'... 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.