Dennis Tuuri

Acts 11:19-26

Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene which when they were come to Antioch spake to the Grecians preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.

Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem. And they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch, who when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart, they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith, and much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul.

And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves at the church and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

—

Gladness. That’s what we want, isn’t it? We want to be glad. You want to be joyous. As I was thinking through this citation in the text we just read of Barnabas being glad at the manifestation of the grace of God and our desire to be glad, I thought of an old rock and roll song again. I have those memories for good or evil, the providence of God, I pray that they’re for good.

There was a group who once had a song called “I’m So Glad.” And that was the only lyric throughout the song, just repeated over and over and over. “I’m so glad. I’m so glad. I’m glad. I’m glad. I’m glad.” Well, that’s what we want. We want to be glad. We want to be joyous. And we see in today’s account the third reference to the person of Barnabas.

You remember, if you’ve been listening to these sermons or if you know the book of Acts well, that the original reference to Barnabas was that he had sold some property. Remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira? Barnabas was mentioned there as selling property and giving to the church. He was a man of good works.

The second reference was when Barnabas was the one who stood up for Saul when Saul, after his conversion, was at Jerusalem. So Barnabas is the one who ministered to him and helped him.

And here we have the third reference to Barnabas going and overseeing the original establishment of the church at Antioch, which would become, as I said earlier, one of the great patriarchal centers of the early Christian church.

We are focusing in on verse 23 particularly today. Here is what it’s talking about: Barnabas. When he came to Antioch, when he had seen the grace of God, was glad and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. We see the gladness of Barnabas in the text before us.

Now I’m going to take this text and, as your outline indicates, talk about the context of gladness. What is God’s declared relationship to gladness? We want to be glad. We should understand that there are relationships of other things—the context for them. In specifically verse 23, we see two of those contexts. Barnabas is glad seeing the manifestation of grace—God’s grace. He sees the grace in the Antioch church and he’s glad as a result of that. And because of his gladness, he exhorts them.

So the bookends, if you will, of gladness in the text in verse 23 are, on the one hand, grace, and on the other hand, consecration. So those would be our first two topics. And then the third and fourth topics are implied in the text. There’s a relationship, of course, of gladness to victory, and of course that relates us to the resurrection. So we’ll talk today about gladness and its context: grace, consecration, victory, and resurrection.

Now, first of all, the specific exegetical relationship of gladness—the gladness that caused Barnabas’s gladness—is the manifestation of grace. As I said in verse 23, Barnabas is glad when he sees the grace of God. And it’s very significant that the text tells us that he saw the grace of God.

The grace of God is not something that has no relationship to what we can observe with our eyes. Barnabas saw things in the Antiochian church that made him glad, and he recognized those things. And Luke specifically tells us that what he was seeing was the manifestation of God’s grace.

Grace is the unmerited favor of God. We deserve nothing from God. We grumble and complain about many things that go wrong in our lives, and we hang our heads and feel badly that we’re treated so poorly by God or by other men. But of course, we always should remember that the only thing that we really are owed from God on the basis of who we are, on the basis of our own person, is damnation, hell, and suffering. We have nothing in us to merit the grace that God has shown to us, the goodness that he shows to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And so gladness begins with a manifestation, a response to the grace of God. And as I said, that grace can be manifested through lives, through actions, through deeds, through works, through historical events. Barnabas was responding not to some sort of mystical sense that he picked up of grace, but rather the visible demonstration of God’s grace in the lives of the people at Antioch.

Throughout this account and throughout the whole scriptures, the scriptures can be said on one account to be simply a manifestation of God’s grace. The fact that God gives us a Bible is grace to us. We don’t deserve a revealing word from him that brings us the knowledge of the Savior and the power of the Holy Spirit to believe.

But here particularly, I’d like us to think just a little bit upon the various aspects of grace that are demonstrated to us in this passage and remind ourselves that we sit here today as the recipients of God’s grace. And if we understand that, then it will cause our hearts to be glad and to rejoice before him.

I know you know what I’ve said, and you know what I’m going to tell you here, but still it’s good to remind ourselves of it and to quicken ourselves to gladness based upon the grace shown to us.

Think first of all about the missionaries that are sent to these people at Antioch and into this region. Antioch is about 300 miles away from Jerusalem. It’s a long trek. And so when these people left Jerusalem after the persecution of Stephen, they walked a long way, rode a long way to go to these far remote places. Antioch was the capital of Syria, way to the north. Other places are mentioned as well—some places in Turkey and along the coast north of Jerusalem, the Tyre and Sidon region.

