p. 697 | TO YOU by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 30, 1900

TO YOU.

By Uriah Smith

“Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent.” Acts 13:26. Paul and Barnabas had been preaching the gospel to the house of Israel. Indeed, Paul said (verse 46) that “it was necessary” that it should first be preached to them. God had ordained that they should have the first opportunity of hearing the words of life. But notwithstanding this great honor and favor shown them, Satan had worked up their spirit to that degree of perverseness that they scouted the words with contradiction and blasphemy. The apostles saw that their testimony was rendered null and void, and turning away with sadness from this obdurate behavior, they pronounced upon them (verse 46) this terrible sentence: “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”

This is in accordance with the words of the angel to Daniel, that seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, were to be cut off from the twenty-three hundred days, or years, beginning 457 B. C.; and so much of that period was allotted to Daniel and his people. When the seventy weeks ended, the apostles were at liberty to turn with the gospel to other people. Those weeks ended in A. D. 34; and these words were spoken to the Jews in A. D. 45, according to Bible chronology, only eleven years from the ending of the period that had been allotted to them. It was then certain that they were well past the time to which the restriction applied. The seventy weeks expired; the allotted time during which the Jews were to be regarded as the people of God, and, as the depositaries of the law of God, were to have the first announcement of the gospel set before them, had terminated; and the Jews, formally, and in the most effectual manner in their power, had set it aside, in the martyrdom of Stephen. Then the apostles had full liberty, according to prophecy, to turn to the Gentiles. And they turned to them, knowing that the gospel was freely to go to them. Happy thing for us that it was so arranged, and that the middle wall of partition between the Jews and the Gentiles was broken down, and that those who had been accounted Gentiles might come in and be reckoned as members of “the household of God” and “fellow citizens with the saints.” Eph. 2:19. Thus the apostles could open “the mystery of God” to the gaze and acceptance of all the world. This accords also with what Paul says of them in another place, that the fall of them (literal Israel) was the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the “riches of the Gentiles.” Rom. 11:12.

This act of the apostles in turning to the Gentiles when the Jews would not receive the truth, contains a solemn warning for us. For if we refuse the truth that is sent to us, it may be withdrawn forever beyond our reach, and given to those who show themselves willing to receive it. Thus Christ in one of his parables taught the Jews that the kingdom would be taken from them, and given to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof. Matt. 21:43.

“The word of this salvation” that is sent to the people is the testimony that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Saviour of the world. It is the word that promises forgiveness to all who will separate from sin through faith in him. It is, in a word, the promise of perfect salvation through the risen Saviour. Acts 13:32, 33. This declaration applies in its degree to every truth, in every age; that is, to the “present truth” of every age. “To you is the word of this salvation sent.” This word was spoken directly and primarily to the Jews; but it is “to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

Put the emphasis on the word “you.” The design seems to be to intensify the personality of the promise, and prevent persons from giving it all away to somebody else. It is “to you,” “to you,” the word of salvation is sent. So, if any are disposed to grow doubtful and despondent, and say, “O yes, I know that the invitation is sent out, and the promise is made, to a great many; but it is not for me,” the writer of the gospel answers, No, no; “to you is the word of this salvation sent,”—to you, as much as if there were not another person in all the world to receive it.

The Jews had especial reasons for believing it, and receiving it, as a word of salvation; for “their sacred prophecies were exactly fulfilled in the death and the resurrection of Christ. And the resurrection demonstrated that Jesus was the long-promised and waited-for Messiah and Redeemer. In what they had done, they had unwittingly fulfilled what was written of him; and this, although the words of the prophets were heard by them every Sabbath day. He does not excuse the acts of his betrayers and murderers, though he does not here sharply denounce them. His aim seems to be to impress upon them their deeper responsibility in receiving this knowledge, which those who crucified Christ did not so clearly possess. With the statement of these two facts, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, as disclosed in their Scriptures, he proceeds, in a warmer tone of feeling, to press this word of salvation, these good tidings, upon them. He shows that, according to the tenor of prophetic disclosure, the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ, the eternal life and reign of Jesus, comprised the very substance and complete fulfillment of God’s original and oft-repeated promise to the fathers. Peter and Stephen had made this grand point, and Paul always insisted upon it.

