic accuracy as here. Compare also Acts 13:7, 12; 18:12; 19:31 for other instances of such exactitude.
“And when they had brought them unto the pastors, they said, These men, being (ὑπάρχοντες) Jews (or, as Mr. Humphry suggests, ‘being Jews to begin with'), exceedingly trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or practice, being (ὄντες) Romans.” This was calculated, and no doubt intended, to arouse the mob, the more sensitive on the score of Roman pride and privilege, because they were not unmixedly Roman; and such as might be Romans, though tolerant of Other religionists one with another, were jealous, of anything like aggression on themselves. The appeal was not in vain. “And the crowd rose up together (i.e. with the masters of the dispossessed slave) against them, and the praetors, rending their garments off them, commanded to scourge them with rode.” It may not be necessary to hold with Bengal that the dumvirs stripped Paul and Silas with their own hands; but the special expression employed (περιρ) the general scope and intrinsic sense, exclude the notion that the magistrates rent (διαρ.) their own clothes. It is certain that they gave command to beat them with rods, though uncondemned: an open violation of Roman law, which exposed themselves to severe punishment, had proceedings been instituted. “And having inflicted on them many stripes, they cast [them] into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely; who, having received such a charge, cast them into prison and secured their feet into the stocks.” Such was man, civilized man, high and low, carried away into most manifest injustice, without the form even of trying the holy, harmless, and self-denying servants of the Lord, at the call of the basest who had lived by the oracles or divinations of their female slave under Satan's power. Had God nothing to do? “But about midnight Paul and Silas in praying were singing praises to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and the bands of all were loosed” (ver. 25, 26). Could any facts more clearly indicate Whose purpose and hand had wrought on behalf of His injured ministers? An earthquake, men could readily argue, might happen, and with the most singular coincidence of circumstances; but whoever heard of an earthquake so great as to shake, not windows or walls, not chains or bolts only, but the foundations of an extensive building; and withal so nicely adjusted as to cast down nothing, nor injure a soul! Only forthwith all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed! It was the same divine power which had delivered Simon Peter, though chained to two soldiers, on the eve of his execution (Acts 12); the same power which had extricated the apostles from a prison house, shut in all safety, with the keepers standing at the doors. (Acts 5) Here a deeper purpose was in hand, and a great earthquake heralded it; and Paul and Silas, who had been praying to God in hymns, remained in the prison to declare His wonderful works; and those whose naturally strongest desire had otherwise been to make their escape and renew their lawless life, were so overawed that not one stirred from the opened prison. It was the God of all grace, Who answered the prayers and praises of His prisoners, Who knew how to control the wicked; and Who was guiding His servants for His glory. For He was now about to do more, and most worthily of the name of His Son, and this so as to win to Himself as hardened a heart as beat within the prison walls. Let us too hear. “And the jailor, being roused out of sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm; for we are all here. And he called for lights, and sprang in, and trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas, and led them forth, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (ver. 27-31).
We can understand the horror of the jailor, and his first impulse, as a heathen, to make away with himself, inferring from the open doors the flight of the prisoners, and therefore (according to the stern law De Custodia Reorum) with no other prospect for himself than a violent stroke of judicial shame. But conceive the overwhelming effect on his conscience when the apostle averted his suicidal hand by the loud assurance that the prisoners were all there! Light from God penetrated his dark heart on the instant, with a deep desire for mercy, before he got the lights he called for. He needed no more intimation where to turn for the truth he wanted, no more dealings of God to prove His hand was in all that had just occurred, and that He was really with those who had been so harshly thrust into prison, with mockings and scourgings. Had not the Pythoness notoriously designated them as servants of the Most High God, who proclaim salvation's way? The depths of his soul were broken up; and as his sins rose from every hiding place, he felt instinctively that now was the moment to find God. So he sprang in, and, all of a tremble, fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them forth to inquire of the great salvation.
For salvation in any lesser sense is not to be thought of. The earthquake was soon all over, the prisoners were all safe; what had he to fear from Roman justice? But God had awakened his soul, and his sins troubled him. Not death from man, but divine judgment at the close of all was before his eyes; and God's servants, for whom He had just been interposing miraculously, were there to tell him the way of salvation. Whatever learned men may think, who, never having felt the burden of their sins, catch at words, and waste their time on dubious questions or words, the jailor's burning anxiety was about the salvation of his soul. The strange utterance respecting his two holy prisoners could not but rise before him in his then awe-stricken frame of mind. It was really God Who was at work in his conscience, as He had wrought otherwise in the prison. Not a moment was to be lost; so, having led forth the two prisoners he says, “Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?” Eternal salvation was the urgent want of his soul, as he honestly owns.
