“Concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ Therefore he says also in another psalm, ‘You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.’ For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, was laid with his fathers, and saw decay. But he whom God raised up saw no decay.
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Acts 13:34-37 sits inside this longer paragraph.
“Concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ Therefore he says also in another psalm, ‘You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.’ For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, was laid with his fathers, and saw decay. But he whom God raised up saw no decay. Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins, and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.
Parallel Translations
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“Concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
Therefore he says also in another psalm, ‘You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.’
For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, was laid with his fathers, and saw decay.
But he whom God raised up saw no decay.
-
As concernynge that he reysed him vp from deeth now no more to returne to corrupcion he sayde on this wyse: The holy promyses made to David I will geve them faithfully to you.
Wherfore he saith also in another place: Thou shalt not soffre thyne holye to se corrupcion.
Howbe it David after he had in his tyme fulfilled the will of God he slepte and was layde with his fathers and sawe corrupcion.
But he whom God reysed agayne sawe no corrupcion.
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Nowe as concerning that he raised him vp from the dead, no more to returne to corruption, he hath said thus, I wil giue you the holy things of Dauid, which are faithfull.
Wherefore hee sayeth also in another place, Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy one to see corruption.
Howbeit, Dauid after hee had serued his time by the counsell of God, hee slept, and was laid with his fathers, and sawe corruption.
But he whom God raised vp, sawe no corruption.
Cross-references (55)
- Psalms 16:10 (v35) For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption.
- Isaiah 55:3 (v34) Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
- Acts 2:29 (v36) “Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
- Psalms 89:2-4 (v34) I indeed declare, “Love stands firm forever. You established the heavens. Your faithfulness is in them.” “I have made a covenant with my…
- 2 Samuel 7:12 (v36) When your days are fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will set up your offspring after you, who will proceed out of your body,…
Show all 54 cross-references
- 1 Kings 2:10 (v36) David slept with his fathers, and was buried in David’s city.
- Acts 13:22 (v36) When he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom he also testified, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after…
- Romans 6:9 (v34) knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him!
- Acts 2:27-31 (v35) because you will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will you allow your Holy One to see decay. You made known to me the ways of life. You…
- Acts 13:30 (v37) But God raised him from the dead,
- Psalms 89:19-37 (v34) Then you spoke in vision to your saints, and said, “I have given strength to the warrior. I have exalted a young man from the people. I…
- 2 Samuel 7:14-16 (v34) I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the…
- 1 Chronicles 18:14 (v36) David reigned over all Israel; and he executed justice and righteousness for all his people.
- Jeremiah 33:15-17 (v34) “In those days and at that time, I will cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David. He will execute justice and righteousness in…
- Jeremiah 33:26 (v34) then I will also cast away the offspring of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his offspring to be rulers over the…
- Ezekiel 34:23-24 (v34) I will set up one shepherd over them, and he will feed them, even my servant David. He will feed them, and he will be their shepherd. I,…
- Acts 2:24 (v37) whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it.
- Psalms 49:9 (vv35–36) that he should live on forever, that he should not see corruption.
- Genesis 3:19 (v36) You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall…
- 2 Samuel 23:5 (v34) Isn’t my house so with God? Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for it is all my salvation,…
- 1 Chronicles 13:2-4 (v36) David said to all the assembly of Israel, “If it seems good to you, and if it is of Yahweh our God, let’s send word everywhere to our…
- 1 Chronicles 15:25-29 (v36) So David, the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went to bring the ark of Yahweh’s covenant up out of the house of…
- 1 Chronicles 17:11 (v36) It will happen, when your days are fulfilled that you must go to be with your fathers, that I will set up your offspring after you, who…
- 1 Chronicles 22:1-19 (v36) Then David said, “This is the house of Yahweh God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel.” David gave orders to gather…
- 2 Chronicles 9:31 (v36) Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in his father David’s city: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.
- 2 Chronicles 12:16 (v36) Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried in David’s city; and Abijah his son reigned in his place.
- 2 Chronicles 21:1 (v36) Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in David’s city, and Jehoram his son reigned in his place.
- 2 Chronicles 26:23 (v36) So Uzziah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in the field of burial which belonged to the kings, for they said,…
- Job 17:14 (v36) if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’
- Job 19:26-27 (v36) After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh, whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger.…
- Job 21:26 (v36) They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
- Psalms 49:14 (v36) They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their…
- Psalms 78:71-72 (v36) from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. So he…
- Psalms 89:48 (v35) What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?
- Ezekiel 37:24-25 (v34) “ ‘ “My servant David will be king over them. They all will have one shepherd. They will also walk in my ordinances, and observe my…
- Amos 9:11 (v34) In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen, and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it…
- Zechariah 12:8 (v34) In that day Yahweh will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He who is feeble among them at that day will be like David, and David’s house…
- Luke 2:26 (v35) It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
- John 3:36 (v35) One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
- John 8:51 (v35) Most certainly, I tell you, if a person keeps my word, he will never see death.”
- John 11:39 (v36) Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has…
- Acts 13:36-37 (v35) For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, was laid with his fathers, and saw decay. But he whom…
- Acts 13:37 (v34) But he whom God raised up saw no decay.
- 1 Corinthians 15:6 (v36) Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep.
- 1 Corinthians 15:18 (v36) Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
- 1 Corinthians 15:53-54 (v36) For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable body will have become…
- Hebrews 11:5 (v35) By faith, Enoch was taken away, so that he wouldn’t see death, and he was not found, because God translated him. For he has had testimony…
- 1 Chronicles 11:2 (v36) In times past, even when Saul was king, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. Yahweh your God said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd…
- 1 Chronicles 15:12-16 (v36) and said to them, “You are the heads of the fathers’ households of the Levites. Sanctify yourselves, both you and your brothers, that you…
- Hosea 3:5 (v34) Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and…
- Acts 7:60 (v36) He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
- Acts 20:27 (v36) for I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
- 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (v36) So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in…
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (v36) But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have…
54 distinct cross-references across this passage (55 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv34–36 34. That he should not return. He addeth now…
34. That he should not return. He addeth now the other member, that Christ was once raised from death that he may live for ever, as Paul teacheth, Romans 6:10,
“He dieth no more, neither shall death have dominion over him any more; because he liveth to God.”
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For the hope conceived of Christ’s resurrection should be slender and cold, if he were yet subject to destruction, or to any change. Therefore he is said to be entered into the kingdom of God, that he may also give to his [people] eternal felicity, living for ever. For because Christ rose rather for our sake than for himself, the perpetuity of life which the Father hath given him reacheth unto us all, and is ours. Notwithstanding the place of Isaiah which is here cited, seemeth to make but a little for proof of Christ’s immortality, I will give you the holy things of David, (Isaiah 55:3.) But it is not so. For seeing Isaiah speaketh of the redemption promised to David, and affirmeth that the same shall be firm and stable, we do well gather by this the immortal kingdom of Christ, wherein the eternity of salvation is grounded. And Paul followed the Greek interpreters when he put holy things for mercies. Chessed, which signifieth meek, merciful, and gentle, is wont by the Grecians to be translated holy. Therefore they translated הסדי of David, the holy things of David, whereas the prophet meaneth rather the grace promised to David. But Paul granted this to the ignorant and weak, who were better acquainted with the Greek reading, especially forasmuch as the force of the testimony consisteth in another point. For this is Paul’s meaning in sum, If the grace be eternal which God saith he will give in his Son, the life of his Son must be eternal, and not subject to corruption. For we must hold this rule, that all the promises of God are in Christ yea and amen, (2 Corinthians 1:20;) and that therefore they cannot be of any force unless he do quicken them.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv34–35 The Greeks call those holy things, which the Hebrews…
The Greeks call those holy things, which the Hebrews call gracious bounties: and they are called David’s bounties in the passive signification, because God bestowed them upon David: Moreover, they are termed faithful, after the manner of speech which the Hebrews use, who terms those things faithful, which are steady and sure such as never alter nor change.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv34–37 34 And as concerning that he raised him up…
34 And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.
Ver. 34. To return to corruption] That is, to the grave, that house of corruption; which yet the Hebrews call Beth chajim, the house of the living, because of the promise "thy dead men shall live," &c. The Germans call the place of burial God’s Acre, because the dead body, though sown there in corruption, yet riseth again in incorruption.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv34–37 The former verse was not intended so much by…
The former verse was not intended so much by St. Paul for a proof of the resurrection, as it was to show how faithful God was in fulfilling that promise there spoken of; here the apostle’s design is, to evince Christ’s resurrection, and that it was agreeable to the prophesies which were concerning him.
I will give you the sure mercies of David; these words are found, Isa 60:3, and
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the sure mercies of David there and here spaken of, are such mercies as were promised to David (David being to be taken positively). Now the mercies which were promised to David are all included or surmounted in this, that by this Son of David (our Lord and Saviour, frequently and truly so called) God would erect and establish an everlasting kingdom; which could not be done, unless Christ rose again, and obtained the victory over death and the grave. All the promises God hath made unto his church in any age concerning Christ, are sure and faithful, holy and just; the words have been variously rendered and changed; but no words can sufficiently express their stability and excellency.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv36–37 The Holy Ghost here gives a compendious account of…
The Holy Ghost here gives a compendious account of David’s life and death. Of his life, He served his generation according to the will of God; Of his death, He fell asleep, and was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption.
In the account given of David’s life, note, 1. His activity and zeal for God; he served as well as reigned. This serving implies not a single or individual act, but a series and succession of good actions throughout the whole course of his life.
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Note, 2. The publicness of his activity; he served not himself but his own generation.
Note, 3. The rule of his activity, and that was the will of God; as he served his generation, so he served God in his generation faithfully according to his will.
All our serviceableness for God and our generation, must be guided and directed by the word and will of God. David served his own generation by the will of God. This is the account of his life.
Observe next, The relation of his death, He fell asleep, was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption. He fell asleep; death to the servants of God is as a sleep, and but a sleep. As a sleep, it gives rest and cessation from labour; and as a sleep, it gives refreshment after labour; and as they that sleep shall certainly awake, so those that sleep in Jesus shall awake in the morning of the resurrection, to see their glorified Redeemer face to face.
Note, 2. No serviceableness to God in our generation can exempt from death; for David fell asleep. This is the lot of the faithful, as well as of the slothful servants.
