“Thank You, Lord Jesus, whatever may be the different persuasions, people may hold to in life, everyone on the face of the earth must reckon with Jesus. You are giving every individual the opportunity to repent and surrender their life to You. Lord Jesus, You are loving. You do not want anyone to perish in the place of eternal destruction. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.”
Acts 2:24 whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
It is the resurrection of Jesus that has made Him the judge of the living and of the dead. All of humanity must reckon with Jesus because of this pivotal fact of our Lord Jesus, who died, was buried, and rose again.
This is the message that Apostle Paul was sharing with this Gentile audience in Athens. The people of Athens were into philosophies of various shades and hues. Each one held to his/her opinion to life and it was understood that there was no single truth that man must reckon with and surrender to.
Isn’t this the same even today?
When we present the singular truth of Jesus, people are appalled and angry. If we were to share Christ as yet another miracle worker or problem solver, people will have no problem with Christ. It is when we present Jesus as the Owner and Creator, to whom man must surrender his life, that man recoils in anger and rejection.
It is to this kind of audience that Paul is presenting Christ. Paul is bringing clarity and conviction, to this audience, to the fact of Jesus.
Acts 17:24-31 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. (25) Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. (26) And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, (27) so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; (28) for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ (29) Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. (30) Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, (31) because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
Paul begins with a fact. He says that we are all of one blood, whoever and wherever we may come from, all of humanity has the same blood.
When this is the reality, it implies that we are all from the same starting point. We are made by one Creator.
Though man is created by one Creator, He has made us different by making us live in different geographical boundaries and in different times. These boundaries of geography, natural environments, food habits, languages, and culture, make us appreciate and celebrate one another’s uniqueness and at the same time be conscious that we are all the same blood.
God has made man be in this way, so that man would seek and grope for the Creator. Everyone on the earth must search for God. Though we are all different in our settings, we are on a common search and that search is to know God, who has given us life.
God is not far from each of us, who is genuinely searching to find and know the Creator. No man can put aside this groping and search for God. No one can choose their own philosophy or religion in life and say, “I have the right to stay with my belief system.” Every human being on the face of the earth must search and grope for the common starting point of man and all of creation. Every man must seek God and He is very close to us when we seek Him.
Paul makes it clear that it is in God that we live and move and have our being. If a man has breath in his nostrils, it is because of our Creator. We, therefore, are responsible to seek Him and know Him.
Since we are living in the atmosphere and in a body, which God has given us, we dare not invent for ourselves, different belief systems, religions, philosophies, ideologies, and idols and claim that these are our gods.
God, who is merciful and loving, not wanting anyone to perish in the eternal destruction, has given man a long rope to get out of our foolish ways, repent and surrender to the Creator.
God has revealed Himself in Christ. Every human being in this world must reckon with Jesus Christ. *God will judge every man by Jesus Christ, whom He has ordained. He has affirmed this judgment of the world, by raising Jesus from the dead*. This is the message of the church to the world.