The One True God

Acts 17:18–23

“A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”

The Apostle Paul could not have been talking about an amalgamation of any of the gods of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, or any culture of the Near East, this is why, Jesus Christ and His resurrection sounded ‘new’, ‘strange’, and ‘foreign’ (vv. 18–20) to the Epicurean and Stoic thinkers who frequented the Areopagus and “spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas (v. 21).” This is a learned group who knew history, mythology, culture, and geography. Skeptical historian Dr. Bart D. Ehrman wrote a couple of years back dismissing the suggestion some make that Jesus of Nazareth never existed and was only a legendary composite of the mythical gods and goddesses of His time and geography: “Moreover, the claim that Jesus was simply made up falters on every ground. The alleged parallels between Jesus and the “pagan” savior-gods in most instances reside in the modern imagination: We do not have accounts of others who were born to virgin mothers and who died as an atonement for sin and then were raised from the dead (despite what the sensationalists claim ad nauseum in their propagandized versions).” (For more on the defense against Jesus mythicism, we welcome back Horus in Lutheran Satire’s ‘Horus Ruins Christmas’: https://youtu.be/s0-EgjUhRqA enjoy 😂).

 God, Jesus Christ is the one true God! The one the Athenians did not know and yet worshipped (v. 23). This doesn’t come across as a surprise, “for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse (Rom 1:20).” It is quite sad though that many still reject the message of redemption, an agnostic friend once said to me, he just believes that no one can know God, He is just too separate from us, we just cannot grasp it, it’s like we’re two dimensional cartoons trying to figure out 3D. So this friend just doesn’t believe that God in His multi-dimensional reality, powerful as He is, is capable of revealing Himself to His creation, the Athenians then were more circumspect. However to many still, “although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (Rom 1:21–23).” And the consequence of unbelief and outright rebellion is dire, “therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is for ever praised. Amen (Rom 1:24–25).” “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, [and with all your mind (Luke 10:27)] and with all your strength (Deut 6:4-5).” The God proclaimed by Jesus Christ, the resurrected one, is the truth. And Christ His Son is not made up, but real and loving. This One True God “so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).”