Well, these missionaries were demonstrating the grace of God to correctly respond to persecution. They didn’t simply give up. They didn’t lay down and die. They instead moved to service by God. And that is a manifestation of God’s grace when we can respond to persecution correctly as these men did. The response to the persecution was to go out and to preach the gospel and to continue to manifest the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There was grace also to these missionaries because God’s hand was upon them. The scriptures tell us that God’s hand of power was with these missionaries. They don’t deserve that through who they are. That’s totally the result of God’s grace to them in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Greeks at Antioch whom they preached to as well—of course, manifest grace that Barnabas is glad for and we should be as well. The fact that they believed the word of the Lord, the word of the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that they believed—that alone, of course, is a manifestation of grace. People do not choose or opt for a decision for the Lord Jesus Christ apart from the grace of God. He elects us. He calls us, not on the basis of who we are, but totally on the basis of Jesus Christ’s work. So the Greeks here believing—it’s a manifestation of grace.

They turned to the Lord. Specifically, the text tells us—again, a manifestation of God’s grace in their lives. They were added to the Lord. A very distinctive phrase. They weren’t added to the church in its ultimate sense. In the ultimate sense, they are added to the Lord. And there’s no benefit in these Greeks to cause them to be added to the Lord. It’s the grace of God causing that to occur. They bore his very name.

This is the first place the scriptures tell us very specifically that disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ were called Christians, was here at Antioch. That was the grace of God as well. That they would actually bear his name—Christ, the Anointed One—and declaring who they are. And to this day, 2,000 years later, we call ourselves Christians.

And see, if we’ve believed, if we’ve turned to the Lord, if we have been added to the Lord, and if we have taken upon ourselves the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, then please understand all of these things are a great manifestation of the grace of God to each of us individually and to the others that you see in the room as well. And so we should be as Barnabas was. We should look at that grace and respond with gladness.

Now the church in Jerusalem as well—we have the ones who were sent out demonstrating God’s grace, the ones who heard the message demonstrating God’s grace. The church at Jerusalem then graciously sends forth Barnabas. Word comes back to the mother church at Jerusalem. There’s conversions going on up in Antioch of Greeks, up in Syria, this great capital city. And the church then could have just said, “Well, hope they do well,” but no—they gave up, so to speak, for a period of time, Barnabas.

Now we know that Barnabas was important to the church of Jerusalem. We know that he sold property. We know that he encouraged people. His name means “son of encouragement.” He was a man who brought encouragement and exhortation to people’s lives. He was very useful to the church at Jerusalem. But they very graciously said, “We will send him forth, not holding on to this precious gift to God of encouragement and of administration of grace, the giving of the property, the standing up for Saul, etc.”

The church of Jerusalem graciously gave up Barnabas. That’s a manifestation of God’s grace to them. And we’ve had such a manifestation in our own church here. A year and a half ago, we released and sent forth with our blessings the Hazes up to minister up in Seattle. And that’s a manifestation of God’s grace to us—that we didn’t hold on to them, for seeing what they could do for us, rather sent them forth to that field. So we have these manifestations of grace from the church in Jerusalem as well.

Remember, they sent Barnabas forth not to some great holy people but to pagan Gentiles, to uncircumcised ones. And so this is really a manifestation of God’s grace—that they didn’t hold back from doing that because of the state of the people that they sent Barnabas forth to.

Barnabas himself, of course, demonstrates grace throughout this text. We are told that he was a good man filled with the Spirit and with faith. Well, we know the scriptures say there’s none good but one—our Savior tells us that’s God. And so Barnabas is only good because of the grace of God extended to him through the work of Jesus Christ. He’s not filled with the Spirit or faith on the basis of his own work. He’s filled with that Spirit and faith on the basis of God’s grace shown to him through the work of Jesus Christ.

He graciously went forth to the Gentiles. He could have said, “Well, I don’t think I want to go up there. I’ve got, you know, a medical condition or I needed to,” whatever it was, but he graciously went forth to the Gentiles, desiring to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s an act of grace to Barnabas as well, because each one of us in and of ourselves don’t want to sacrifice for other people, and this was a sacrifice. So we see that grace manifested.

He actually saw the grace of God, and that itself is a gift of grace to him. He had eyes to see. He could see the visible manifestation of God’s grace in the Antiochians believing and turning to the Lord and being added to the Lord and calling themselves Christians. But you know, a lot of people would see that, a lot of people did see that, and didn’t attribute that to the grace of God. They thought it was foolishness or something else. And so it was grace that gave Barnabas eyes of faith to look at facts and interpret them again according to God’s word—to look at the facts that he was seeing in the Antiochians’ lives and interpret that according to God’s word. That’s the grace of God.

