I N D E X
79
The apostle begins his address with a résumé of Israel's history and focuses attention on David. He then comes
to his point:
`Of this man's seed hath God according to His promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus' (Acts 13:23).
He then pauses to bring in the witness of John the Baptist, afterwards proceeding to show that the very hatred of
the Jew was but a fulfilling of the Scriptures they read every Sabbath day. Pilate's testimony to the Saviour's
innocence is also adduced, and the fulfilment of all that was written, even to the particulars of His burial, is
impressed upon them. Then, once more, he stresses his point: `But God raised Him from the dead' (Acts 13:30),
and lays before them the further witness of those who saw the risen Lord over a period of many days. He returns to
the glad tidings that God had fulfilled the promises to the fathers.
After yet further proofs of the resurrection, the apostle comes to his glorious conclusion:
`Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of
sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of
Moses' (Acts 13:38,39).
Here Paul reaches the great doctrine of his early ministry, `Justification by faith without the deeds of the law', a
doctrine that finds its exposition in both the Epistle to the Galatians and the Epistle to the Romans. A structure of
the exhortation follows.
Acts 13:16-41
Paul's exhortation in synagogue of Antioch
A 16-21.
Résumé of Israel's history. Lo-ammi periods.
B 22.
David. After own heart.
C1 23.
A Saviour. Jesus.
D 24, 25.
Witness. John Baptist.
C2 26.
Salvation.
E 27-29.
Fulfilment, by rulers at Jerusalem, and by death and burial.
F 30.
God raised Him from the dead.
D 31.
Witness. Seen many days.
C3 32.
Glad tidings.
E 32.
Fulfilment, by promise.
F 33.
He hath raised up Jesus again.
B 34-37.
David. Sure mercies.
C4 38,39.
Forgiveness. Justification.
A 40,41.
Beware. Lo-ammi period threatened
(fulfilled at Acts 28).
Some explanation will be demanded of the insertion at the opening and close of Paul's address of the words
`Lo-ammi'. We have dealt with this feature in the series, `Fundamentals of Dispensational Truth' in The Berean
Expositor Vol. 27, p. 207; and in An Alphabetical Analysis part 2, under LO-AMMI, where it treats of the Book of
Judges.
The years that Israel were in servitude were `Lo-ammi' years, and therefore not reckoned in the divine calendar.
What had already happened to Israel happened again, when, as recorded in Acts 28, they once more went out into
another Lo-ammi period, which still obtains, and has already reached nearly two thousand years.
We must remember that it is quite inaccurate to teach that Paul turned from Israel as a whole to the Gentiles as a
whole in Acts 13:46, for in Acts 14:1 we find him as usual in the synagogue. The explanation is that the turning
from the Jew at Antioch was local and prophetic. lt foreshadowed that great turning away of Acts 28, as we have
shown by the balance of teaching of the whole section 13 to 28.