It may be added that too much has been made of the word “persuade,” in rev. 4, as if it meant to induce by little and little.” It is on the contrary the word by which the apostle himself expresses the preaching of the gospel to win souls in view of the awful reality for the hard or heedless, of Christ's tribunal (2 Cor. 5:10, 1110For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. 11Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. (2 Corinthians 5:10‑11)). Paul's word was not certainly in persuasive words of wisdom, as he told the Corinthians in his First Epistle, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, at the very time when he was with them, from his coming in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. He was not there as a philosopher or as “the power of God which is called great,” but as much of a contrast as one can conceive; and this, that the faith of such as believed might stand, not in man's wisdom, but in God's power. But as the effect of his discoursing in the synagogue, he was persuading Jews and Greeks.
When his companions arrived, this was what they found, and snore soon followed. Great is the virtue, even for an apostles of fellowship in labor; and cheering the news then brought.
“And when both Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul was engrossed with (or constrained by) the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But as they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own head: I [am] pure; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles, and departing thence he went into a certain man's house, by name Titus Jusius, a worshipper of God, whose house adjoined to the synagogue” (ver. 5-7).
It will be noticed that the two fellow-laborers are said to have come down from “Macedonia,” as the Roman province of northern Greece was called in distinction from Achaia, of which Corinth was the metropolis. Macedonia is the natural phrase, if Silas and Timothy came down from different quarters, and the repeated article would well fall in with this. They were no doubt together at Berea; and Timothy, if not Silas; joined Paul at Athens, whence he was despatched to Thessalonica, with a view to establish thorn and encourage on behalf of their faith, that none should be disturbed in the afflictions then, and there so severe. Both Silas and Timothy now joined the apostle at Corinth, but not necessarily at the same moment, any more than from the same point of departure. 1 Thess. 3:66But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you: (1 Thessalonians 3:6) omits all mention of Silas, as the, companion of Timothy on this mission to Thessalonica, who brought to Paul the glad tidings of the Thessalonian saints; whereas the apostle from Corinth joins Silas and Timothy with himself in the address of that Epistle (2 Cor. 1:1919For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. (2 Corinthians 1:19)). The apostle had forewarned these young converts of the tribulation that befell them but this only the more increased his desires for them; and now he could rejoice that the tempter had failed, and that they were steadfast. The apostle was then occupied earnestly with the word when the two came down; and assuredly their joint labors with him were as cheering to his heart as the good report brought about his beloved Thessalonians. Not the least ground seems to support the notion that their arrival with supplies enabled Paul to give up tent making for the exclusive preaching of the word: certainly the verb συνείχετο does not mean anything of the sort, but rather that the state of absorption with the word, by which he was characterized, went on; for it is the imperfect, not the aorist, as it should have been if indicative of a fresh act or course consequent on their coming.
But there is another word which has to be taken into account, in order to a sound judgment. Were vv. genuine, I cannot but think Erasmus (pace Bezae) right, and that the meaning would then be straitened in spirit.” But it is not so. The received reading πνεὑματι (“spirit”) is not sustained by the best authorities which give λόγω (“word”), πν. having crept in from Acts 17:16; 18:25; 19:2116Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. (Acts 17:16)
25This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. (Acts 18:25)
21After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome. (Acts 19:21), etc. Hence such a rendering as Wakefield's must be summarily and on every ground discarded, “the mind of Paul was violently disturbed;” and none the less because the translation is commended by its author in his notes as perfectly agreeable to the original. Similarly erroneous is the turn given by Hammond, Mill, and Wolf, as if the apostle's spirit was vexed at the unbelief of the Jews; or the opposite notion of Beza and others, who construe it into the zealous ardor which carried him away. Others again like Casaubon, Grotius, &c., depart still farther and consider “the spirit” to mean the Holy Spirit by whose impulse he was borne away at this time: a rendering which is in every way faulty, for the verb cannot bear such a force, and the reading is certainly erroneous. If genuine, it would rather require the article absent (unless ἀγίω were expressed): its insertion simply would point to one's own spirit.
It is needless, however, though instructive in some measure, to discuss these departures from the truth; for it may be laid down as certain that the passage intimates that the apostle was occupied in the word when his fellow-workmen came from Macedonia. He was testifying thoroughly (διαμ.) to the Jews, that Jesus is the Christ or Messiah, the constant stumbling block of that blinded people. Undoubtedly Jesus is much more than” the Christ"; and none ever preached His higher glory, both personal and conferred, more than Paul. But none the less did he press on the Jews that Jesus is the Christ, as the break-up of their unbelief, and the necessary hinge of all further light and blessing.