Note, 3. It is a blessed thing when we fall asleep with our work in our hands; when death meets us after a life spent in the service of Christ. David after he had served his generation, fell asleep: it follows, he was gathered to his fathers; that is, he was buried amongst his ancestors: and saw corruption; that is, his body corrupted in the grave like other men’s.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv34–37 But he whom God raised again,.... The Vulgate Latin…
But he whom God raised again,.... The Vulgate Latin version adds, "from the dead"; meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead by God the Father: and
saw no corruption; he did not lie so long in the grave as to corrupt and putrefy, but was raised from the dead the third day; wherefore the passage, before cited, is very applicable to him, and is a clear proof that the Messiah was to rise from the dead, as Jesus did.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv34–36 No more to return to corruption - That is,…
No more to return to corruption - That is, to die no more. I will give you the sure mercies of David - The blessings promised to David in Christ. These are sure, certain, firm, solid, to every true believer in him. And hence the resurrection of Christ necessarily follows; for without this, those blessings could not be given. Isaiah lv, 3.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv34, 36 Verse 34. No more to return to corruption] To…
Verse 34. No more to return to corruption] To the grave, to death, the place and state of corruption; for so we should understand the word διαφθοραν in the text.
The sure mercies of David.] τα οσια δαβιδ τα πιστα. These words are quoted literatim from the Septuagint version of Isa 55:3; where the Hebrew is חסדי דוד הנאמנים chasdey David ha-neemanim, of which the Greek is a faithful translation; and which sure mercies of David St. Paul considers as being fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. From this application of the words, it is evident that the apostle considered the word David as signifying the Messiah; and then the sure or faithful mercies, being such as relate to the new covenant, and the various blessings promised in it, are evidently those which are sealed and confirmed to mankind by the resurrection of Christ; and it is in this way that the apostle applies them. Had there not been the fullest proof of the resurrection of Christ, not one of the promises of the new covenant could have been considered as sure or faithful. If he did not rise from the dead, then, as said the apostle, your faith and our preaching are vain, 1Co 15:14.
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The following observations of Bp. Pearce are judicious: "For the sense of these words, we must have recourse to what God said to David in 2Sa 7:11-12, c., explained by what is said in Ps 89:3-4, Ps 89:28-29, Ps 89:36, where frequent mention is made of a covenant established by God with David, and sworn to by God, that David's seed should endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven, and as the sun, to all generations. This covenant and this oath are the sure and sacred things of which Isaiah, Isa 55:3, speaks and Luke in this place. And Paul understood them as relating to the kingdom of Jesus, (the Son of David,) which was to be an everlasting kingdom; and if an everlasting one, then it was necessary that Jesus should have been (as he was) raised from the dead; and, to support this argument, Paul, in the next verse, strengthens it with another, drawn from Ps 16:10." See also the note among the marginal readings.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv34–37 And as concerning - In further proof of this.…
And as concerning - In further proof of this. To show that he actually did it, he proceeds to quote another passage of Scripture.
No more to return to corruption - The word “corruption” is usually employed to denote “putrefaction, or the mouldering away of a body in the grave; its returning to its native dust.” But it is certain (Act 13:35. See the notes on Act 2:27) that the body of Christ never in this sense saw corruption. The word is therefore used to denote “death, or the grave, the cause and place of corruption.” The word is thus used in the Septuagint. It means here simply that he should not die again.
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He said on this wise - He said thus ὅυτως houtōs.
I will give you - This quotation is made from Isa 55:3. It is quoted from the Septuagint, with a change of but one word, not affecting the sense. In Isaiah the passage does not refer particularly to the resurrection of the Messiah, nor is it the design of Paul to affirm that it does. His object in this verse is not to prove that he would rise from the dead, but that, being risen, he would not again die. That the passage in Isaiah refers to the Messiah there can be no doubt, Act 13:1, Act 13:4. The passage here quoted is an address to the people, an assurance to them that the promise made to David would be performed, a solemn declaration that he would make an everlasting covenant with them through the Messiah, the promised descendant of David.
The sure mercies of David - The word “mercies” here refers to the promise made to David; the mercy or favor shown to him by promising to him a successor that should not fail to sit on his throne, 2Sa 7:16; Psa 89:4-5; Psa 132:11-12. These mercies and promises are called “sure,” as being true or unfailing; they would certainly be accomplished. Compare 2Co 1:20. The word “David” here does not refer, as many have supposed, to the Messiah, but to the King of Israel. God made to David a promise, a certain pledge; he bestowed on him this special mercy, in promising that he should have a successor who should sit forever on his throne. This promise was understood by the Jews, and is often referred to in the New Testament, as relating to the Messiah. Paul here says that that promise is fulfilled. The only question is how it refers to the subject on which he was discoursing. The point was not mainly to prove his resurrection, but to show particularly that he would never die again, or that he would forever live and reign. And the argument is, that as God had promised that David should have a successor who should sit forever on his throne, and as this prediction now terminated in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, it followed that, as that promise was sure and certain, he would never die again. He must live if the promise was fulfilled. And though he had been put to death, yet under that general promise there was a certainty that he would live again. It was impossible, the meaning is, that the Messiah, the promised successor of David, the perpetual occupier of his throne, should remain under the power of death. Under this assurance the church now reposes its hopes. Zion’s King now lives, ever able to vindicate and save his people.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv34–37 I will give you the holy things of David…
I will give you the holy things of David sure. These are the words of the prophet Isaias, lv. ver. 3. According to the Septuagint the sense is, I will faithfully fulfil the promises I made to David. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv34, 36 now no more to return to corruption--that is, to…
now no more to return to corruption--that is, to the grave where death reigns; and compare Rom 6:9, "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him."
I will give you the sure mercies of David-- (Isa 55:3). The word rendered "mercies" is peculiar, denoting the sanctity of them, as comprehending the whole riches of the new covenant; while the other word, "sure," points to the certainty with which they would, through David's Seed, be at length all substantiated. See on Joh 1:14. But how do these words prove the resurrection of Christ? "They presuppose it; for since an eternal kingdom was promised to David, the Ruler of this kingdom could not remain under the power of death. But to strengthen the indefinite prediction by one more definite, the apostle adduces Psa 16:10, of which Peter had given the same explanation (see on Act 2:27; Act 2:30-31), both apostles denying the possibility of its proper reference to David" [OLSHAUSEN].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv34–36 34. Sure mercies of David—We can give no better…
34. Sure mercies of David—We can give no better commentary upon these words than is furnished by Bishop Pearce: “For the sense of these words we must have recourse to what God said to David in 2Sa_7:11-12, etc., explained by what is said in Psa_89:3-4; Psa_89:28-29; Psa_89:36, where frequent mention is made of a covenant established by God with David, and sworn to by God, that David’s seed should endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven, and as the sun, to all generations. This covenant and this oath are the sure and sacred things of which Isaiah (Isa_55:3) speaks, and Luke in this place. And Paul understood them as relating to the kingdom of Jesus, (the son of David,) which was to be an everlasting kingdom; and if an everlasting one, then it was necessary that Jesus should have been (as he was) raised from the dead; and to support this argument, Paul, in the next verse, strengthens it with another, drawn from Psa_16:10.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv34–36 34. he said on this wise] Better, “He [i.e.…
34. he said on this wise] Better, “He [i.e. God] hath spoken on this wise.” The words are from Isa_55:3.
I will give you the sure mercies of David] Rather, “I will give you the holy and faithful (mercies) of David.” There is no word for “mercies” in the original; but the word rendered “holy” is one which the LXX. have frequently used to represent the Hebrew word for “mercies.” St Paul to the audience at Antioch used the Greek version, though no doubt he carried along with him the thought of the Hebrew. But having this Greek rendering as an interpretation of the “everlasting covenant” of which Isaiah speaks in the verse here quoted, he connects the “holy and faithful things of David” with that verse of David’s Psalm (Act_16:10) which tells how God will not give his Holy One to see corruption.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv34–36 (34) Now no more to return to corruption.—We note…
(34) Now no more to return to corruption.—We note from the turn of the phrase that St. Paul already has the words of Psa_16:10 in his mind, though he has not as yet referred to it.
I will give you the sure mercies of David.—The words do not seem in themselves to have the nature of a Messianic prediction. To those, however, whose minds were full to overflowing with the writings of the prophets they would be pregnant with meaning. What were the “sure mercies of David” (Isa_55:3) but the “everlasting covenant” of mercy which was to find its fulfilment in One who should be “a leader and commander to the people?” We may well believe that the few words quoted recalled to St. Paul and to his hearers the whole of that wonderful chapter which opens with “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” The Greek word for “mercies” is the same adjective as that translated “holy” in the next verse, “holiness” being identified with “mercy,” and so forms a connecting link with the prophecy cited in the next verse.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv34–37 Hath spoken for said, A.V.; holy and sure blessings…
Hath spoken for said, A.V.; holy and sure blessings for sure mercies, A.V. No more to return to corruption. This is added to show that Christ"s resurrection was a final victory over death; not like that of Lazarus, or the Shunammite"s son, or Jairus"s daughter, but, as St. Paul himself says, (Rom_6:9) "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him." Here he tells us that this eternal exemption of Christ from death was promised or signified insomai Isa_55:3, which he quotes from the LXX, only abbreviating thediaqh k.t.l., into dwsw, I will give. What, then, is meant by the osia Dabid ta? The Hebrew has dwd ydesju, which can mean nothing else but "the sure mercies of David," the favor and mercy promised to David in God"s everlasting covenant, well ordered in all things and sure. And in like manner, in 2Ch_6:42, osia Dabid means "the mercies of God to David." And if we turn to the account of this covenanted mercy in 2Sa 7., we shall see that it comprises the setting of David"s seed upon his throne for ever (see specially vers. 12-16). In ver. 15 it is said, WgMmi rWsy ail ydisj, "My mercy shall not depart from him." And in the next verse his house and his kingdom are described as being man, sure," or "established for ever," which, when applied to the personal Christ, the Son of David, manifestly implies his eternal exemption from death and corruption. (see also Psa_132:4) The sense of the Hebrew, therefore, is clever and certain, and it is equally certain that the LXX meant to represent this sense in the version here quoted by St. Paul.
Osiov, though properly meaning "holy, pious," and thence "mild" and "merciful" (eijrhnikov, Hesych.) as applied to man, came to be applied in the same senses to God. (Rev_15:4 Rev_16:5; and here and in the LXX) Beyond doubt, therefore, the passage before us is rightly rendered in the A.V, "the sure mercies of David;" the plural, osia, represents the of the Hebrew. Clemens Alex. (quoted by Schleusner) uses it in the same way for "mercies or "benefits:" Posa aujtw ojfeilomen osia: For how many mercies are we indebted to Christ!" In a similar way, the Latin pietas is used for God"s "justice" or "kindness" ("AEneid," 2:536; 5:688). "Trini pulses pietatem" (on a sepulchral monument, A.D. 1427): "Beat at the door of God"s mercy." Gronovius, in his note on "AEian. V H.," 8:1, where he ascribes to osiov the primitive sense of what is "just" and "due," from man either to God or to his fellowman, adds, "Tribuunt quidem LXX? interpetiam Deo to osion: sod etiam tum significat quoddam quasi offcium benignitatia in heroines pios, Deo decorum."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v36 For David, after he had served his own generation.
