Acts 14:22

Confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.

Confirming the souls ... In order to avoid the overtones of the word "confirming," as it is erroneously associated with the so-called "seven sacraments," Plumptre suggested that it should be rendered "strengthening," as it is rendered in Acts 18:23. "It is not the same word as that used by later writers for the ecclesiastical rite of confirmation."[29] Of the so-called "seven sacred sacraments," only two, namely, baptism and the Lord's Supper, have Greek names, a fact which automatically removes the other five to post-apostolic times and denies them any identification whatever with New Testament Christianity. What is meant here is simply that Paul desired to communicate encouraging and helpful admonition to the new converts God had given through his preaching. Living, as they did, in a wild, pagan society, they must surely have needed such strengthening as could come only from one like Paul.

Continue in the faith ... "The faith" here has the meaning of "Christianity." In fact this comprehensive meaning of "faith" is frequent in New Testament usage of the word. Many of Paul's expressions regarding salvation "through faith" or "by faith" have no bearing whatever on the Lutheran heresy of redemption by "faith only," but mean simply that men are saved through, or by, Christianity, or the Christian religion.

Through many tribulations we must enter ... The significance of "must" as applied to all of God's creation is discussed in my Commentary on Matthew, under Matthew 18:7. In focus here is the necessity of sufferings, persecutions, etc. for those who will obey the gospel and enter God's kingdom. The lives of the Christians in these Galatian cities afforded ample proof of this, as did also that of the great apostle who had brought them the message of redemption. We might paraphrase Paul's words thus: These tribulations we are suffering as a consequence of our entering God's kingdom are normal and necessary.

We must enter into the kingdom ... MacGreggor thought that the tribulations in this passage are "those which are to precede the end" and that the kingdom of God carries its "eschatological meaning."[30] We do not believe this at all. There is nothing in Paul's writings that supports the notion that he expected the end of time in his lifetime. His warning of the great apostasy in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, as well as his prophecy of the hardening of secular Israel throughout the "times of the Gentiles" (Romans 11:25), makes it absolutely certain that Paul neither believed nor taught any "quick return" of Jesus. The implication of comments like that of MacGreggor that Paul was giving a pep talk to these Christians and reinforcing it by suggesting that their tribulations heralded the immediate unfolding of eschatological events, such as the Second Advent of our Lord, the resurrection of the dead, and the eternal judgment, etc., is totally wrong.

Paul wrote certain young Christians whom he had converted, telling them that "The Father delivered us ... and translated us out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of his love" (Colossians 1:12-13). The kingdom, therefore, which these young Christians of South Galatia had entered (past tense) was a present reality. However, this is not to deny the reality of a future and final phase of God's kingdom which is associated with the eventual triumph of Jesus over all things.

[29] E. H. Plumptre, op. cit., p. 92.

[30] G. H. C. MacGreggor, op. cit., p. 192.