God Revealed: His Attitude Toward the Sinner
W. Clarkson Acts 17:30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent: It is worth while to note, preliminarily, that Paul speaks of the pre-Christian ages as "times of ignorance." We know that these included much human learning. The words of the apostle were uttered on that spot where there was everything to call this to remembrance. But he would have said, and would have had us consider also, that any age in which God remained unknown was an age of ignorance. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." No art, no philosophy, no science, no literature, no intellectual attainments or achievements of any kind whatever will compensate for ignorance of God; the soul that knows not him is an ignorant man; the time that knows not him is an ignorant age. But the text suggests and answers a very urgent question - What is the attitude of the holy Father of spirits toward his sinful children? His holiness would lead to impartial severity; his fatherhood to exceeding tenderness and clemency. The answer is found in the words of the apostle here. I. GOD'S ATTITUDE IN THE PRE-CHRISTIAN AGES. This was one of magnanimous forbearance. God "winked at" (as the text unhappily renders it), he overlooked, bore with all that was so painful in his sight, all the unimaginable iniquity of forty centuries of human sin. Not, indeed, without many proofs of his Divine displeasure; not without manifestations of his holy wrath. He sent sickness, sorrow, calamity, death, as marks of his meaning in regard to sin. But for long ages of evil, in which men were everywhere sinning directly against him by their idolatries and their atheisms and their practical infidelities, and indirectly against him by their sins against one another and the wrongs they did themselves, God's chief attitude toward his rebellious subjects was that of Divine magnanimity. 1. He did not punish them in proportion to their ill deserts. He "kept silence" (Psalm 1:21). He "dealt not with them after their sins," etc. (Psalm 103:10). 2. He did confer on them great and continuous loving-kindness through every age (Acts 14:16, 17). II. HIS ATTITUDE SINCE THE COMING OF HIS SON. He "now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." The entrance of the "kingdom of God" was attended with the utterance of this strong imperative, "Repent" (Matthew 3:2; Matthew 4:17; Mark 6:12). The last, solemn commission of the ascending Lord was to sound this note of repentance "among all nations" (Luke 24:47). The apostle of the Gentiles, divinely taught, preached to Jew and Gentile "repentance toward God," etc. (Acts 20:21). And wherever this gospel is preached unto men, there is announced the Divine mandate, "Repent." We know: 1. Its real significance. It is the turning of the heart, and therefore of the life, from sin and folly to God and to his service. 2. Its breadth of application. It is coextensive with the race; it reaches to the remotest land and to the most distant age; none so pure of heart and life that they need not, none so base that they may not, none so old that they cannot repent. 3. The consequences of impenitence. They are (1) God's displeasure now, and (2) his final condemnation and punishment. - C. Parallel Verses KJV: And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: WEB: The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,