'... Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.'--ACTS xiii. 46.
So ended the first attempt on Paul's great missionary journey to preach to the Jews. It is described at great length and the sermon given in full because it is the first. A wonderful sermon it was; touching all keys of feeling, now pleading almost with tears, now flashing with indignation, now calmly dealing with Scripture prophecies, now glowing as it tells the story of Christ's death for men. It melted some of the hearers, but the most were wrought up to furious passion--and with characteristic vehemence, like their ancestors and their descendants through long dreary generations, fell to 'contradicting and blaspheming.' We can see the scene in the synagogue, the eager faces, the vehement gestures, the hubbub of tongues, the bitter words that stormed round the two in the midst, Barnabas like Jupiter, grave, majestic, and venerable; Paul like Mercury, agile, mobile, swift of speech. They bore the brunt of the fury till they saw it to be hopeless to try to calm it, and then departed with these remarkable words.
They are even more striking if we notice that 'judge' here may be used in its full legal sense. It is not merely equivalent to _consider_, for these Jews by no means thought themselves unworthy of eternal life, but it means, 'ye adjudge and pass sentence on yourselves to be.' Their rejection of the message was a self-pronounced sentence. It proved them to be, and made them, 'unworthy of eternal life.' There are two or three very striking thoughts to be gathered from these words which I would dwell on now.
I. What constitutes worthiness and unworthiness.
There are two meanings to the word 'worthy'--deserving or fit. They run into each other and yet they may be kept quite apart. For instance you may say of a man that 'he is worthy' to be something or other, for which he is obviously qualified, not thinking at all whether he deserves it or not.
Now in the first of these senses--we are all unworthy of eternal life. That is just to state in other words the tragic truth of universal sinfulness. The natural outcome and issue of the course which all men follow is death. But yet there are men who are fit for and capable of eternal life. Who they are and what fitness is can only be ascertained when we rightly understand what eternal life is. It is not merely future blessedness or a synonym for a vulgar heaven. That is the common notion of its meaning. Men think of that future as a blessed state to which God can admit anybody if He will, and, as He is good, will admit pretty nearly everybody. But eternal life is a present possession as well as a future one, and passing by its deeper aspects, it includes--
Deliverance from evil habits and desires.
Purity, and love of all good and fair things.
Communion with God.
As well as forgiveness and removal of punishment.
What then are the qualifications making a man worthy of, in the sense of fit for, such a state?
(_a_) To know oneself to be unworthy.
He who judges himself to be worthy is unworthy. He who knows himself to be unworthy is worthy.
The first requisite is consciousness of sin, leading to repentance.
(_b_) To abandon striving to make oneself worthy.
By ourselves we never can do so. Many of us think that we must do our best, and then God will do the rest.
There must be the entire cessation of all attempt to work out by our own efforts characters that would entitle us to eternal life.
(_c_) To be willing to accept life on God's terms.
As a mere gift.
(_d_) To desire it.
God cannot give it to any one who does not want it. He cannot force His gifts on us.