Act_13:36
For David, after he had served his own generation.
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The life, character, and death of David
I. The general character of the man. We shall not attempt to extenuate his sins. But let his penitential Psalms bear witness for him, that no judgment can be passed upon him more severe than that which he pronounced upon himself. Which of the saints has not been more or less guilty? But Scripture teaches us to form our judgment, not from one or two prominent particulars, but from a comprehensive survey of them all. Let us consider some of them.
1. In very early life David appears to have been a sincere believer. The incidents of the lion and the bear discover both his faith and his habit of ascribing all his success to the Divine help. Again, when Samuel was directed to anoint a successor to Saul, the preference of David is expressly grounded upon the state of his heart. From these considerations we conclude that David, even among the sheepfolds, was a child of grace, and that the fields of Bethlehem echoed with the earliest effusions of that Divine harp which still contributes to the edification of the saints.
2. Remark the high principle under which David acted in relation to Saul. We find no schemes of daring ambition, no crooked policies. Twice, when his enemy was delivered into his hand, he only cut off a portion of Sauls robe, to use it as a testimony of his integrity. When, at length, the guilty monarch lay under the vengeance of Heaven, grief is the predominating sentiment which he expresses in a noble elegy.
3. Note the holy dispositions for which he was conspicuous throughout his life. His Psalms exhibit a heart supremely delighting in God. Who can deny his love to the Divine Word, his attachment to the services of the sanctuary? Happy is the man whose heart is filled with the same affections!
4. Remember that his conduct, though sometimes criminal, presents no permanent deviation from the path of rectitude. If he offends, it is not long before we hear him say, I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Thy servant; for I do not forget Thy commandments. The general tenor of his life Is not broken; but, for the most part, it is indisputably holy.
5. Survey him in his decline, when his head was white with age; what a fine picture does he exhibit of gratitude, humility, and devotion! Nothing is more impressive than the picture of this aged saint, in solemn convocation, delivering the treasures provided for the work of God into the hands of his successor. Like another Moses, he spends his last breath in faithful admonitions to his people and to his son. Thus, his course was emphatically as the shining light, admirable in his youth, troubled, yet not less illustrious in manhood, fruitful in old age: a glorious morning, a day overcast with long continued tempests; but, at evening, like the setting sun, which seems to grow more ample and refulgent, in proportion as it draws nearer to the horizon: and, finally descending among the fleecy clouds which reflect its brightness, and curtain it with glory, leaves a long track of light behind--emblem of that grateful remembrance which a good man commands from his survivors, and of the rising again to immortality, with the prospect of which religion illuminates the sepulchre.
II. The description given of his life.
1. Which suggests--
(1) That the life of every man ought to be profitable to his contemporaries. God has bound up the race in families, societies, and kingdoms, that each may act in his sphere for the common advantage of all. Therefore the life of that man who has not served his generation is a public detriment, perhaps a pestilence.
(2) That he who serves God takes the best and surest method of serving his generation. Our Divine Master declares that His disciples are the salt of the earth. The righteous are lights to their own age, and often prove, like David, instructors of posterity.
(3) That he who serves his generation upon right principles is serving God. All the actions of a pious man, whether secular or sacred, are religious, consecrated by the motives and sentiments under which they are performed. God sanctifies them, and converts them into sacrifices.
(4) That to be acceptable to God our conduct must be governed by His revealed will.
2. Now let us survey David in his relations. In these we shall see that the eulogy of the text is fully justified.
(1) To estimate his political conduct, it will be sufficient to contrast the kingdom when he received it with what it was when bequeathed to Solomon. In like manner the kingdom of his great antitype began in weakness and suffering; proceeds through rebuke and opposition; yet cannot but finally prevail, in virtue of that covenant which is ordered in all things, and sure.
(2) Consider David in his relation to the Church. The composition of the Psalms was a grand epoch in the history of revelation; and its illustrations of religious experience are so copious and exact as to express the thoughts and feelings of believers to the end of time. In addition to this great work, we find him at one time bringing the ark of God to the tabernacle; at another, appointing the settled order of public worship; then collecting materials for the future temple; but the noblest feature of all is the spirit of love to God, and zeal for His house, by which they were dictated.
3. Let us follow him into his family. We find him following his own determination, I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. We can obtain but a glimpse or two, yet these are highly satisfactory. After a day of arduous public service, then David returned to bless his household. The affecting terms in which he deplores that his house was not so with God, shows us that it was not lost sight of in the multiplicity of his official engagements.
4. But, after all, Davids eminence as a saint appears most in the regulation of his own heart. We will not dwell upon the frequency of his devotions, nor upon his diligence in studying the Divine Oracles. But remember how careful he was to examine his own soul, and how earnestly he implores the scrutiny even of the Omniscient Eye! Remember his jealousy, lest secret faults should cling to him unobserved, and the sins of his youth pass unrepented and unforgiven. Oh! remember how, when sunk in depressions, he challenges his very griefs, lest they should prove unsanctified, and rouses his own spirit to a renewed exercise of trust! Why art thou cast down, O my soul? hope thou in God. He was a sinner, I know; but it is through spiritual tribulations and tempests like these that every sinner must find his way to heaven. Great offenders that offer the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart, may mount to thrones of glory, when Pharisaic boasters shall be cast into outer darkness.
III. The record of his death.
1. Notice the terms employed. Death is a sleep, and the grave a house, where departed saints repose in honourable company. It is true that, under the Jewish dispensation, the future was wrapt in deep obscurity; but the darkness was not altogether impenetrable, or else how should David comfort himself? As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness, etc. The expressions of the text are full of consoling thoughts. We resign ourselves to sleep without fear. If we believe that death is but a sleep, why do we contemplate it with dismay? In both, the functions of life are but suspended, not extinguished. Whatever were the infirmities of ancient saints, they all left the world with holy dignity. Though they had but dim shadows of heavenly truth to guide them, they have taught us how to live; and, though their views of eternal glory were far less distinct than ours, by their example we may learn how to die.
2. David must go the way of all flesh. Neither the love of God, nor the admiration of His people, nor his eminent fidelity, can exempt him from the universal decree. The fairest, wisest, noblest, holiest heads must lie down alike in the dust. A day of mourning over fallen greatness or departed usefulness leads us to imagine that our loss cannot be repaired; but a Solomon rises in the place of David. Thus the work of God goes on. Never let the Church despair, though kings and prophets die.
3. The Son of David lives; the same yesterday, today, and forever. (D. Katterns.)
The service of the age
1. Few things are more painful than unfulfilled lives. A broken column is their expressive symbol. Beauty smitten in the springtime; little children taken; the promise of life cut off and blasted--all suggest painful mystery.
2. Some lives are morally unfulfilled; powers have been wasted. They did not stir up the gift that was in them, and their power was never fully ripened into fruitful service.
3. Others, while not accomplishing all their purposes, are not to be numbered with those who have failed. In the studio of the dead sculptor there is a statue wanting the last touches, a block just marked, works in various stages of their growth. But, we remember, the finished works whose beauty shall be the delight of the generations to come. That is not an unfulfilled life.
4. David served his own generation according to the will of God--rounded off completely the work given him to do. Illustrious as ruler, he was much more so as the sweet singer of Israel. The figure is that of the sailor in the ancient galley, who served in the lowest tier of seats, where the work was most important and arduous. The generation is compared with the stately vessel thus impelled--David rowed onwards his own age, added his efforts to those of others to secure its progress and to render it illustrious.
I. The true mans vocation. He is set apart as the servant of the age. Our own generation has immediate claims upon us. The dead are not touched by our influence or moved by our activities. The future we cannot reach save through present faithfulness. Now is our acceptable time. There is no work, or wisdom, or device in the grave.
1. In this service the force of individual character is of the utmost importance. Men affect and mould men more by what they are than by what they profess or do. But there is also a conscious service to which men are appointed. Each successive age presents the common human characteristics in some special development or relationship. The age has its special questions and needs, its special section of the purpose of the Almighty to fulfil. True men are born for the time, not of it. The age is philosophical, and the teacher is the prominent figure. It is warlike, and the soldier plays his part. It is instinct with the craving for something better, and the reformer comes to the front. It is longing for knowledge of the unseen or preparation for it, and the fervid evangelist answers the question, What must we do? Sometimes it is eclectic, and various actors crowd the stage. But one thing is amazing, whatever the general characteristic, the vastness of the work which may be, and often is, accomplished by single individuals. Masses, generations, never move onwards by themselves. They follow a leader. Hence earnest natures force on reformations. Such men have removed mountains; created new philosophies; won a peoples freedom, and raised their own generation to heights of renown. But where the results may not be as palpable, the service of the age may be as real and as effective. There are prayers to be offered, ignorant ones to be instructed, fallen ones to be rescued, errors to be corrected, lonely hearts to be ministered to, and wounded ones to be healed. Such services may not be meet subjects for the historian, but they are written in the books of Divine remembrance.
2. The service of the age implies living sympathy with its sorrows and sins; identity of interest and aim. True men are of generous heart. Acquiescence in things as they are destroys capacity for service. What a craving the true man has for something better! Greatness of heart, mighty energy, and patience are needed when the service of the age involves a climbing of Calvaries. The kingdom of Christ was founded when He hung upon the Cross. But the sorrow which wrung the Redeemers heart was intense because of His identity with a doomed nation and a perishing world. He bore our sins, and carried our sorrows. Nothing essential to human well-being can be indifferent to us if we would serve faithfully.
II. The true mans service of his own age is divinely conducted and fashioned. By the will of God. This implies--
1. The inspiration of this service. God suggests the form of service, and guides the faithful to it. His own love in the heart prompts it.
2. The means of this service. There are Divine provisions and remedies for the ages necessities and ills. The special forms of service will harmonise with the great spiritual redemption God is working out in human history. All real human rights were consecrated in the Cross. All true reformations spring out of the Cross. Baptized into its spirit, the true servant becomes qualified for the highest achievements.
3. The Divine designation of the worker and his work. God distributes gifts, and suits men to His purpose. There was a man sent from God. So Peter, Paul, Luther, the martyrs were sent. This is true of times. They are in His hands. The faithful live for the works sake, and die for the works sake. Life is prolonged, for service is to be continued. Life ceases, and the service becomes a memory because it is finished.