“But as they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes and said unto them, Your blood [be] upon your own head: I [am] pure; from henceforth I will proceed unto the Gentiles” (ver. 6).
With rare exceptions, Such is the spirit of the Jews, and in it they fulfill the awful warnings of their prophets from Moses downwards. They are a perverse and crooked generation, and very froward withal, children in whom is no faith, moving Jehovah to jealousy with that which is not good, and provoking Him to anger with their vanities; as He has moved them to jealousy with those which are not a people, and provoked them to anger with a foolish nation. Ignorance is bearable and claims patient service in presenting the truth; but opposition is quite another thing, especially in the face of ample and convincing testimony; and speaking injuriously, or yet more blasphemy, is worse still, seeing that it is grace and truth in Christ which is thus outrageously rejected. This is fatal. Those who despised Jesus on earth had a fresh testimony concerning Him risen and glorified, and still waiting to be gracious. There is no third, no other, witness to render those who reject Him speaking from heaven, as He is now—nothing but judgment for His adversaries when He appears in glory.
The apostle accordingly answered in significant deed as well as word. “He shook out his clothes, and said unto them,” &c. It was the spirit if not the form of Matt. 10:1414And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. (Matthew 10:14), as even more rigidly carried out by himself and Barnabas at the Pisidian Antioch. It was as if the dust of the place they dwelt in defiled, and must be shaken off as a testimony against them: Sodom and Gomorrah were less tolerable. He said also, Your blood [be] upon your own head. So, and yet worse had those cried who actually urged on the Lord to the cross, when Pilate would have let him go, His blood be upon us and upon our children. And so it is until this day. “I [am] pure,” added the apostle; “henceforth I will proceed unto the Gentiles.” It was in perfect harmony not only with his own course elsewhere, but, what is of deeper importance still, with the ways of God in the gospel. The Jew was to have testimony first, and so they had, and not quite in vain. Some did hear to the salvation of their souls; there is an elect remnant. But when the mass reject, the gospel with hatred and blasphemy, the stream of blessing flows, though it is not lost but blessed amid the barren sands of the Gentiles.
It may interest some to know that, even in so simple a passage as the last, men of learning have differed. Lachmann suggested, and. Alford followed, a punctuation which yields the sense, “I shall henceforth with a. pure conscience go to the Gentiles.” Wakefield follows the Peschito Syriac in breaking it up thus: “From this moment I am clean therefrom; I go to the Gentiles,” In his note he says, “This disposition gives a degree of abruptness to the periods more suitable to an angry man!” The irreverence of the translator seems to my mind as manifest as his lack of judgment, and the ordinary division most consistent, dignified, and impressive.
“And departing thence he went into a certain man's house, by name Titus Justus, a worshipper of God, whose house adjoined to the synagogue” (ver. 7).
Many from Chrysostom to Alford, &c., have understood that the apostle removed from his quarters with Aquila; and they have sought to assign motives and reasons in justification of the change. But there is no need to take the trouble; for it was a question of leaving not his lodgings, but the synagogue, and of finding therefore, not new quarters for his abode, but a suited place wherein to continue the testimony rendered previously in the synagogue. And this appears to, me strikingly confirmed by the contiguity to the synagogue of the house; the use of which was offered at once by the devout Gentile whose heart was opening to the truth. If it were a mere lodging, why speak of its joining hard to the synagogue, on which Paul was henceforth turning, his back? But if a suited room were wanted for testimony, two conditions met in the house of Justus: one, that the owner was himself a Gentile, and hence most proper to win the attendance of Gentiles, as well as to accentuate the grave and new step of the apostle; the other, that it was close enough to the synagogue to attract both Jews who might have a conscience about the rejected truth of God, and Gentile, proselytes who had been in the habit of attending the synagogue, like Justus. The school of Tyrannus in the following chapter exactly answers to the change here. There nobody questions that a place for meeting apart from the synagogue is meant. We need not therefore infer that the apostle ceased to reside with Aquila, because the house of Justus furnished a suitable place for preaching when the synagogue no longer served. The apostle was not consulting for himself but for others, without allowing Calvin's idea, “that he might the more nettle the Jews” —a petty and evil motive, very far from his heart who had just forewarned them of their obstinacy and danger of destruction. To remind them of the baneful consequence of impenitence was of God; to “nettle!” them by abandoning the house of his godly friends, Aquila and Priscilla, for that of a Gentile proselyte, seems inconsistent with Christ, with godly wisdom, and right feeling. But with the gainsaying and blaspheming of the synagogue it was impossible to go on without constant strife; and therefore to use for testimony the house of one who valued the gospel, became the evidently proper step, particularly as it was hard by the synagogue, whence any disposed or in earnest might the more readily come.