And if you’re able to think of things going on in your life, if you’re able to sacrificially give of your time to help other people—even in some small way, I’m sure that all of you have this last week, right in the context of the family itself, of course, we do that, but then in our communities as well. And if you can see with the eyes of faith the grace that’s being manifested in your family, in this church, in the greater world around us, in the extended body of Jesus Christ—these things should cause you to have gladness this day, because they’re manifestations of grace.

And grace is what Barnabas saw, and grace is what led him to gladness.

Barnabas had grace to avoid envy and instead experienced gladness at these conversions of the Gentiles. Remember, there were some—we’ll see this later, of course—but there were some who envied the Gentiles, the Greeks, who were added into the church of Jesus Christ because they hadn’t paid those long years of dues and they weren’t circumcised. Barnabas wouldn’t become envious because he’d been given God’s grace. So grace is manifested there as well.

He had the grace to exhort men. He wasn’t a man pleaser. He saw what was good. He was glad for it and praised God for it. But he then went on to exhort the Antiochians. And see, we frequently don’t do that with each other because we’re man-pleasing. We want to please men. We don’t want them to get upset with us. It’s the grace of God that allows us to go beyond that, to go ahead and speak words of exhortation one to the other in the context of our families or our communities or this church—the manifestation of the grace of God.

And he also had the grace, the text tells us, to seek out a coworker. He didn’t keep this mission field to himself. He went actually searching out, and the text seems to indicate it took him some time to do this. When he finally found Saul, he brings him back. He had the grace to go seek out Saul—one who he probably knew, I’m sure he did, was designated as the apostle to the Gentiles and would surpass him in the work that was going to be done there. And indeed, this would happen. But Barnabas didn’t care for his own self, his own reputation, his own place of prestige or authority in the context of the church. He sought out one who would help him with that work.

So he sought out Saul. He didn’t want the light to sit under the bushel basket, being Saul away wherever he was. We’re not sure the text doesn’t tell us exactly where. He wasn’t where Barnabas thought he would be. But no—Barnabas thought it would be good to bring that light out from underneath the bushel basket, bring that candlestick to full flare in the context of this new Gentile work at Antioch.

And that’s the manifestation of God’s grace to him as well.

It’s interesting that Calvin talks about this and the importance of recognizing Barnabas’s magnanimity in bringing Saul to the mission field there. And Calvin himself saw such a manifestation of grace in his life. It was Farel at Geneva that sought out Calvin as he was passing through, so to speak, in the region, and who insisted that Calvin come and work at Geneva.

Well, Farel probably knew as well that this great man Calvin would surpass him. But still, he did not seek his own well-being, his own prestige, his own place of authority in the church. He sought for a candle under a bushel basket—John Calvin. And as a result of the demonstration of God’s grace in Farel’s life, we have the tremendous work that went on then through Calvin’s work at Geneva. So all these things are manifestations of God’s grace.

And finally, we see the manifestation of God’s grace to both Barnabas and Saul working as a team. They unite themselves with the Gentile Christians. They worship together with the body of believers there. The text tells us in the last verse that they actually teach these formerly unclean men. They teach them for well over a year—the text says “a whole year,” the text tells us. And this again is the manifestation of God’s grace to Barnabas and Saul—to stay there for a year, to work hard, to attach themselves in a very strong sense to that body of believers.

So throughout this text, we see the manifestation of God’s grace: the missionaries going out, the Antioch Gentiles receiving the word, the church in Jerusalem being graciously willing to send forth Barnabas, Barnabas being willing to go to minister to these people, seeing with the eyes of faith, debasing himself so that he might bring along Saul—who he knew would increase his work, that Saul would, so to speak, expand such that his work would grow and Barnabas’s work would somewhat diminish. The history of the book of Acts tells us that is the case.

And then finally, the grace shown to both Barnabas and Saul as a team working with these Gentile converts.

This is grace. And if we ponder these things in our hearts, in our minds a little bit this day, we recognize that we sit here today as great recipients of great, glorious grace from God—to the place where we have been added to the Lord, we bear his name, we cleave to him, we’ve believed, we’ve turned away from our old ways, we’ve received new ways, we’ve ministered to each other, we’ve exhorted each other. We’ve done this self-sacrificially. These things are not to our credit. These things are to the credit of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of the Father and the love of the Holy Spirit, to be shed abroad in our hearts.