III. The rest of the true servant of his age. The long day of rowing is over; and tired with long continued exertion, David laid himself down and fell asleep, and was gathered to his fathers.
1. Sleep is the image of death in contrast with the activity of the working life; then, as a natural, orderly sequence to it; but also as a condition precedent to new activities for which its recuperative influence is essential.
2. But also there was a gathering to the fathers. This does not mean being laid in the family burying place, for David was not laid in it. He was gathered to the general assembly and church of the first born in the realms unseen. At last the golden gates are thrown open for the servants of the King, who on distant fields upheld His cause, carried His banner, kept the faith, and they are all together in one assembly at home with the Lord. What a blest assembly to which our dead have been joined! What an august prospect opens before those who are faithful unto death! (W. H. Davison.)
A servant of the age
I. Our age--the people of the nineteenth century now resident upon earth. For this lasting earth was destined to be the successive habitation of thousands of generations. One generation passeth away, etc. The edifice has lasted for ages, and is much as it was in the morning of time; but its tenantry are ever changing. Notwithstanding the alterations in the material world, there is nothing new but souls. For each the Father of spirits builds an earthly house, and everyone who has answered the Divine purpose of its short residence ascends to the house eternal in the heavens. It is a solemn thought that earth as well as heaven is a world of spirits. These are the generation we are to serve.
II. The spiritual service we owe it. Other services are demanded, but these are inferior in worth and consequences. Many serve their age not according to the will of God. There are, e.g., those who investigate matter, study the human frame, shed fresh light on the origin, nature, and destiny of mind, dedicate themselves to education or reform; in a word, those who labour to promote mans temporal interests. Amongst these, indeed, are some of the holiest men in the world; but there are others who are wholly dead to God. Yet these latter often subserve the religious interests of the age, but without professing it or knowing it.
III. How are we to serve the spiritual interests of the age? We must--
1. Be the servants of God. In Php_2:15-16, Paul described the moral character of his age. In its mind, morals, laws, institutions, etc., it was crooked and perverse; and he reminded Christians placed in their age that it was their office, by living holiness and new truth from heaven, to direct their perilous course in the deep towards that land of life and glory. And finally he taught them that to be fit for this they must be and act as sons of God. Divine worship was then, and is now, the first qualification for serving souls. With Gods power, love, and will within us what wonders may we do!
2. Study the age. An age does not know itself; just as an individual, it dislikes self-examination. The ages of Rome, Greece, Persia, Assyria, Noah, nay, even Paradise, did not know themselves. Yet every age has had its prophet. Enoch read his age, and served it. So did Noah, Abraham, Moses, John, etc. And if past ages were only efficiently served by those who studied them, how important that we should study our own! To do this certain qualifications are necessary. E.g., there must be correct views of the Divine government, a clear, observant eye to discern the signs of the times, and, as a key to the interpretation of those signs, an acquaintance with the religious history of past ages. No two ages are alike, or can be. We must therefore study its peculiarities--its distinguishing privileges; its predominant virtues and sins; its moral tendencies and wants; and, above all, its first duties to the age which is immediately to follow.
3. Spread our affections over the length and breadth of it. Love for souls is one of the Divinest virtues which God breathes into our nature. The reigning philosophy of every age has denied or overlooked the spirituality of man. It is only the man whose spiritual nature has been divinely awakened that feels the love of heaven: it is only he who can send it forth on the world. Greatly as we value natural love, we must not mistake nor substitute it for spiritual love. Love for souls as souls is not a passion of earthly growth; love for their justification, renewal, and union with God is a holy fire from heaven. Let us take care lest the best things we have--our schools, benevolent societies, churches, religion, should have more to do with the life that now is than with the life that is to come. This love we should spread over our age. And how numerous and constraining are our obligations! God has given us hearts capacious enough to embrace the human family, and can we reflect on the love of God who spared not His own Son without feeling our hearts burn for the restoration of all souls to their Fathers bosom?
4. Ascertain the particular department of service assigned us by God, and be thoroughly devoted to it. By self acquaintance, by consulting the wise and faithful, by the teachings of Providence, by prayer, let us learn what our mission is, and then in the name and power of God let us live only to fulfil it.
IV. Why should we serve our age?
1. It is the will of God. This is our law, but can we love and obey it without knowing what it is? God has not left us to infer His will from His works and ways. His paternal love has given us a book which reveals as much of His infinite will as it is necessary for us to know on earth. And if God wills us to serve our age it must be right to do so, and we may rely upon His help. He expects the right use of what He gives--nothing less, nothing more. To serve our age is a difficult work, but let us not be discouraged, for there is an infinite fulness of power for us in God.
2. It has faithfully served us. What have we that we have not received through the instrumentality of our age, either temporally or spiritually? Let, then, a holy sense of our numberless obligations to the age bind us to its spiritual service.
3. This is the only age we can directly serve, and both the age and ourselves must soon appear before the Lord of all ages. Let us work, then, while it is day. (Caleb Morris.)
Life: its mission and opportunity
I. Its mission--to serve your generation. That is what the most worthless do, being slaves to the opinion, fashion, and spirit of the time. But the word is not bond service. David served his age not as a slave his master, but as a rower his captain. Others again, possessed by the spirit of the evil one, ask, How can I make my generation serve me? The Christian asks, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do that I, like Thee, may do good to this race? This good must be done under the inspiration of faith in God and faith in man. What is this latter? Suppose yourself in a heathen city crowded with temples, priests, idols, and idolaters. Instead of looking on with disgust or despair, you must look upon them as Gods degenerate offspring, but capable of becoming His true children once more. The good that God calls us to do is every work of His, no matter what. Some think that Christian good is only for the soul, but God regards man as one composite being. The great principle of the Mosaic legislation as much as of the gospel is that God sets Himself by the side of every man, and takes his part as long as he is in the right; and He invites to that mans side every other man to be his friend; and whatever a man does to another in the way of benefit the Lord accepts it as a tribute to Himself: e.g., the farmer is to leave the gleanings for the widow. Why? Because I am the Lord of the harvest, of the rich farmer, and the poor widow. So with the prohibitions not to mock the deaf or put stumbling blocks in the way of the blind. A wrong done to the poor is an offence to God. But always remember that man does not live by bread alone, and seek in all temporal benefit to wake up in a man some consciousness of Him from whom all blessings come. So, then, select your path according to the indications of Providence, but determine by the grace of God to leave the world better than you found it.
II. Its opportunity--your own generation. David may have wished himself back in the days of Abraham. I might have clone something in that old time, but what can I do now? So we say sometimes. And yet if we are to do anything it must not be for any other generation but our own. And how much ampler our opportunity! How long would it take for David to get his psalms known in his own dominions? How long did it take to get them known in Europe? Whereas a good mans thought in Leaden today may be fermenting the whole world in less than twelve months. You cannot serve the past, you must accept it. But which past? In the case of David there was the past of Saul and the past of Samuel. And so to us there are two pasts, and the one you accept will determine your service of the present, and by serving the present you can serve the future. David is serving you today. Carry you on the grand succession.
III. Its source and standard. The will of God.
1. There would be no working for the benefit of the world were it not that Gods will is goodwill to men. He wills the salvation of the lost, the comforting of the mourner, etc. See that will expressed in the bounties of Providence, in the Bible, in the Cross. He that spared not His own Son--let that fill your heart and move you forward to seek the welfare and salvation of the world.
2. The will of God is the standard of the mission. That will appoints you your time to be born and to die, the bounds of your habitation, the sphere of your duty. God did not give to David the sphere of Samuel. Each man in his own place. Your point is not to do everything that is to be done, but what God would have you do; not what your romance or ambition would find to do, but what your hand findeth to do. If you can lay your hand upon it, that is the proof that God means you to go to work. If you cannot reach it, pray that He may bring it nearer; but dont spend time in praying for the distant while you neglect the near.
IV. Its close. He fell on sleep. What a blessed end to a life of labour! (W. Arthur, M. A.)
Public spirit
As God is pleased to employ human agents in carrying on His designs in this world, so He never fails to find those persons who are best qualified to answer His purpose (verse 22). The Lord saw something in David which neither he nor Samuel saw when he was sent to anoint him and set him apart for the service of God. Nor was the Divine choice misplaced; for as soon as David appeared in public he seized every opportunity of promoting the cause of God and the good of his fellow men. Let us consider--
I. What it is to live a useful life. There is a sense in which all men are useful. Pharaoh, Haman, and the King of Assyria were instrumental in bringing about the designs of Providence. They intended to accomplish their own ambitious designs, but God overruled all. But in order to be useful in the sense of the text--
1. Men must live in the exercise of supreme love to God. They must give Him the throne in their hearts before they can take their proper place at His footstool.
2. Men must have a spirit of universal benevolence. Every man ought to love his neighbour as himself, and live in the exercise of that charity which seeketh not her own.
3. Men must faithfully perform the various duties of their stations. As God has endowed different men with different talents, so He has assigned them different parts to act upon the stage of life. And it is only by moving properly in their proper spheres of action that they can become the most extensively serviceable to the world.
II. Such a life will terminate in a happy death. For--
1. It contains a source of pleasing reflections upon what is past.
2. It contains a source of agreeable anticipations. Those who have taken delight in serving God on earth may look forward to the happiness of serving Him in a higher and nobler manner in glory.
3. It will meet a glorious and ample reward beyond the grave. Conclusion: It appears from what has been said.
1. That real religion is necessary to qualify every person for the station he fills.
2. That usefulness forms the most beautiful character in the eyes of the world as well as in the sight of God. David, while he served his own generation by the will of God, was greatly admired and applauded.
3. The goodness of God in prolonging the lives of His faithful servants. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Three great principles
I. The principle of greatness--To benefit others.
II. The principle of success--working in accordance with the will of God. Philanthropists may effect a temporary reformation. Philosophy may awaken thought. But only he who works out earthly information in the light of Divine revelation can benefit his generation.
III. The principle of destiny. By benefiting his generation--
1. David benefited the world in all ages.
2. Promoted his own eternal salvation; and--
3. Glorified God. (Homilist.)
The work and the end of life
I. The duty.
1. It may seem a humble thing to do, but what else is there for the greatest of us? To serve your generation. The next will have its own ways of thinking and acting. If anything of yours should survive, it will be but to be criticised, disparaged, incorporated and lost in the new. Be satisfied if you can serve your own generation, and when we have made generation mean only town or parish or family, we must be satisfied still. It is not for the creatures of a day to affect either universality or permanence.
