In 17:29 Paul continues, “Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an engraved work of art and thought of man.” The Greek word rendered “Divine Being” here is theion (cf. theiotes, divinity, in Rom. 1:20), meaning that which is divine, a vaguer, more abstract, and less personal word than theotes,which is translated “Godhead” in Colossians 2:9. In 17:29 theion indicates that man may know God’s divinity from His works but not God Himself. God Himself can be known only from the revelation of His eternal Word, Christ incarnate, the very embodiment of the Godhead.
In verse 29 Paul told the Athenians that they should not “suppose that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an engraved work of art and thought of man.” Here “thought” also means imagination or device. Idols are the works of the art and thought of man.
In 17:30 and 31 Paul goes on to say, “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now charges all men everywhere to repent, because He has set a day in which He is about to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a Man whom He has designated, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from among the dead.” The day set by God for the judgment of the inhabited earth will be the day when Christ will judge the living from the throne of His glory before the millennium (Matt. 25:31-36), probably not including the day when He will judge the dead at the great white throne after the millennium (Rev. 20:11-15). According to Acts 10:42, Christ has been designated by God “to be the Judge of the living and the dead.” He will be the Judge of the dead after the millennium at the great white throne. Second Timothy 4:1 and 1 Peter 4:5 also say that Christ will judge both the living and the dead. The day in Acts 17:31 refers particularly to the day Christ will judge the living, because on this day He will judge “the inhabited earth,” which should refer only to living men. This day of Christ’s judgment on earth will be brought in by His coming back. He has been designated by God to execute this judgment, and God’s raising Him from among the dead is strong proof of this. In their preaching to the Gentiles, both Peter in 10:42 and Paul here and in 24:25 stressed the coming judgment of God.
The Greek word rendered “proof” in verse 31 may also be translated faith, assurance, guarantee. The resurrection of Christ is proof and assurance of His coming back to judge all the inhabitants of the earth. This is guaranteed so that we may have faith in it and that it may lead us to repent (v. 30).
Paul’s word regarding Christ as the Man designated by God and regarding His resurrection indicates that Paul was fully constituted of this One and of His resurrection. Paul was led, guided, and directed absolutely by the Spirit of Jesus. Because he was constituted of the Spirit of Jesus, his goal, no matter what the subject in speaking, was to preach Christ and His resurrection.
Acts 17:32-34 say, “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; others said, We will hear you yet again concerning this. So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” From these verses we see that Paul gained not only certain leading ones from among the Jews but also a number of prominent ones among the Greeks. Although the New Testament does not mention a church in Athens, nevertheless Paul did a prevailing work in that city.