Nor was the answer of the Lord's servants less prompt. Thanks be to God, it may, it ought always, to be so, when the soul is thus in earnest. For the righteous foundation on which salvation rests is already laid, and so perfectly that to add anything, to wait for aught else, is to dishonor God and to hinder the sinner. The atoning work is done and accepted of God, Who therefore sends His glad tidings to the guilty, without respect of persons. It is no question of promises on man's part or of amelioration as a ground of divine favor. Man was once let alone till his violence and corruption became insupportable, and judgment swept all away, save the few who trusted God in the ark provided for them by grace. Man was then tried fully by God's law, with every religious help possible; but, as God indicated beforehand, all was vain, save to prove that man could not be saved on any ground of moral worth, or religions ordinance. What remained? Nothing but a Savior sent from God to be a propitiation for sins. The Savior has already come, has already died, and is now risen and glorified. Yea, God has sent from heaven the Holy Spirit thereon to declare the glad tidings by His servants. Therefore Paul and Silas could say with absolute confidence, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.”
Such is the grace of God in the gospel. It brings salvation for all. It is no longer laid up in shadows. It has appeared to the world. It summons all men everywhere to repent, but none receives the remission of his sins, save through faith; and the Lord Jesus is the object of that faith. No doubt He has suffered for our sins: else could there be no sovereign proclamation on God's part, nor such a righteous blessing for man. But faith goes with grace, and excludes any and every desert of man; as the righteousness revealed in the gospel is God's, founded on the accomplished work of Christ.
But it is all-important to see and hold fast the fact, that the gospel presents the person of Christ, and not His work only. The soul is called to “believe on the Lord Jesus.” This could not purge the conscience without the shedding of His blood; it could not give peace or liberty, unless He were not only delivered up for our offenses, but raised for our justification. But it is on the Lord Jesus that we believe. Thus alone is the soul set in a right attitude from the first; and that object of faith abides to the last. “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.” This gave joy and assurance to the jailor's soul, as we shall see by and by. So it was intended of God, Who is the God of peace, not of uncertainty, and would bring the believer into the communion of His own mind. “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Faith is the principle, and not human righteousness but God's revealed unto faith; for there is no other ground which grace or truth could accredit. Anything else would exalt man, in the way either of his own merits, or of ordinances done by others for him. God's righteousness revealed by faith unto faith excludes everything of the sort. Christ alone is, and abides, the only efficacious ground—the Lord Jesus who has already offered His one sacrifice on the cross. All scripture on this infinite theme is but the development of that which was made known to the jailor in these pregnant words, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.”
It will be seen that salvation is no less open to the jailor's house than to himself. Jew or Gentile makes no difference, old or young, bond or free, but on the same terms of faith. In scripture there is no such notion, whatever the precious privileges attached to the head of a house, that he believes for them, or that they are to be saved, because he is saved by faith. On the contrary the idea is a fleshly license, based on letter, not spirit, as dangerous for the soul as it is subversive of fundamental truth. No wonder that it shelters itself under the dark shade of ordinance with appeal to feeling and imagination without scripture, though boasting loudly of its own spiritual intelligence. Even Dean Alford forgot the Book of Common Prayer in his allegiance to God's word, and declares that καὶ ὁ οἶκός σου [and thy house] does not mean that his faith would save his household—but that the same way was open to them as to him: “Believe, and thou shalt be saved; and the same of thy household.” So too Meyer, in the face of as great or yet greater prejudices, exploded an error opposed to the gospel, and the truth generally, and says that the epanorthosis σὺ καὶ ὁ οἶκός σου extends or belongs in effect to πίστευσον and σωυήση. For, be it noted, the verse speaks not of an institution like baptism, but, of salvation, and we do well to speak seriously of what is so serious. But human levity in divine things is as incredibly common as deplorable.
But as yet, so far as I am aware, this heterodoxy is only whispered in private, or at most, taught where the ignorant and blinded votaries of party are present to hear. Its advocates do not venture to affirm it where it would be sifted to their shame, and rejected by those who still hold the truth. It will be seen in the inspired word which follows, how daringly these enthusiasts overlook the context in their haste to avail themselves of the most superficial appearance to give their favorite notion currency. This however we may leave till the rest of this scripture comes before us in due course. But it is the characteristic of error to despise what is most certain, solid, and blessed in a vain chase after shadows, and to rejoice more for one pervert, than for ninety and nine repentant sinners.