2. To serve your own generation. Not to lord it over, not to stamp your mind or will upon your generation, but to serve it. How humbling, yet how salutary a description! The greater a man is the more has he to serve. A sovereign is but a servant. How much more a tradesman, a lawyer, a physician, a clergyman! If it is a humble it is also an honourable and even a sacred service. To do good to, to help forward the men, women, and children with whom it has pleased God that we should spend our few days or years on earth. What a summons is this to every possible work of charity! What a motive does this give to diligence in visiting the poor, in supporting schools, in trying to set forward every effort and enterprise of good!
II. The end. Sleep is the Christian name for death.
1. Because it is a gentle thing. It has already lost its sting by reason of the forgiveness of sins. The sting of death is sin; and he whose sins have been dismissed is set free also from the fear of death.
2. Because it is a refreshing and a restoring thing. The weary man wants rest. And the forgiven man who, in the strength of that forgiveness, has for many years been serving his generation, needs rest; he must renew his strength before he enters upon the occupations of the world of resurrection and of eternal life.
3. Because a Christian after a pause will awake, and be satisfied, when he awakes, with Gods likeness. (Dean Vaughan.)
The true life ever worth living
I. The sweet reasonableness of the true life. David served. There was a man of like passions with ourselves; and he lived out his life, a truly human life, a life of rare powers, of rich and varied endowments, of widest-ranging experiences and most exquisite sensibilities; and of that life the simple but sublime summation lies in this spirit-given word, served, and service, according to highest, holiest wisdom, is supremely reasonable and worthy of man; for still that voice is sounding, I came to minister. Such a life of all reasonable service opens to every man. How, you ask me, has it then become possible for men to ask, Is life worth living? The possibility lies largely in the lives. There are lives, alas! which almost demand the grim reply of blunt-spoken Samuel Johnson, I do not see, sir, the necessity for your living. Lives of service fit into this universe of reason, for our universe is most reasonable. All God-made things serve. Thus they show their reason. There is a need-be for them; they move to ends. Whatever truth may be in evolution, this for me is at present the chief truth--all the past has served unto this present, all this present is seen aiming at some coming fulness; and here I bow before the holy reason of an all-ordaining will.
II. The range of the true life. Served his generation. This true life, lived with rational purpose and with heroic patience under law and by love, this reasonable life of Christ-like service, is no mean, contracted, slavish thing of low and narrow aims and dismal drudgery. It is wide. It is strong. It is joyous. It has the sweep and the freshness of the sea in it; round and round it courses, generously leaving the broad shores and stealing with a resolute gentleness into every little quiet nook. It has the beauty and the strength of the mountain in it; it gladdens every healthy eye, and uplifts the weary into fresh power. It has the outstreaming gladness and the beneficent onroll of the great continental river in it; it brings its rich tributes from afar and deals them out freely adown its long-drawn banks. It claims its generation for its field. With the boldness of purest charity it owns no bounds save the stretch of its own years and the outreach of its own love-constrained forces. David served his own generation. How variously he served! As the shepherd lad in the Judaean farmers home; as the young minstrel before the maddening king; as the brave, cool, self-mastering soldier in days of trial and of triumph; as the faithful friend and the eager patriot; as the singer of the deepest songs of the pious heart and unwearying worker for the coming temple; as the Prince of Judah and King of Israel; as the saint--ay, as the sinner. And how patiently he served! from elastic youth to decrepit age. Let us go and do likewise. Let us serve our generation, our whole generation; all the circles of life that, in wider and yet wider spheres, sweep around us. We are central. Souls are ever insular. My own selfhood is the centre of my possible activity. All around me sweep the concentric circles of impressionable life. Here we see the inspiration, the grandeur, the far-reaching projection, yes, the endless perpetuity, of the true life. Our lives go down the centuries and out into eternity in the following lives of those who have been blessed and uplifted by our own. Ideals of youth; yes, have them! cherish them! It is sometimes stingingly said, oftener sneeringly thought, that the man of ideals is not the man for the rough, real, practical work of his times. Young men, be not deceived! Never were there men of loftier ideals than the Hebrew seers. They were preeminently the men of and for their times.
III. The rule for the true life, According to the will of God. Yes! according to this will; here we meet the regulative principle for these resolute, aggressive lives. Under the law of God: O surest bulwark of freedom! With the counsel of God: O sublime advice! After the pattern of God: O glorious ideal! It is the child recognising the paternal voice falling from the throne of love. The I ought of my soul is its answer to the I will of my King. Regulated movement is everywhere. Shall I not know it? Thy will be done is natures universal cry. Shall I stand in the profane without? No unchartered freedom mine, for I am child and He is Father; therefore am I not without law, but under law. There is for me, as for all things, the chief end. My chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. His plan then, His will, must be my law. Now, Gods law is ever the same, for He is one and changeless. But that one will has its personal, special, individual applications to each man, and to each man in each age. The infinity of its author is reflected in that laws inexhaustible fulness and its endless variety of possible adaptations. Like Paul it can make itself all things to all men, and that, too, in order to win each to the high and blessed life which God would have him live. Like Gods ever old yet ever fresh face of nature, the Word of God has new features for each new student, for each moral artist, each soul sculptor working out his own realisation of the one grand ideal--the true life for godlike man. The work varies with the man and with the varieties of the mans age. Innovations are the law and the life of human society, specially within its field of highest, intensest activity, which is, or ought to be, the Church. Pauls work is not the Baptists; the Baptists is not Malachis; Malachis is not Isaiahs; nor Isaiahs Elijahs; and yet to each the law of the Lord was a light and a lamp. In that purest light of Thine we see all things clearly--no shade of the many-coloured, ever-moving web of life left out of view!
IV. The reward of true life. Davids was two fold. It was both human and Divine. Men honoured him. God crowned him. Men honoured him; he was laid unto his fathers. He passed into the ranks of the never-forgotten, the honoured, the beloved dead, whose memories make the past a power and the future a joy. Live in the Spirit; and so become the fathers, the progenitors of the progressive centuries; make them fresher, sweeter, saintlier; then, indeed, men will rise up and call you blessed, acknowledging that the potent wine of your loving, laborious lives is stimulating them. And God, your own God, will not be unfaithful to forget your works of faith and your labours of love. God did indeed remember David and all his travail. David won the Divine recognition; and, in signal manner, God has kept guard over his life work; his royal line lives on in Davids greater Son, and his sweet songs go singing down the centuries, the guide of our childhood to God and the comfort of the parting soul. God accepted Davids work, and enshrined it in His holy places. That Davidic work was manifold, but its three highest manifestations were Davids literary, political, and religious activities. A new literature, art, and song! How we need them! New states of society, and happier forms of national existence! How the world is crying for them, and the cry sharpens into agony in the lands most civilised! The new temple, the living temple of the Spirit-born, the Christlike! Oh, blest solution of a thousand, thousand problems! (J. S. McIntosh.)
St. Pauls epitaph on David
The text is capable of three different constructions. The Authorised Version gives it in the form just read to you. David, after he had served his own generation by the will (counsel) of God, fell on sleep. The Revised Version gives it in another way: David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell on sleep. The margin of the Revised Version suggests a third arrangement: David, after he had served his own generation by the counsel of God, fell on sleep. In all forms of the sentence we have the threefold thought of a generation, a service, and a counsel of God concerning it. There may be longer, more detailed, more laudatory epitaphs--the fashion of the last century covered the walls of our churches with elaborate and fulsome panegyrics, amongst which this short sentence of St Pauls might have seemed scanty and grudging in its meed of praise--but the truer taste and more reverent feeling of our own age will appreciate the more expressive, and in reality the more majestic, brevity, He served his generation, and fell on sleep. The text presents us with two pairs of synonyms: Life is Service, and Death is Sleep.