God has given us great grace, and our hearts should greatly rejoice in these things. It’s easy to look at the problems of the world around us. It’s easy to look at our failings and the failings that we have to manifest the grace that God calls us to manifest. But God would have us remember the great things that he has already accomplished in our lives—not that we might take some kind of pride in them, but that we might be glad and joyous, knowing that God is at work in our hearts.

Well, that grace is part of the context for joy and gladness. But the other side of this in verse 23 is a call to consecration. Based on this gladness, based upon this manifestation of grace that Barnabas had seen, he exhorted them to a consecration. And so if we understand, if we rejoice in the grace that God has already manifested in our lives, our response—out of our great love for the Savior who died that we might live, who made all these things possible to us that we might receive unmerited favor from God—if we understand those things, that’s going to motivate us, as it did Barnabas, as it did the Antioch Christians, to a life of fuller consecration to the Lord.

We need a great deal of discipline in our lives, and we need exhortations and admonitions, and we need just to suck it up sometimes and do the right thing. But behind all of that, the primary motivating factor for our service to the Lord Jesus Christ should be the joy and gladness we have at the manifestation of the grace given to us through the work of our Savior—that love, that joy that we experience and feel in our hearts as a result of meditating on the grace of God shown to us. That should cause us not just to sit there and to be happy about that, but it should cause us and motivate us to further consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have in the text here before us again four specific areas of consecration. I’ve touched on them already. They turned to the Lord. Verse 21 says they were exhorted to cleave to the Lord by Barnabas, verse 23 tells us. Verse 24 tells us that many were added to the Lord. And then finally, verse 26 says that they called themselves—they were called rather—Christians for the first time. They bore Christ’s name. And so all these things are manifestations of consecration.

Let’s think about them a little bit now again in a little slower order.

First of all, in verse 21, they turned to the Lord. Matthew Henry says this: “They turned from a loose, careless, carnal way of living to live a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine life. They turned from worshiping God in show and ceremony to worshiping him in spirit and in truth. They turned to the Lord Jesus, and he became all in all with them. This was the work of conversion wrought upon them, and it must be wrought upon every one of us.

“It was the fruit of their faith. All that sincerely believed will turn to the Lord. For whatever we profess or pretend, we do not really believe the gospel if we do not cordially embrace Christ offered to us in the gospel. It is a sign of our own regeneration, of the grace that God shows to us, that we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

So often salvation is presented today in our world rather as a blessing. “If you want a better marriage life, become a Christian. You want a better sense of a job or whatever, become a Christian. You want to be saved from hell, become a Christian.” But here, the essence of the Christian faith is that we turn to Jesus.

Now, that implies that we turn away from something else, doesn’t it? Repentance is a turning away from sin and a positive turning toward righteousness. We turn away from something and we turn towards something. Being a Christian is not simply turning away from something. It is turning towards something. But it’s not also simply turning towards something. It’s turning away from something.

As Matthew Henry said, it was turning away from a careless, carnal way of living. And that’s what we’re called upon as Christians to do. This is at the core of our faith: to turn away from careless, carnal living, from our own pleasures, from going in what Richard talked about last week, the course of the world. We must turn away from those sins. Then we positively turn toward the Lord Jesus Christ—toward a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine life, as Matthew Henry put it.

That’s manifested in our worship, but it must be manifested in our daily life as well. We turn away on the Lord’s day from old ways of worship, maybe walking in the park and communing with God that way. We turn to formal worship and we restructure ourselves on the basis of that worship. But it must enter into all of our lives as well.

Have you turned away from sinful actions of your life? Have you turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, consecrating yourself to him?

They turn to the Lord. You know, it’s interesting in this text, the word “Lord” is repeated three, four times here. Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord. Now, that’s very significant. It isn’t “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Now, we’ve seen Jesus before—the historical personhood, Jesus being our Savior, is what’s the base of this. But throughout this text, the word “Lord” is emphasized, to call us to a sense of consecration—to show to us the Gentiles’ consecration to the Lord, not simply to the Savior.

Because of their knowledge of the Savior and the grace given to us on the basis of Christ’s saving work, we turn to the Lord—the King, the Anointed One, who exercises control and commands his subjects. And that’s what God causes us to do as well. He calls us to turn to God.

But Barnabas had seen this. And then he exhorted them further than that—to cleave to the Lord. They turned away from their sin. They turned toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Barnabas saw it and was glad. And we’re glad today that we’ve turned away our foot from other pleasures to observe the Sabbath. But we must do more than that. We must cleave to the rest we have in Christ this day. We turn to Jesus Christ for salvation. But we must do more than that. We must have full gladness. And as a result of the gladness we have of the grace of God, we must cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 23: “He exhorted them that with purpose of heart, they would cleave unto the Lord.” This was the son of encouragement. He’s coming alongside of them here and giving them a word of encouragement. And that word of encouragement is to cleave in a fuller sense to the Lord Jesus Christ—with one purpose of heart, with sincerity and with total commitment and devotion.