“By sacrifice and ceremonial, prophecy and promise, in history and psalm, through symbols and fact; through dark sayings and plain, the entire Old Testament revelation comprises, as its one only theme, the Messiah, the Son of God and Son of man, the self-moved offerer, the divinely appointed and accepted offering, for the sin of man. His voluntary death, his self-resurrection, his quickening power and eternal sovereignty,—these are included in the promise of mercy, first to Adam, afterward to Abraham and his descendants, emphatically to David; these comprise the substance of all ancient revelation. They are the facts upon which we rest, and which make the Old Testament, one promise of glad tidings, still of vital force and value to all who accept the Christ of God. So Paul teaches here, and so we must believe. In all these citations and statements, Paul is only adding to and enforcing the Scriptural proofs of Christ’s resurrection and abiding life; because this is the main fact to be substantiated, first, as having been foretold, and, next, as having been fulfilled. Upon this, as Paul elsewhere plainly asserts, hang the entire truth of Christianity and the sole hope of guilty man.”—Butler.

As the language applies to all persons in all time, so it applies to all truths that may be developed in the fulfillments of prophecy. It applies to the present truth of to-day. What a privilege to have our location on the stream of time pointed out, to have coming events made clear, to have dangers revealed, that we may know how to escape them, to see the path of safety opened before us, and know how to reach the haven of rest.

If you have come face to face with the alternative of truth or error for this time, the path of ease or the path of safety, things temporal and transitory or things glorious and eternal, and are hesitating on account of the cross, doubtful, and perplexed as to which to choose, and what course to take in regard to them, may these words of the Scripture ring with double force in your ears, “To you is the word of this salvation sent.” God is calling to you through it, by all the providential means by which he has caused it to come to your notice. To accept it is to have salvation; to reject it is to place yourself in that class of whom Paul says, “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish.” Acts 13:41.

And remember that no truth ever leaves a man as it found him. It is out of your power to be unaffected

by the gospel. It must either save you or increase your condemnation. How, then, will you receive it? To reject it deliberately, decidedly, and persistently, would be a terrible determination. To foolishly and basely delay your reply is a dangerous course. Many will put it off till too late, and will perish by so doing. To play the hypocrite, and pretend to receive it, while in heart rejecting it, is not only to lose the truth, but to add to the loss that most heinous of all sins in the sight of the Lord, the sin of hypocrisy. It would be a sad thing indeed if, while the invitations of the gospel are going through our assemblies, anyone should have to be singled out, and it be told him, This is not for you. But no one has anything of this kind as yet to say; for “to you is the word of this salvation sent.”

It is related of a minister who once had to preach in a city jail, that he was accompanied by a young man of fine mind and cultivated intellect, but who was not a Christian. As the minister looked over the audience, he preached to them Jesus with so much earnestness as deeply to impress his companion. On their return home, the young man said, “The men to whom you preached to-day must have been moved by the utterance of such truths. Such preaching can not fail to influence.” “My dear young friend,” answered the minister, “were you influenced by it? Were you impelled by the words you heard to-day, to choose God as your portion?” “You were not preaching to me, but to your convicts,” was the quick response. “You mistake,” the minister answered; “I was preaching to you as much as to them. You need the same Saviour as they. For all, there is but one way of salvation. Just as much for you as for these poor prisoners was the message this afternoon. Will you heed it?” This direct application was blessed to the conversion of the young man.

Some one has condensed from Ralph Erskine, a forcible summary of this subject, as follows: “To whom is it that the God of salvation sent the word of salvation?”—He sent it to all sinners that hear it. It is a word that suits the case of sinners; and therefore it is sent to them. If it be inquired, For what purpose is it sent to sinners? I answer, It is sent as a word of pardon to the condemned sinner. Hence may every condemned sinner take hold of it, saying, This word is sent to me. It is sent as a word of peace to the rebellious sinner. It is sent as a word of life to the dead. It is a word of liberty to the captives, of healing for the diseased, of cleansing for the polluted. It is a word of direction to the bewildered, and of refreshment to the weary. It is sent as a comforting word to the disconsolate, and as a drawing word and a strengthening word to the soul destitute of strength. It is sent, in short, as a word of salvation, and all sorts of salvation, and redemption to the lost soul, saying, Christ came ‘to seek and to save that which was lost.’” U. S.