I. Life is service. One rendering says, the service of God. Another rendering says, the service of a generation. But the most ignorant of thinkers or scholars will see no conflict, scarcely a divergence, in this variation. The moment the idea of service has attached itself to the idea of life enough has been done to preclude any practical uncertainty as to its nature or object. To be told that this life is not self-contained, not self-centred, not dominant, and not independent, but, on the contrary, that it is a ministry and a service as much as if I were receiving the wages and wearing the livery of an employer, is a surprise and a shock at the first hearing, or would be so if it were heard in the heart, heard as a revelation and heard as a call. Who shall pretend to say that the service of the generation may not have in it the service of a second or a third or a tenth generation, by reason of the impression made by its elevation, by its purity, by its benevolence, by its wisdom, upon the very ideas and principles of human living? It is given to a few men to leave a memory behind them in the shape of immortal writings, powerfully affecting the thought of all nations and languages, sometimes starting afresh into a novelty of influence at some great crisis of history, and moulding the taste or the judgment of posterity by a power only strengthened by lapse of time. Such men are necessarily few and far between. But speaking of average men, and of men above the average, men who have not one of these exceptional embassies, whether of transcendent genius or of Divine inspiration, to a worldwide and age-long audience, it is true--painfully true, or instructively true, as they hear and as they read it--that they can, at the best, serve but one generation, and then must see corruption. Great ability, great knowledge, great sagacity, great personal influence, great oratory, great generalship, great statesmanship, all are of the generation. There is nothing in any one of these of a nature to live on after the death of the possessor. We have seen all these by turns wield enormous power and yet pass away. In this place it is not inappropriate to speak of knowledge as ephemeral. The man who has only read, never written, the man who has spent his strength in accumulating from libraries and observatories--the man who has written, and written largely, and for a world of readers, while he was here to hold them--is as much lost to the succeeding generation (for there is a fashion, as well as a progress, even in knowing) as the brilliant talker who was the fascination of society, or the persuasive ecclesiastic of the pulpit or the confessional. Commonly, if life reaches anything like its natural limit of the threescore and ten or fourscore years, all these powers of which we have spoken wane and fade before the reaching. Not to mention probabilities of physical enfeeblement, the latter days of the life are, from perfectly distinct causes, less brilliant than the earlier--less active, less conspicuous, less impressive, less attractive, less influential. It is the rarest thing in the world if a man remains to the end so much as in sympathy with his generation. When at last the fulness of the time is come, and he is laid to his fathers to see corruption, it is but in a very few hearts that he leaves either a void or an impression. He served his own generation, and then fell on sleep. This is all that can be said of him. Shall we count this a small thing? Is it not enough if it can be said with truth of any man? If there is here the reproof of human vanity, is there not also here the repose of human restlessness? To serve one generation, is not this large enough and grand enough to satisfy any reasonable ambition? We fear rather lest some here should be saying, It is too large and too grand for such as I am! He served his own generation; yes, it is much to say of any man. A generation is a vast thing, an inconceivable thing, while we so speak of it. We must break it up into its elements before we can apprehend it. A generation in the mass and in the gross is the whole number of living and thinking beings alive at one time upon this great earth. How can a man imagine himself to be serving all that multitude? It is to fill the post assigned with diligence, with seriousness, with unselfishness, with God in sight. It may be done equally by prince and peasant, by master and servant, by man and woman. No one touches his generation at more than a few points--most people touch it but at one. That point of contact is the place of service; he serves his generation who serves faithfully that particular town or village or hamlet, that particular neighbourhood or family or home which is, for him, the little fragment or morsel of the generation as a whole. There is this also to reconcile us to the humbler and less conspicuous places of service--that the smaller the surface covered the deeper commonly and the more intense is the influence exercised. These are the compensations of the humble service, and of the generous Lord who takes it for His own. There is another sense, also, in which the thought of life as service has a tranquilising and even equalising influence. We have seen that the extent or space covered by it is nothing--so is it also with the duration of time. Some of the most telling services of the generation have been accomplished within the span of a few years. The thought of the generation is pregnant with applications. It reminds us of the succession and series of the inhabitants of each spot of this earth. It reminds us that there is no standing still and no looking backward, but a perpetual movement and reaching forth, in the collective life of Gods human family. To serve ones generation is to help it on. We ought to be ashamed of contributing nothing to the old sum, such as we found it, of human notions and of human practices. Each true servant of his generation does in some real, though to himself unconscious way, help to make the next generation after it better and happier. Certainly in this place of brief generations we have seen, we have felt it so! Something survives of each life of service. Something is immortal of each beautiful life! Some one is assisted in being good by each servant of the past. What has not David done for them that came after? The thought never came to him, but the thing was done. Who does not turn in trouble to that mans compositions? Who stays to say to himself, David lived so many hundreds of years before Christ, how then can he sound the depths of Christian sorrow and Christian ecstasy? He was as much the commissioned minstrel of the universal Church of God as Moses was its lawgiver or Isaiah its prophet. And yet David was no saint, if saintliness were perfection. Oh, if this thought of serving the one generation were once rooted and grounded in us--if the last suggestion of the manifoldness and unexpectedness of the ways and forms of serving were but worked out by each one in reference to his own experiences, the joyous and the grievous, as it ought to be, there would be an end in us forever of all restlessness and all mortification, there would be a definiteness and a concentration of purpose in us all; we should know exactly where we stood and how, we should feel it honour enough and to spare for the like of us if it could be written by the finger of God at last on the tomb of our resting, He served his generation … and fell on sleep. He served his generation, and in doing so he served Gods counsel concerning himself. How reassuring amidst all adverse appearances, how comforting amidst all misgivings and all gainsayings, to know that God has a will, has a counsel concerning each life! We are not the casual, accidental, haphazard things that infidelity would make of us. God had a counsel concerning each one, in fixing the place and the time, the conditions and circumstances of His being. Let us fulfil their high destiny! Enough if of one of us this may be the record, He served the counsel of God,…and he fell on sleep. Who shall tell us, concerning one of whom this is Gods record, that that sleep shall have no waking? The very words which tell of it, that it is a laying or adding or gathering to our fathers, seem to make the funeral itself a reunion. In the light of such revelations, death a falling on sleep, burial a gathering to the fathers, even the thought of seeing corruption shall lose for us its terror. (Dean Vaughan.)
Serving our generation
I. First, then, what is it to serve our own generation? This is a question which ought to interest us all very deeply. Though our citizenship is in heaven, yet, as we live on earth, we should seek to serve our generation while we pass as pilgrims to the better country. What, then, is it for a man to serve his own generation?
1. I note, first, that it is not to be a slave to it. It is not to drop into the habits, customs, and ideas of the generation in which we live. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for one generation, it is for all generations. It is the faith which needed to be only once for all delivered to the saints; it was given stereotyped as it always is to be. That man serves his generation best who is not caught by every new current of opinion, but stands firmly by the truth of God, which is a solid, immovable rock. But to serve our own generation in the sense of being a slave to it, its vassal, and its varlet--let those who care to do so go into such bondage and slavery if they will. Do you know what such a course involves? If any young man here shall begin to preach the doctrine and the thought of the age, within the next ten years, perhaps within the next ten months, he will have to eat his own words, and begin his work all over again.
2. In the next place, in seeking to answer the question, What is it to serve our own generation? I would say, it is not to fly from it. If he shall shut himself up, like a hermit, in his cave, and leave the world to go to ruin as it may, he will not be like David, for he served his own generation before he fell asleep. If you do not take your stand in this way, it can never truly be said of you that you served your generation. Instead of that, the truth will be that you allowed your generation to make a coward of you, or to muzzle you like a dog.
3. If we ask again, What is it to serve our generation? I answer, it is to perform the common duties of life, as David did. David was the son of a farmer, a sheep-owner, and he took first of all to the keeping of the sheep. Many young men do not like to do the common work of their own fathers business. The girl who dreams about the foreign missionary field, but cannot darn her brothers stockings, will not be of service either at home or abroad. But serving our generation means more than this.
4. It is to be ready for the occasion when it comes. In the midst of the routine of daily life, we should, by diligence in duty, prepare for whatever may be our future opportunity, waiting patiently until it comes. Look at Davids occasion of becoming famous He never sought it. If you are to serve God, wait till He calls you to His work: He knows where to find you when He wants you; you need not advertise yourself to His omniscience. If you want to serve the Church and serve the age, be wide awake when the occasion comes. Jump into the saddle when the horse is at your door; and God will bless you if you are on the lookout for opportunities of serving him. What is it, again, to serve our generation?
5. It is to maintain true religion. This David did. He had grave faults in his later life, which we will not extenuate; but he never swerved from his allegiance to Jehovah the true God. No word or action of his ever sanctioned anything like idolatry, or turning aside from the worship of Jehovah, the God of Israel.
6. To serve our own generation is not a single action, done at once, and over forever; it is to continue to serve all our life. Notice well that David served his own generation; not only a part of it, but the whole of it. He began to serve God, and he kept on serving God. How many young men have I seen who were going to do wonders! Ah, me! they were as proud of the intention as though they had already done the deed. Some, too, begin well, and they serve their God earnestly for a time, but on a sudden their service stops. One cannot quite tell how it happens, but we never hear of them afterwards. Men, as far as I know them, are wonderfully like horses. You get a horse, and you think, This is a first-rate animal, and so it is. It goes well for a while, but on a sudden it drops lame, and you have to get another. So it is with church members. I notice that every now and then they get a singular lameness. Yet more is included in this faithful serving of our generation.
7. It is to prepare for those who are to come after us. David served his generation to the very end by providing for the next generation. He was not permitted to build the temple; but he stored up a great mass of gold and silver to enable his son Solomon to carry out his noble design, and build a house for God. This is real service; to begin to serve God in early youth; to keep on till old age shall come; and even then to say, I cannot expect to serve the Lord much longer, but I will prepare the way as far as I can for those who will come after me.
II. In the second place, let us ask a question even more practical than the first: what parts of our generation can we serve? It is truly written, None of us liveth to himself: we either help or hinder those amongst whom we dwell. Let us see to it that we serve our age, and become stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks to those by whom we are surrounded. We shall serve our generation best by being definite in our aim. In trying to reach everybody we may help nobody. I divide the generation in which we live into three parts.
1. First, there is the part that is setting. Some are like the sun going down in the west; they will be gone soon. Serve them. You that are in health and vigour, comfort them, strengthen them, and help them all you can. Be a joy to that dear old man, who has been spared to you even beyond the allotted threescore years and ten, and praise God for the grace that has upheld him through his long pilgrimage.
2. The second portion of our generation which we can serve is the part that is shining. I mean those in middle life, who are like the sun at its zenith. Help them all you can.
3. Specially, however, I want to speak to you about serving your own generation in the part that is rising; the young people who are like the sun in the east, as yet scarcely above the horizon. In them lies our hope for the future of Gods cause on earth. In the first place, they are the most reachable. Happily, we can get at the children. Moreover, the children are the most impressible. What can we do with the man who is hardened in sin? The salvation of the children ought to be sought with double diligence, for they will last the longest. Remember, too, that those who are converted when children usually make the best saints. We ought to look after the children, again, for they are specially named by Christ. He said, Feed My sheep; but He also said Feed My lambs. Look after the children of this generation, again, for the dangers around them at the present time are almost innumerable.
III. What will happen to us when our service is done? David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep. The days work is done; the worker is weary; he falls on sleep: what can he do better? It was all by the will of God. To what part of the sentence do you think that clause belongs? Did David serve his generation by the will of God; or did he fall asleep by the will of God? Both. Guided by the will of God, he did his work on earth; and calmly resigned to the will of God he prepared to die. Even when passing away, he served his generation by giving Solomon some last charges concerning the kingdom, saying, I go the way of all the earth; be thou strong and show thyself a man. Over both his life and his death may be written the words, By the will of God. David is an example of what will befall those who know Christ, at the end of their service.
1. He did not go to sleep till his work was done. David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep. Do not want to die till you have done your work.
2. But, next, we are told that when his work was done, he fell on sleep. Did his soul sleep? By no means. It is not his soul that is spoken of here, for we read that he saw corruption. Souls do not see corruption. Paul is speaking of Davids body. He fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. His body fell into its last, long sleep, and saw corruption. If you like to take the words in the wider sense, he was asleep as far as the world was concerned; he had done with it. No sorrow came to him, no earthly joy, no mingling with the strife of tongues, no girding on his harness for the war.
3. Does not this word further mean that his dying was like going to sleep? It usually is so with Gods people. Some die with a considerable measure of pain; but, as a rule, when believers pass away, they just shut their eyes on earth, and open them in heaven. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Scriptural ideal of a good mans life and death
We have in the text an inspired representation.
I. Of a good mans life.
1. It is distinguished as a service on behalf of others. David served his own generation. The word is expressive of laborious usefulness. It intimates that the man after Gods own heart, was not content with idle wishes, fruitless theories, abortive projects. And still, wherever there is true goodness, there will be the effort to serve. No man liveth to himself. The grand model of holy living was among His followers as one that serveth. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
2. It is specially devoted to the benefit of his contemporaries, his own generation. He acquired a familiarity with the wants and woes of the men and women around him, and laboured to supply and alleviate them. Though good men may, and must, do many things that will only yield fruit in after days, they will seek to have understanding of the times, and to know what they ought to do to promote and conserve the welfare of those around them. Where there is want, they will strive to supply it; where there is ignorance, they will strive to dispel it; where there is weakness, they will strive to uphold it; and where there is guilt, they will be pitiful and tender, if by any means the wrong-doer may be reclaimed. Think how soon the opportunity of helping will have slipped away from us. Our own generation, how it is diminishing every day! In a very little while, we ourselves, as members of it will have disappeared.
