Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1893-07-15


~ h..ss-i. 1870 - pidy % toe WORD
unknown" which may be thus rendered
'The Unknown God whom you unknow.
ingly vcncrate-this object of your unwit.
ting service announce unto you."
| 1.-THE UNBNowN Con MADE KNowN.
Verses 24-2a)
| T. He Is Creator aud Sustainer Of all. (a)
The God whom Paul reveals is the only Su
prcme Being. He made the cosmos--the
orderly universe with all its laws, and
therefore He il supreme In power and wis
dom over the universe and therefore IL not
the universe, as Pantheists affirm. He
made all things in the universe, and there
fore He existed before the universe and
from eternity as One that was not made,
did not begin TO be--as being the first cause
Of all things He is Sovereign Lord and
Master Of all things as having made then,
and as disposing Of them Thus Paul re-
flutes the Epicureans, the atheists. (b)
Such Being-eternal, greater than the
universe-cannot be contained in temples
made by human hands. Neither can hu-
man hands enrich Him with gifts and of.
ferings, as If He Maker and Sovereign of
all, needed anything at His creatures
hands. (c) On the contrary, His creatures
get all that they are and have from Him.
l. Life is His gift to all men. q Their very
breath is His gift. 3. In short, everything
that any one possesses he gets from God
How vain, then, are mans altars, temples
and sacrifices IL meant 10 appease God and
obtain His favorl
g God is Lord over all mankind. (a) How
farreaching is Pauls proclamation of the
unity of the human racc-"made OF ono
all akin to one another
Here the pride of race color and endowments
is smashed with four words-"made of ont
blood" (b) Here, too. is the charter foi
emigration and migration-authorizing
every man to settle where he will be most
at home, God having made all nations to
dwell on all the face of the earth just where
they can be best off. 1t is true that bounds
have been appointed to the nations in the
providence of God. He foreordained the
procession of the ages and the limits of col
onization, overruling war, greed, enterprise.
for the greatest ultimate good to all. For
doubt not through the ages one increasing
purpose runsp (c) In nature and in provi
dence revealing Himself, God was leading
men to seek and find Him. That they did
not was not His fault. See Rom. /, 1921,
Acts xiv, l5-t7. The indwelling presence
of God in all nature and in man shows how
near God is to each one of us.
3 Folly of idolatry. (a) St. Paul, after
showing how God gives, sustains and per
vades all creature life, quotes certain" OF
the Greek poets who said men were ''the
offspring" of God. Aratus, a native OF
Tarsus in Cilicia. countrYman of St.
Paul's, who 1ourished about 800 years be
fore this discourse was delivered, distinctly
said so in a poem called phenomena"
Cleanthes, another Greek poet, also said so
In his writings Paul quotes Menander, Eu
ripides, Epinenides and Aristotle. showing
at least some acquaintance with Greek
classics. (b) His argument is as follows:
Whatever is higher in nature than meta,
or stone cannot be fully represented by
metal or stone. But man, as Gods off
spring-alive, intelligent, immortal-is bet
ter than metal or stone and therefore can
not be fully represented by metal or stone
God, however, is infinitely more excellent
than man, His offspring, and therefore
what fails to represent man must necessa-
rily fall infinitely short of representing
God. Thus is idolatry-all forms Of image
worship--reduced to an absurdity.
III-THE UNKNOWN GOD REVEALED BY
PAUL Is THE GoD OF JUDGMENT. (Verses
80, 91.)
1. Patient with the perverse, (a) Not as
the Epicureans thought was God asleep
He was waiting patiently to let men see
how far they could go. God overlooked
did not call them to account for their ig
norance of Him and of His laws. (b) This
was only for a time. Judgment fingered,
but was not set aside forever. (c) Repent
ance-a change of mind and conduct-was
now called for.
Q. The great day (a) God means not only
to set all things right, but to show that all
things are set right. A day of Judgment is
simply the final reckoning time. God does
not need it, but we do in order to be fully
convinced that God is just. (b) To judge
the world is simply to put every man, ac-
cording to the state of his heart, where he
will be in his proper circumstances-unha
py for the wicked, happy for the righteous,
(c) This will be done in righteousness. No
innocent one will be punished, no guilty
one will escape
g. A man is judge. (a) Paul states the
New Testament doctrine that Jesus will be
the final judge-as man, one OF ourselves.
as God, knowing perfectly our case. This
is fixed-Ordained by Coda part of the
divine government. (b) That Jesus is set
on high with authority now and having
the promise OF future authority Paul is
going on to prove by Christ's resurrection
from the dead. (c) Here the speaker wa'
stopped. They did not like to hear OF
life beyond, of retribution, of responsibility
to God.