Acts 20:25

Acts 20:25-27 . I know that ye all — Though you may have letters from me; shall see my face no more — He wisely observes this, that what follows might make the deeper impression. It is probable the apostle had received some particular revelation, that if he should ever return to these parts of Asia again, (as from Philem. Acts 20:22 it seems likely he might,) yet that he should not have an opportunity of calling at Ephesus, or of seeing the elders whom he now addressed. Wherefore — Seeing my ministry is at an end with you, it concerns both you and me to reflect on our past conduct respecting it; and I take you to record — Greek, μαρτυρομαι υμιν , I testify to you, and affirm, and I dare appeal to yourselves concerning it; that I am pure from the blood of all men — From the guilt of destroying men’s souls; if any of you, or of me people under your care, perish, it will not be through my default, having faithfully showed you and them the way of life, and earnestly persuaded you all to walk in it. See notes on Ezekiel 3:19-21 .

For I have not shunned — Declined, or omitted; to declare unto you all the counsel of God — Respecting your salvation; God’s purpose finally to save all that believe in Christ with their hearts unto righteousness; or, the whole doctrine of Christianity, relating to our redemption and salvation by Christ, and the way to eternal happiness through him; and this I have done in the most plain and faithful manner, whatever censure, contempt, or opposition I might incur by so doing.

Acts 20:25 . Οὐκέτι ὄψεσθε , shall see no more ) Paul wisely inserts this now in this place. For so the other things which he has to say the more impressively affect the minds of his hearers.— ὑμεῖς , ye ) The explanation of this word follows, viz. all , etc. The apostle returned from Rome to Asia several years after: but in the interim almost all these persons died or removed elsewhere. At all events the sense is this: I know that such things are about to befall me as, without a peculiar Divine guidance, and that a miraculous one, must cut off from you the power (opportunity) of seeing me. A Metalepsis (as in ch. Acts 21:4 ). [A double trope. Ex. gr. here, there is a double METONYMY of the Consequent for the Antecedent : 1) Such things are about to befall me, as that I am hardly, and not even hardly (scarcely is there in the case the possibility expressed by “hardly”), likely to return: 2) If even I were ever so sure of returning, yet you yourselves, after so long an interval of time, will almost all be either dead or removed elsewhere. Instead of these two Antecedents the Consequent is put: Ye shall not see my face .—Append.]

25-27. I know that ye all … shall see my face no more—not an inspired prediction of what was certainly to be, but what the apostle, in his peculiar circumstances, fully expected. Whether, therefore, he ever did see them again, is a question to be decided purely on its own evidence.

Verse 25. - Went about for have gone , A.V.; kingdom for kingdom of God , A.V. and T.R. I know that ye all , etc. It is a very perplexing question whether St. Paul in this statement spake with prophetic, and therefore infallible, foreknowledge, or whether he merely expressed the strong present conviction of his own mind, that he should never return to Asia again. The question is an important one, as the authenticity of the pastoral Epistles is in a great measure bound up with it. For, in the apparent failure of all hypotheses to bring the writing of them within the time of St. Luke's narrative, prior to St. Paul's journey to Rome, we are driven to the theory which places the writing of them, and the circumstances to which they allude, to a time subsequent to St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome. But this involves the supposition that St. Paul returned to Ephesus after his release from his Roman imprisonment ( 1 Timothy 1:3 ; 1 Timothy 4:14 ; 2 Timothy 1:15, 18 ; 2 Timothy 4:9-14, 19 ; Titus 1:5 ), and consequently that St. Paul's anticipation, that he was in Asia for the last lime, was not realized. The question is well discussed by Alford, in the 'Prolegomena to the Pastoral Epistles,' and in Paley's 'Horae Paulinae,' Acts 11 . But it can hardly be said to be definitively settled (see above, note to ver. 15). Bengel thinks the explanation may be that most of those present were dead or dispersed when Paul returned some years later. Acts 20:25

25 . And … ye all ] We cannot be sure that the Apostle never again came to Ephesus. For we learn from Philemon 1:22 that, toward the close of his imprisonment at Rome, he had hopes and the intention of visiting Philemon, who was at Colossæ, and we can hardly think that if he went to Colossæ he would fail on the way to stay at Ephesus. Some have therefore been inclined to lay a great stress on the word “all” in this clause, as though the Apostle only meant that they were sure some of them to be dead before he paid their city another visit. It seems better to take the words as the conviction of the Apostle’s mind at the moment. He was impressed with the belief that he would never come back. We have seen, however, just above that the Spirit did not give him definite knowledge of what would befall him in every place. And the sense that he was to be seized and imprisoned might make him sufficiently alive to the chances of his martyrdom for Christ to warrant the words which he here uses. among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God ] The oldest MSS. omit “of God.” The verb is more fully rendered by the Rev. Ver. “ I went about .” Though speaking to the Ephesians only the memory of the Apostle recalls those missionary visits throughout Proconsular Asia which we may feel sure that he made during his “three years’ residence at Ephesus.” For the use of “kingdom” alone = kingdom of God, cp. Matthew 4:23 ; Matthew 9:35 , &c.

points back to Acts 20:22 , now representing the separation there announced, for which Acts 20:23-24 have prepared them, as one of perpetuity for the life in time Acts 20:25 points back to Acts 20:22 , now representing the separation there announced, for which Acts 20:23-24 have prepared them, as one of perpetuity for the life in time. ἐγώ ] emphatic, as in Acts 20:22 , and with deep emotion. The οἶδα , ὅτι οὐκέτι κ . τ . λ .,[112] rests, according to Acts 20:23 , on the conviction which he has now ( νῦν ) obtained by the communications of the Holy Spirit received from city to city concerning the fate impending over him at Jerusalem, that the imprisonment and affliction there awaiting him would terminate only with his death. And he has not deceived himself! For the assumption that he was liberated from Rome and returned to the earlier sphere of his labours, is unhistorical; see on Rom. Introd. § 1. But precisely in connection with the unfolding of his destination to death here expressed by him with such certainty, there passed into fulfilment his saying pointing to Rome ( Acts 19:21 ), however little he himself might be able at this time to discern this connection; and therefore, probably, the thought of Rome was again thrown temporarily into the background in his mind.

The fact, that he at a later period in his imprisonment expected liberation and return to the scene of his earlier labours ( Philemon 1:22 ; Php 2:24 ), cannot testify against the historical character of our speech (Baur, Zeller), since he does not refer his οἶδα in our passage to a divinely -imparted certainty, and therefore the expression of his individual conviction at this time, spoken, moreover, in the excited emotion of a deeply agitated moment, is only misused in support of critical prejudgments. With this certainty of his at this time,—which, moreover, he does not express as a sad foreboding or the like, but so undoubtingly as in Acts 20:29 ,—quite agrees the fact, that he hands over the church so entirely to the presbyters as he does in Acts 20:26 ff.; nor do we properly estimate the situation of the moment, if we only assume, with de Wette, that Luke has probably thus composed the speech from his later standpoint after the death of the apostle. According to Baumgarten, II. p. 85 ff., who compares the example of King Hezekiah, the οἶδα κ . τ . λ . was actually founded on objective certainty: God had actually resolved to let the apostle die in Jerusalem, but had then graciously listened to the praying and weeping of the Gentile churches. But in such passages as Philemon 1:22 , there is implied no alteration of the divine resolution; this is a pure fancy. ὙΜΕῖς ΠΆΝΤΕς, ἘΝ ΟἿς ΔΙῆΛΘΟΝ ] all ye, among whom I passed through.