So it’s not enough just to be a Christian—to turn to Jesus for salvation and turn away from your sins once in your life. Rather, to be a Christian means to cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ in all that we do and say.

Measure yourselves this last week. Did you cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ? Or did you just sort of turn toward him and look to him as being your Lord, but then really not work hard at, with all purposing in your heart, cleaving to Jesus Christ?

Well, gladness has us to do that cleaving. And also that cleaving results in increased joy in our lives.

Matthew Henry said this about cleaving unto the Lord: “They were not to fall off from following him. Not to flag and tire in following him. To cleave to the Lord Jesus is to live a life of dependence upon him and devotedness to him. Not only to hold him fast, but to hold fast by him. To be strong in the Lord and the power of his might, to cleave to him with purpose of heart, with an intelligent, firm, and deliberate resolution founded upon good grounds. Not to flag and tire in following him.”

Problems would come. Barnabas knew that. He’d seen the problems at Jerusalem. He knew the scriptures. He knew his Psalms. The Psalms tell us that we’re in the midst of problems all of our lives. And so, we need exhortation in the midst of those problems to cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ, to attach ourselves onto him. We all have difficulties. You may have had tremendous difficulties this last week. You may be, and I think some of you probably are, in the toughest trial that God has yet brought you through as Christians.

And you need the word of exhortation to admonish you, to exhort you, to cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t let go at this point in time. Cleave and cleave the stronger. When temptations and trials come upon you and the hours of your testing, a strong testing from God comes—that’s when you need the word to cleave, to hold on for dear life, so to speak, not to flag, not to tire.

Now, it’s easy to talk about that metaphysically—your devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. But remember, this is a Lord who gives us a word, a commanding word found in the scriptures. And as much as you may tell me or other people that you love Jesus and you’re cleaving to him, if you obey not his word, you are not doing that. The truth is not in you.

Jesus is not some sort of spirit, as many people would have us believe—a disembodied spirit who never really resurrected from the dead and who doesn’t really command much of us, just kind of an existential relationship we have with him. Now, that’s not the Jesus of the scriptures. The Jesus of the scriptures is Lord. And the Lord gives us a commanding word. So to cleave to him, to turn to him, means to turn to his word and to cleave unto the admonitions and instructions and plain commandments of God’s holy word.

It grieves me when people look at that clear word and turn away from it and tell me “I just can’t do it,” because they’ve stopped. They’ve gotten tired. They’ve let down their guard. They’ve become weary and let go of cleaving to the Lord. God says that path leads to the absence of blessing, to disappointment and grief, sorrow. The path of gladness is the one that cleaves to the Lord—that is added to the Lord.

Another word, emphasizing that same addition to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s as if you’re part of him now. And of course, you are. It’s not as if. God tells us and reminds us in the Holy Sacrament that we’re one with Christ now in terms of our ethical being. And so this is the kind of intensity that the text tells us in this cleaving.

And then finally, they call themselves Christians. Let me read Matthew Henry’s commentary on this. He said: “Now the word ‘Christian’—it’s interesting, here as I said, that they call themselves Christians, not ‘Jesus followers.’

“Now they were disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and ‘Jesus’ is a real good name—it means ‘Savior.’ But it’s interesting that here the name begins—that for 2,000 years—to now characterize disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is not in addition to the first portion of his name, ‘Jesus,’ meaning ‘Savior,’ but rather it is identification with the second portion of our Lord’s name—’Lord,’ ‘Anointed One,’ ‘King,’ ‘Commander,’ ‘Sovereign’—okay, Messiah. That’s what is being emphasized here, as throughout the text, is a relationship to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That’s what characterizes Christians—not simply an appreciation of salvation.

“Those things are wrapped together. I talk about them separately, of course, they’re not separate. Jesus is one person, and he is Savior and King. He is Judge, but he’s also Savior. And when people try to rip those things apart, that isn’t good. And here, of course, the way they try to rip him apart is to get rid of the Lordship aspect and focus just upon Jesus as Savior. But here, as in many places of Scripture, the text tells us the name itself identifies, certainly, with the salvific aspects of Christ, but with his Lordship—that we have received an anointing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we must obey our King.”