3. It is regulated by a paramount regard to the will of God. Of David, God said, I have found a man after Mine own heart, which shall fulfill all My will. The early promise was not belied. Now, if there be one thing that is more distinctive of good men than any other, it is just this high regard for the will of God. To know that, is their most earnest desire; to do it, is their most strenuous endeavour.
II. Of a good mans death. Note--
1. That little word after. After he had lived his true life. After he had fulfilled his mission. After he had accomplished his day, then he died; not before. We are thus taught that the time of a godly mans departure out of the world is definitely appointed. It is not an affair of chance. It is ordered of God. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints--so precious that He prearranges all the circumstances of their death, directs its causes, and ordains its period. Each of us is immortal till his work is done. Gods witnesses, says Henry, never die till they have finished their testimony.
2. The peculiar character of a good mans death. David, when his work was done fell on sleep--as the tired labourer, when his daily toils are ended, wends his way to his much-loved home, and calmly lays him down to rest, without a thought of anxiety or dread; glad that the hour is come, thankful for its provision. (C. M. Merry.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v36
Acts
THE FIRST PREACHING IN ASIA MINOR
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LUTHER-A STONE ON THE CAIRN
Act 13:36 - Act 13:37.
I take these words as a motto rather than as a text. You will have anticipated the use which I purpose to make of them in connection with the Luther Commemoration. They set before us, in clear sharp contrast, the distinction between the limited, transient work of the servants and the unbounded, eternal influence of the Master. The former are servants, and that but for a time; they do their work, they are laid in the grave, and as their bodies resolve into their elements, so their influence, their teaching, the institutions which they may have founded, disintegrate and decay. He lives. His relation to the world is not as theirs; He is ‘not for an age, but for all time.’ Death is not the end of His work. His Cross is the eternal foundation of the world’s hope. His life is the ultimate, perfect revelation of the divine Nature which can never be surpassed, or fathomed, or antiquated. Therefore the last thought, in all commemorations of departed teachers and guides, should be of Him who gave them all the force that they had; and the final word should be: ‘They were not suffered to continue by reason of death, this Man continueth ever.’
In the same spirit then as the words of my text, and taking them as giving me little more than a starting-point and a framework, I draw from them some thoughts appropriate to the occasion.
I. First, we have to think about the limited and transient work of this great servant of God.
The miner’s son, who was born in that little Saxon village four hundred years ago, presents at first sight a character singularly unlike the traditional type of mediaeval Church fathers and saints. Their ascetic habits, and the repressive system under which they were trained, withdraw them from our sympathy; but this sturdy peasant, with his full-blooded humanity, unmistakably a man, and a man all round, is a new type, and looks strangely out of place amongst doctors and mediaeval saints.
His character, though not complex, is many-sided and in some respects contradictory. The face and figure that look out upon us from the best portraits of Luther tell us a great deal about the man. Strong, massive, not at all elegant; he stands there, firm and resolute, on his own legs, grasping a Bible in a muscular hand. There is plenty of animalism-a source of power as well as of weakness-in the thick neck; an iron will in the square chin; eloquence on the full, loose lips; a mystic, dreamy tenderness and sadness in the steadfast eyes- altogether a true king and a leader of men!
The first things that strike one in the character are the iron will that would not waver, the indomitable courage that knew no fear, the splendid audacity that, single-handed, sprang into the arena for a contest to the death with Pope, Emperors, superstitions, and devils; the insight that saw the things that were ‘hid from the wise and prudent,’ and the answering sincerity that would not hide what he saw, nor say that he saw what he did not.
But there was a great deal more than that in the man. He was no mere brave revolutionary, he was a cultured scholar, abreast of all the learning of his age, capable of logic-chopping and scholastic disputation on occasion, and but too often the victim of his own over-subtle refinements. He was a poet, with a poet’s dreaminess and waywardness, fierce alternations of light and shade, sorrow and joy. All living things whispered and spoke to him, and he walked in communion with them all. Little children gathered round his feet, and he had a big heart of love for all the weary and the sorrowful.
Everybody knows how he could write and speak. He made the German language, as we may say, lifting it up from a dialect of boors to become the rich, flexible, cultured speech that it is. And his Bible, his single-handed work, is one of the colossal achievements of man; like Stonehenge or the Pyramids. ‘His words were half-battles,’ ‘they were living creatures that had hands and feet’; his speech, direct, strong, homely, ready to borrow words from the kitchen or the gutter, is unmatched for popular eloquence and impression. There was music in the man. His flute solaced his lonely hours in his home at Wittemberg; and the Marseillaise of the Reformation, as that grand hymn of his has been called, came, words and music, from his heart. There was humour in him, coarse horseplay often; an honest, hearty, broad laugh frequently, like that of a Norse god. There were coarse tastes in him, tastes of the peasant folk from whom he came, which clung to him through life, and kept him in sympathy with the common people, and intelligible to them. And withal there was a constitutional melancholy, aggravated by his weary toils, perilous fightings, and fierce throes, which led him down often into the deep mire where there was no standing; and which sighs through all his life. The penitential Psalms and Paul’s wail: ‘O wretched man that I am,’ perhaps never woke more plaintive echo in any human heart than they did in Martin Luther’s.
Faults he had, gross and plain as the heroic mould in which he was cast. He was vehement and fierce often; he was coarse and violent often. He saw what he did see so clearly, that he was slow to believe that there was anything that he did not see. He was oblivious of counterbalancing considerations, and given to exaggerated, incautious, unguarded statements of precious truths. He too often aspired to be a driver rather than a leader of men; and his strength of will became obstinacy and tyranny. It was too often true that he had dethroned the pope of Rome to set up a pope at Wittemberg. And foul personalities came from his lips, according to the bad controversial fashion of his day, which permitted a licence to scholars that we now forbid to fishwives.
All that has to be admitted; and when it is all admitted, what then? This is a fastidious generation; Erasmus is its heroic type a great deal more than Luther-I mean among the cultivated classes of our day-and that very largely because in Erasmus there is no quick sensibility to religious emotion as there is in Luther, and no inconvenient fervour. The faults are there-coarse, plain, palpable- and perhaps more than enough has been made of them. Let us remember, as to his violence, that he was following the fashion of the day; that he was fighting for his life; that when a man is at death-grips with a tiger he may be pardoned if he strikes without considering whether he is going to spoil the skin or not; and that on the whole you cannot throttle snakes in a graceful attitude. Men fought then with bludgeons; they fight now with dainty polished daggers, dipped in cold, colourless poison of sarcasm. Perhaps there was less malice in the rougher old way than in the new.
The faults are there, and nobody who is not a fool would think of painting that homely Saxon peasant-monk’s face without the warts and the wrinkles. But it is quite as unhistorical, and a great deal more wicked, to paint nothing but the warts and wrinkles; to rake all the faults together and make the most of them; and present them in answer to the question: ‘What sort of a man was Martin Luther?’
As to the work that he did, like the work of all of us, it had its limitations, and it will have its end. The impulse that he communicated, like all impulses that are given from men, will wear out its force. New questions will arise of which the dead leaders never dreamed, and in which they can give no counsel. The perspective of theological thought will alter, the centre of interest will change, a new dialect will begin to be spoken. So it comes to pass that all religious teachers and thinkers are left behind, and that their words are preserved and read rather for their antiquarian and historical interest than because of any impulse or direction for the present which may linger in them; and if they founded institutions, these too, in their time, will crumble and disappear.
But I do not mean to say that the truths which Luther rescued from the dust of centuries, and impressed upon the conscience of Teutonic Europe, are getting antiquated. I only mean that his connection with them and his way of putting them, had its limitations and will have its end: ‘This man, having served his own generation by the will of God, was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption.’
What were the truths, what was his contribution to the illumination of Europe, and to the Church? Three great principles-which perhaps closer analysis might reduce to one; but which for popular use, on such an occasion as the present, had better be kept apart-will state his service to the world.
There were three men in the past who, as it seems to me, reach out their hands to one another across the centuries-Paul, St. Augustine, and Martin Luther, The three very like each other, all three of them joining the same subtle speculative power with the same capacity of religious fervour, and of flaming up at the contemplation of divine truth; all of them gifted with the same exuberant, and to fastidious eyes, incorrect eloquence; all three trained in a school of religious thought of which each respectively was destined to be the antagonist and all but the destroyer.
The young Pharisee, on the road to Damascus, blinded, bewildered, with all that vision flaming upon him, sees in its light his past, which he thought had been so pure, and holy, and God-serving, and amazedly discovers that it had been all a sin and a crime, and a persecution of the divine One. Beaten from every refuge, and lying there, he cries: ‘What wouldst Thou have me to do, Lord?’
The young Manichean and profligate in the fourth century, and the young monk in his convent in the fifteenth, passed through a similar experience;-different in form, identical in substance-with that of Paul the persecutor. And so Paul’s Gospel, which was the description and explanation, the rationale, of his own experience, became their Gospel; and when Paul said: ‘Not by works of righteousness which our own hands have done, but by His mercy He saved us’ {Tit 3:5}, the great voice from the North African shore, in the midst of the agonies of barbarian invasions and a falling Rome, said ‘Amen. Man lives by faith,’ and the voice from the Wittemberg convent, a thousand years after, amidst the unspeakable corruption of that phosphorescent and decaying Renaissance, answered across the centuries, ‘It is true!’ ‘Herein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.’ Luther’s word to the world was Augustine’s word to the world; and Luther and Augustine were the echoes of Saul of Tarsus-and Paul learned his theology on the Damascus road, when the voice bade him go and proclaim ‘forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me’ {Act 26:18}. That is Luther’s first claim on our gratitude, that he took this truth from the shelves where it had reposed, dust-covered, through centuries, that he lifted this truth from the bier where it had lain, smothered with sacerdotal garments, and called with a loud voice, ‘I say unto thee, arise!’ and that now the commonplace of Christianity is this: All men are sinful men, justice condemns us all, our only hope is God’s infinite mercy, that mercy comes to us all in Jesus Christ that died for us, and he that gets that into his heart by simple faith, he is forgiven, pure, and he is an heir of Heaven.
