"Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of
salvation."
5. These words portray the richness of the salvation wherever the
Gospel goes: nothing but grace and help; no wrath or punishment.
Indeed, these are words of unutterable meaning the apostle here
employs.
First, he tells us that it is an "acceptable time," as the Hebrew
expresses it. Our own way of putting it would be: "This is a gracious
time, a time when God turns away his wrath and is moved only by love
and benevolence toward us and is pleased to do us good." All our sins
are forgotten; he takes no note of the sins of the past nor of those
of the present. In short, we are in a realm of mercy, where are only
forgiveness and reconciliation. The heavens are now open. This is the
true golden year when man is denied nothing. So Paul says, "At an
acceptable time I hearkened unto thee"; that is: "I am kindly disposed
toward thee. Whatsoever thou shalt even desire and ask for, thou shalt
surely receive. Be not neglectful, therefore, and ask while the
acceptable time continues."
6. Second, Paul declares that it is a day of blessing, "a day of
salvation." It is a day of help, wherein we are not only acceptable
and assured of God's favor and good will toward us, but we experience
even as we have been assured--that God really does help us. He
verifies his assurance, for his beneficence gives testimony that our
prayers are heard. We call it a happy day, a blessed day, a day of
abundance; for these two truths are inseparably related--that God is
favorable toward us, and that his kindness is the proof of his favor.
God's favor toward us is revealed in the first clause, which speaks of
an acceptable time; that he extends help to us is revealed in the
second clause, telling of a blessed day of succor. Both these facts
are to be apprehended by faith and in good conscience; for a
superficial judgment would lead to the view that this period of
blessing is rather an accursed period of wrath and disfavor. Words
like these, of spiritual meaning, must be understood in the light of
the Holy Spirit; thus shall we find that these two glorious, beautiful
expressions refer to the Gospel dispensation and are intended to
magnify all the treasures and the riches of the kingdom of Christ.
"Giving no occasion of stumbling [no offense] in anything."
7. Since this is a time of blessing, let us make right use of it, not
spending it to no purpose, and let us take serious heed to give
offense to none; thus avoiding reproach to our ministry. It is evident
from the connection to what kind of offense the apostle has reference;
he would not have the Gospel doctrine charged with teaching anything
evil.
8. Two kinds of offense bring the Gospel into disgrace: In one case it
is the heathen who are offended, and this because of the fact that
some individuals would make the Gospel a means of freedom from
temporal restraint, substituting temporal liberty for spiritual. They
thus bring reproach upon the Gospel as teaching such doctrine, and
make it an object of scandal to the heathen and worldly people,
whereby they are misled and become enemies to the faith and to the
Word of God without cause, being the harder to convert since they
regard Christians as licentious knaves. And the responsibility for
this must be placed at the door of those who have given offense in
this respect.
In the other case, Christians are offended among themselves. The
occasion is the indiscreet exercise of Christian liberty, which
offends the weak in faith. Concerning this topic much is said in First
Corinthians 8 and Romans 14. Paul here hints at what he speaks of in
First Corinthians 10, 32-33: "Give no occasion of stumbling, either to
Jews, or to Greeks, or to the church of God: even as I also please all
men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of the
many that they may be saved." He takes up the same subject in
Philippians 2, 4, teaching that every man should look on the things of
others. Then no offense will be given.
"That our ministration [the ministry] be not blamed."
9. Who can prevent our office being vilified? for the Word of God must
be persecuted equally with Christ himself. That the Word of God is
reviled by unbelievers ignorant of faith in God is something we cannot
prevent. For, according to Isaiah 8, 14 and Romans 9, 33, the Gospel
is a "rock of offense." This is the offense of the faith; it will
pursue its course and we are not responsible.
But for love's offense, offense caused by shortcomings in our works
and fruits of faith, the things we are commanded to let shine before
men, that, seeing these, they may be allured to the faith--for offense
in this respect we cannot disclaim responsibility. It is a sin we
certainly must avoid, that the heathen, the Jews, the weak and the
rulers of the world may never be able to say: "Behold the knavery and
licentiousness of these people! Surely their doctrine cannot be true."
Otherwise our evil name and fame and the obstacles we place before
others will extend to the innocent and holy Word God has given us to
apprehend and to proclaim; it must bear our shame and in addition
become unfruitful in the offended ones. Grievous is such a sin as
this.