Okay. Having said that, Matthew Henry says: “God is said to have anointed us in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:21). Thus they laid upon themselves and all that should ever profess that name a strong and lasting obligation to submit to the laws of Christ, to follow the example of Christ, to devote themselves entirely to the honor of Christ, to be to him for a name and a praise. Are we Christians? Then we ought to think and speak and act in everything as becomes Christians, and to do nothing to the reproach of that name by which we are called.

“That may not be said to us which Alexander said to a soldier of his own nation that was noted as a coward. And this is what Alexander told that cowardly soldier. He said, ‘Either change thy name or change thy manners.’ And as we must look upon ourselves as Christians and carry ourselves accordingly, so we must look upon others as Christians and carry ourselves toward them accordingly. A Christian, though not in everything of our mind, should be loved and respected for his sake whose name he bears, because he belongs to Christ.

“Thus the Scripture was fulfilled. For so it was written in Isaiah 62:2, concerning the gospel church: ‘Thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name.’ And it is said to the corrupt and degenerate church of the Jews in Isaiah 65:15: ‘The Lord God shall slay thee and call his servants by another name.’ So God predicted this change of name.”

And I think it’s very important, as we look back on our week this last week, I know these words smite me. I know that there are many times this last week when I did not deserve the name Christian, and when God was telling me to change your name or change your manners. Now, we must remember that Jesus is Savior, that he forgives us these sins, but we must not let that become an excuse for us to not move on into further holiness of life.

These men were called Christians. The consecration—this consecration portion of this message—culminates in that very fact: that we bear the name of the Lord Jesus Christ upon our lips. We have an anointing from God, and we have a responsibility to act in relationship to that anointing. And in so acting, motivated on the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the grace he’s shown to us and the joy that he’s brought us into, in so acting out the correct relationship to the name “Christian,” we abound in joy then.

And so our gladness has this context of being called Christian.

Zachariah Ursinus, author of the Heidelberg Catechism, wrote this in relationship to the question, “Why are you called a Christian?” Ursinus wrote: “Because by faith I am a member of Christ and so I share in his anointing. Christian: Christ Anointed One. I share in his anointing. I am anointed first to confess his name. Second, to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks. Third, to strive with a good conscience against sin and the Devil in this life. And fourth, afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity.”

Joy has as its context—gladness does—consecration. Consecration is symbolized in this historical account—the first place where Christians are called by that name, followers of Christ, the Anointed One.

So I exhort you to cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ as well.

So these things are rather obvious from the text. But there are two other aspects, victory and resurrection, which are strongly implied, though not necessarily quite as obvious.

Victory is also a context for our joy, as is grace and consecration. I touched on it, but I haven’t stressed it yet. But what we have in the text before us here is these men go off. Some went only to the Jews, but some—the text tells us—particularly those that went to Antioch, spoke to the Greeks.

Now, there’s some contention about what the term “Greek” means here. But I’m convinced by exegetical methods and by the interpretation of this text by itself and by the whole flow of the book of Acts, that what we have here are people—not like Cornelius. They weren’t even God-fearing Greeks. Remember, I said that normally in the book of Acts, we’ll see the reference “God-fearers” or “worshippers of God” to refer to Greek converts. I do not believe these men were Greek converts. These were raw pagans apparently in Antioch that were taking the message of the Lord Jesus Christ and responded in faith.

So we have here an advance in the book of Acts. The book of Acts is continually advancing. We have an advance here from Cornelius, the God-fearing Gentile, being brought in, to now Greek pagans, outside of the synagogue, outside of any previous connection to the Jews, being brought into salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, this is a picture of victory—big time. This kind of closes off the first half of this book, and the next couple of verses in chapter 11 closes off the first half of this book. And from now on, we’re going to see Paul’s ministry grow. Peter’s ministry now is basically finished in terms of the recording of this historical account—not totally, but that’s the movement now: from Peter to Paul. And the movement now is to the Gentiles, to the Greeks.

And what we’ve seen here is the progressive expansion of concentric circles of witness, culminating in Cornelius at Caesarea, but now even further than that, further away in Syria, and now not Greeks who were identified as “God-fearers,” but just plain pagan Greeks. And so this first half provides that basis.

Now Antioch—this city—now becomes the center for missionary activity for Paul, for Saul and Barnabas there. That’s where they’ll go out for their missionary journey shortly here. So Antioch becomes the mother church, essentially replacing Jerusalem. And as I said earlier, Antioch was one of the five patriarchal cities of the early church. We had Jerusalem, we had Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Antioch. And this is Antioch right here. This is the establishment that we’re talking about. And so we have pictured in this the victory of Christ going forth through his church to evangelize the whole world—now going as far as the capital of Syria and bringing in pagan Greeks.