There are other aspects of Christian truth which Luther failed to apprehend. The Gospel is, of course, not merely a way of reconciliation and forgiveness. He pushed his teaching of the uselessness of good works as a means of salvation too far. He said rash and exaggerated things in his vehement way about the ‘justifying power’ of faith alone. Doubtless his language was often overstrained, and his thoughts one-sided, in regard to subjects that need very delicate handling and careful definition. But after all this is admitted, it remains true that his strong arm tossed aside the barriers and rubbish that had been piled across the way by which prodigals could go home to their Father, and made plain once more the endless mercy of God, and the power of humble faith. He was right when he declared that whatever heights and depths there may be in God’s great revelation, and however needful it is for a complete apprehension of the truth as it is in Jesus that these should find their place in the creed of Christendom, still the firmness with which that initial truth of man’s sinfulness and his forgiveness and acceptance through simple faith in Christ is held, and the clear earnestness with which it is proclaimed, are the test of a standing or a falling Church.
And then closely connected with this central principle, and yet susceptible of being stated separately, are the other two; of neither of which do I think it necessary to say more than a word. Following on that great discovery-for it was a discovery-by the monk in his convent, of justification by faith, there comes the other principle of the entire sweeping away of all priesthood, and the direct access to God of every individual Christian soul. There are no more external rites to be done by a designated and separate class. There is one sacrificing Priest, and one only, and that is Jesus Christ, who has sacrificed Himself for us all, and there are no other priests, except in the sense in which every Christian man is a priest and minister of the most high God. And no man comes between me and my Father; and no man has power to do anything for me which brings me any grace, except in so far as mine own heart opens for the reception, and mine own faith lays hold of the grace given.
Luther did not carry that principle so far as some of us modern Nonconformists carry it. He left illogical fragments of sacramentarian and sacerdotal theories in his creed and in his Church. But, for all that, we owe mainly to him the clear utterance of that thought, the warm breath of which has thawed the ice chains which held Europe in barren bondage. Notwithstanding the present portentous revival of sacerdotalism, and the strange turning again of portions of society to these beggarly elements of the past, I believe that the figments of a sacrificing priesthood and sacramental efficacy will never again permanently darken the sky in this land, the home of the men who speak the tongue of Milton, and owe much of their religious and political freedom to the reformation of Luther.
And the third point, which is closely connected with these other two, is this, the declaration that every illuminated Christian soul has a right and is bound to study God’s Word without the Church at his elbow to teach him what to think about it. It was Luther’s great achievement that, whatever else he did, he put the Bible into the hands of the common people. In that department and region, his work perhaps bears more distinctly the traces of limitation and imperfection than anywhere else, for he knew nothing-how could he?- of the difficult questions of this day in regard to the composition and authority of Scripture, nor had he thought out his own system or done full justice to his own principle.
He could be as inquisitorial and as dogmatic as any Dominican of them all. He believed in force; he was as ready as all his fellows were to invoke the aid of the temporal power. The idea of the Church, as helped and sustained-which means fettered, and weakened, and paralysed-by the civic government, bewitched him as it did his fellows. We needed to wait for George Fox, and Roger Williams, and more modern names still, before we understood fully what was involved in the rejection of priesthood, and the claim that God’s Word should speak directly to each Christian soul. But for all that, we largely owe to Luther the creed that looks in simple faith to Christ, a Church without a priest, in which every man is a priest of the Most High,-the only true democracy that the world will ever see-and a Church in which the open Bible and the indwelling Spirit are the guides of every humble soul within its pale. These are his claims on our gratitude.
Luther’s work had its limitations and its imperfections, as I have been saying to you. It will become less and less conspicuous as the ages go on. It cannot be otherwise. That is the law of the world. As a whole green forest of the carboniferous era is represented now in the rocks by a thin seam of coal, no thicker than a sheet of paper, so the stormy lives and the large works of the men that have gone before, are compressed into a mere film and line, in the great cliff that slowly rises above the sea of time and is called the history of the world.
II. Be it so; be it so! Let us turn to the other thought of our text, the perpetual work of the abiding Lord.
‘He whom God raised up saw no corruption.’ It is a fact that there are thousands of men and women in the world to-day who have a feeling about that nineteen-centuries-dead Galilean carpenter’s son that they have about no one else. All the great names of antiquity are but ghosts and shadows, and all the names in the Church and in the world, of men whom we have not seen, are dim and ineffectual to us. They may evoke our admiration, our reverence, and our wonder, but none of them can touch our hearts. But here is this unique, anomalous fact that men and women by the thousand love Jesus Christ, the dead One, the unseen One, far away back there in the ages, and feel that there is no mist of oblivion between them and Him.
That is because He does for you and me what none of these other men can do. Luther preached about the Cross; Christ died on it. ‘Was Paul crucified for you?’ there is the secret of His undying hold upon the world. The further secret lies in this, that He is not a past force but a present one. He is no exhausted power but a power mighty to-day; working in us, around us, on us, and for us-a living Christ. ‘This Man whom God raised up from the dead saw no corruption,’ the others move away from us like figures in a fog, dim as they pass into the mists, having a blurred half-spectral outline for a moment, and then gone.
Christ’s death has a present and a perpetual power. He has ‘offered one sacrifice for sins for ever’; and no time can diminish the efficacy of His Cross, nor our need of it, nor the full tide of blessings which flow from it to the believing soul. Therefore do men cling to Him today as if it was but yesterday that He had died for them. When all other names carved on the world’s records have become unreadable, like forgotten inscriptions on decaying grave-stones, His shall endure for ever, deep graven on the fleshly tables of the heart. His revelation of God is the highest truth. Till the end of time men will turn to His life for their clearest knowledge and happiest certainty of their Father in heaven. There is nothing limited or local in His character or works. In His meek beauty and gentle perfectness, He stands so high above us all that, to-day, the inspiration of His example and the lessons of His conduct touch us as much as if He had lived in this generation, and will always shine before men as their best and most blessed law of conduct. Christ will not be antiquated till He is outgrown, and it will be some time before that happens.
But Christ’s power is not only the abiding influence of His earthly life and death. He is not a past force, but a present one. He is putting forth fresh energies to-day, working in and for and by all who love Him. We believe in a living Christ.
Therefore the final thought, in all our grateful commemoration of dead helpers and guides, should be of the undying Lord. He sent whatsoever power was in them. He is with His Church to-day, still giving to men the gifts needful for their times. Aaron may die on Hor, and Moses be laid in his unknown grave on Pisgah, but the Angel of the Covenant, who is the true Leader, abides in the pillar of cloud and fire, Israel’s guide in the march, and covering shelter in repose. That is our consolation in our personal losses when our dear ones are ‘not suffered to continue by reason of death.’ He who gave them all their sweetness is with us still, and has all the sweetness which He lent them for a time. So if we have Christ with us we cannot be desolate. Looking on all the men, who in their turn have helped forward His cause a little way, we should let their departure teach us His presence, their limitations His all-sufficiency, their death His life.
Luther was once found, at a moment of peril and fear, when he had need to grasp unseen strength, sitting in an abstracted mood, tracing on the table with his finger the words ‘Vivit! vivit!’-’He lives! He lives!’ It is our hope for ourselves, and for God’s truth, and for mankind. Men come and go; leaders, teachers, thinkers speak and work for a season and then fall silent and impotent. He abides. They die, but He lives. They are lights kindled, and therefore sooner or later quenched, but He is the true light from which they draw all their brightness, and He shines for evermore. Other men are left behind and, as the world glides forward, are wrapped in ever-thickening folds of oblivion, through which they shine feebly for a little while, like lamps in a fog, and then are muffled in invisibility. We honour other names, and the coming generations will forget them, but ‘His name shall endure for ever, His name shall continue as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in Him; all nations shall call Him blessed.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv34–37 34-37. That we have given the true explanation of…
34-37. That we have given the true explanation of the clause last quoted is confirmed by the course of the argument in that which follows, in which the speaker continues to quote from David, to prove that, according to his prophesies, the Messiah should rise from the dead. (34) " Now that he did raise him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he spoke thus: I will give to you the sure mercies of David. (35) Wherefore he also says in another psalm, Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. (36) For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was added to his fathers, and saw corruption; (37) but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. "
The words quoted from the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah , "I will give you the sure mercies of David," have given no little trouble to both translators and interpreters. No translator can feel well satisfied with rendering ta osia David ta pista, the sure mercies of David; yet the literal translators have generally adopted this as the best that can be done. I think the words mean the holy things made sure to David. The purpose of the quotation is to prove that God would raise the Messiah from the dead no more to return to corruption. He assumes, therefore, that the words quoted refer to the Messiah, and that his hearers would not dispute the reference. Whatever, therefore, might otherwise be our own understanding of the words, we must take this as their true reference. The promise is addressed not to the Messiah, but to the Jews; for the pronoun you ( umin ) is in the plural number. It is a promise, then, to give to the Jews the holy things faithfully promised to David, among which was the promise already referred to, "Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption." It furnished, therefore, the required proof that the Messiah would rise, and not see corruption.
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The only objection which his hearers would be likely to raise against the argument is, that in the words, "Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption," David spoke of himself. But this objection is anticipated by the remark that David had fallen asleep and seen corruption, whereas he, Jesus, whom God raised up, as was proved by the witnesses who saw him alive, did not see corruption; hence to him the words must refer. According, therefore, to the only possible application of David's words, and to the admitted reference of the words quoted from Isaiah, they were bound to admit that Jesus was the Messiah.
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v35 This is why he also says in another Psalm
This is why he also says in another Psalm
Paul's audience would have understood that this Psalm refers to the Messiah. AT: "In another Psalm of David, he also says about the Messiah" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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he also says
"David also says." David is the author of Psalm 16 from which this quotation is taken.
You will not allow your Holy One to see decay
The phrase "see decay" is a metonym for "decay." AT: "You will not allow the body of your Holy One to rot" (See: Metonymy)
You will not allow
David is speaking to God here.
in his own generation
"during his lifetime"
served the desires of God
"did what God wanted him to do" or "did what pleased God"
he fell asleep
This was a polite way to refer to death. AT: "he died" (See: Euphemism)
was laid with his fathers
"was buried with his ancestors who had died"
experienced decay
The phrase "experienced decay" is a metonym for "his body decayed." AT: "his body rotted" (See: Metonymy)
But he whom
"but Jesus whom"
God raised up
Here to raise up is an idiom for causing someone who has died to become alive again. AT: "God caused to live again" (See: Idiom)
experienced no decay
The phrase "experienced no decay" is a way to say "his body did not decay." AT: "did not rot" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
psalm
Holy One
David
generation
ancestor
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.