We are not supplied with any information by the sacred historian of what occurred in Jerusalem on this occasion. We are merely told that when Paul had "gone up and saluted the church, he went down to Antioch." But his intense desire to pay this visit may assure us of its great importance. He may have felt that the time had come when the Jewish Christians, assembled at the feast, should hear a full account of the reception of the gospel among the Gentiles. Roman colonies and Greek capitals had been visited, and a great work of God had been accomplished. All this would be perfectly natural and right, but we need not seek to remove the veil which the Holy Ghost has drawn over this visit.
Paul goes down from Jerusalem to Antioch, visiting all the assemblies he had first formed; and thus, as it were, binds his work together—Antioch and Jerusalem. So far as we know, Paul's visit to Antioch was his last. We have already seen how new centers of christian life had been established by him in the Greek cities of the Aegean. The course of the gospel is further and further towards the West, and the inspired part of the apostle's biography, after a short period of deep interest in Judea, finally centers in Rome.