That should bring us great joy. We see throughout this text manifestations of victory through the whole flow of this book. We see Paul himself moving in terms of victory here. Paul will now take—as I said—the emphasis in the manifestation of the preaching of the gospel.

You know, it’s interesting. I saw correlations as I thought about this. I talked before about the relationship between the book of Joshua and the book of Acts. And that’s why I preached them back to back like this. I probably should have gone through Acts a little quicker. But you remember how in the book of Joshua, as they go to enter Canaan—symbolic of the entire world, of course—as they go in to enter Canaan, the first thing they do is convert Rahab, and then Jericho falls. So Rahab is a precursor to the fall of all the city of Jericho. And then we have the Gibeonites, remember, being saved, brought into relationship with God’s people and Yahweh, through devious means, but nonetheless, God’s ways are not our ways. The Gibeonites are brought in as a precursor to the conquering of all the rest of the land of Canaan.

So we have these little models like this—a single individual, a town, a group of people, a whole country. And so, what we had here was Cornelius, a single individual. And now we have a large group, many, many people in Antioch, we’re told in the text, coming to faith. Many turned to the Lord, many were taught, large numbers. And so, we have this same kind of pattern going on. What we’ve got here is a picture of victory if we understand this biblical principle of the small standing for the whole.

And what we have then is the expansion of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this text is heavily laden with passages and messages to us of victory—of the preaching of the gospel being emblematic now of the gospel going to all the ends of the world. This is Antioch, one of the three great cities of this time. The other two being Rome and Alexandria. Those are the three great cities of the Roman Empire. This is one of them, Antioch. We’ve gone from Caesarea, a name with the name of Caesar, but still a capital city—but nowhere near as preeminent as Antioch itself. And Antioch now turns. We don’t just see a small little group meeting in somebody’s house, but we see large numbers in Antioch, this great capital city, turn to the Lord.

So we have in this text great emphasis of victory, and that brings joy to us as well.

And of course, finally, then, the basis for all this—and I think this is heavily laid throughout the text—is its victory at the cost of death. It’s life coming from death. It’s a resurrection model that this text gives us, and that God and his providence has led us to on Resurrection Sunday.

Grace, consecration, victory—these are all contexts for the joy and gladness that God gives to us. But they’re all based upon the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this movement that we saw in Psalm 22, for instance, from death to life.

Remember, this text begins with what? The persecution of Stephen. It’s that persecution that leads to this great victory at Antioch. Large numbers of people in Antioch being converted. Persecution, instead of providing the downfall of the church, rather provides the expansion of the church.

Matthew Henry said: “The enemy is designed to scatter and lose them. But Jesus Christ designed to scatter and use them.” This is very important because it gives us a death-to-life model. Persecution to establishment is what happens in the context of this text.

The Greeks themselves—they’re pagans. They’re not even God-fearers. They are the picture of dead men—men dead in their sins. And if you understand that picture that God had set up for a couple of thousand years here, of the Gentiles being cut off, and these were not even Gentiles who were proselytes. Now, these were Greeks who were uncircumcised, pagan dogs, so to speak. If you understand that, then when Barnabas goes to these pagan Greeks and sees them confessing the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and being added unto him and turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, then you’ll understand that Barnabas’s joy and gladness was resurrection joy and gladness. He’d seen the resurrection of these men. These were men dead in their sins. They’re a picture for us of resurrection, of life coming forth from death.

Antioch itself is that kind of picture. I mentioned that Antioch was a great capital city. But what I didn’t mention was that it was immoral to its core. It was a place of great sporting events and gambling—gambling and sporting events, activities like that going on day and night, 24 hours a day, kind of like Las Vegas or kind of like a lot of American cities are becoming more and more in this day and age. And like the modern American cities as well, Antioch had a tremendous degree of immorality. It was the center of death worship.

Daphne was supposedly pursued by one of the Greek gods—Apollo, I believe—and she ran away from him and was turned into a laurel bush to save her from this god. Well, it sounds silly, but the result was that at Antioch, Daphne temples were set up with laurel groves, and people—men and women—would play out this story of the pursuit of Daphne through these sacred prostitutes at these Daphne temples in Antioch. Great immorality that was their religion. And so there was a byword in the Roman Empire at that time: “the morals of Daphne.” If a woman was said to have the morals of Daphne, it meant she didn’t have very high morals. She would do all kinds of immoral things.

And that’s the kind of city Antioch was. You talk about death! Gambling, sporting events of a not good nature. Then this great immorality at these temples, prostitution—that’s what these women were being trained to be like in the context of Antioch. The men were being trained through their worship to be godless pursuers of women, having their way with them, forcing themselves upon them. This was the kind of city Antioch was. They were dead in their sins and trespasses.

And so when we see Antioch then become the replacement, essentially—that’s what’s going to happen here—from Jerusalem, the great mother church. Antioch’s going to become the great mother church that sends out Paul and Barnabas. Now, why? That is nothing but life from death. That’s resurrection of the city. That’s the great grace of God leading to consecration—a picture of resurrection joy. We have a grace, victorious, resurrection model given to us in the city of Antioch.

We have Saul himself. As I said, he had gone through death, threats, and persecution in the two cities where he had preached. He was off someplace in the wilderness, and he’s brought to this city, and life springs forth in relationship to his work. And from now on, Saul will have tremendous blessing and life from God. And so we have in Saul himself a picture—from the death of his work to the blossoming of his work.

This death-to-life model for us—and in the very thing that’s most noted for this text, where Christians receive their name—even in that name, “Christian,” we have this model of persecution to blessing, of death to life. Because the text doesn’t say that they began to call themselves Christians. The text says they were called Christians. That’s the first place where they were called Christians. Every evidence seems to be that this was not a positive calling of great followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Malcolm Muggeridge in an interview that’s been shown over and over the years with William Buckley—Buckley talked to Muggeridge about sharing Christ, for instance, at parties and social gatherings. And Buckley said that, you know, it seems like if he went to some of these parties in New York and tried speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, people would call him a “Christer.” And Muggeridge said, “Well, you ought to try it.” Basically, is what he told Buckley.

But in any event, “Christer,” you know, it’s a term of—oh, you’re one of those Christers. You’re always talking about Jesus. That is every indication from the textual evidence and the historical evidence at the time that the name “Christian” was like “Christer.” It was a derisive term applied to the Christians. But this derisive term itself was taken by them and said, “Yes, we are Christers. We are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ve experienced his grace. Our hearts are full of joy and gladness through what he’s done for us. And yes, we will be identified with his name. We’ll say that we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

It’s interesting that there were “Cesarians”—that was a common term for followers of the Caesar, if you were a “Cesarian,” or not. And here people are calling themselves “Christians.” But they’ve taken a name that was derisive at its core and it becomes the name of blessing. And for 2,000 years, the church has gloried in that name—that we can have the name of Jesus Christ be borne upon our soul. We’re anointed with him, and we bear his name. So even in the name “Christian” that you take upon yourself, there’s a picture of death to life, persecution to establishment and victory, even in that name.

So when you hear the name “Christian,” think about that a little bit—that this is a name that used to be used derisively, and we wear it proudly.

I didn’t check out the historical references, but one commentator I read said the same thing is true of many other names throughout the history of the church. “Protestants,” “Methodists,” “Puritans”—were a term. “Puritan” according to this commentator was originally a derisive term, but then they took it upon themselves. “Yes. Yeah. We want to purify the church. Sure, why not?” Well, that’s a picture of this death to resurrection that we see throughout this text—of taking upon themselves this name, and the name then becoming a great name of hope and gladness and not a name to be shunned or forgotten somehow.

Now, all these things—this resurrection model, all this grace I’ve talked about, all the consecrations called for—all focuses on what we celebrate this day. These things are possible because of the historical reality of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. That’s at the center. That’s the central context—the resurrection, not simply these models for us in the text, but the resurrection of our Savior who went from the tomb, left the tomb, resurrected by the Father.

Now, this is important. People say today resurrection is not important. But Paul tells us very clearly that this isn’t just a good lifestyle we’re teaching. You know, some of you may have thought this in your dark hours of despair. You might have thought, “Well, maybe this stuff isn’t really true. Maybe he didn’t really raise from the dead, but at least I’m going to live a good, godly life in the meantime. Even if this all isn’t true, I have a better life on earth until my death. Even if there is no heaven,” that’s an attempt. I believe that’s a tempting thought from Satan. That thought does not come to you to comfort you from God. Anything that draws you away from the historical fact of Christ’s Resurrection is Satan’s work. You know how important it is—the resurrection, the historical reality of the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15, Paul said that if Jesus Christ is not risen, our preaching is vain, empty, worthless. Preaching is worthless. If Christ is not risen from the dead, your faith is vain, empty, worthless. Not good for giving you a good, godly life, a nice life till you die. It’s not good for that. It’s good for nothing—your faith.