Acts 15:18

18 `Known from the ages to God are all His works;

Acts 15:18 Meaning and Commentary

Acts 15:18

Known unto God are all his works
These are the words of James, and not of Amos; all the things which God does in the church and in the world, they were all foreknown and predetermined by him: from the beginning of the world; or from eternity; even all his works of creation, providence and grace: the Alexandrian copy, and Beza's most ancient copy, and the Vulgate Latin version, read in the singular number, "his work"; the work of the conversion of the Gentiles; this was fixed and resolved on by God in eternity; he knew it would be, because he had determined it should be; and accordingly he foretold it, and spoke of it in various periods of time before it came to pass; and therefore it should not be looked upon as some new and strange thing, that was never known, spoken or heard of: and this holds true of every other work of God, and agrees with what the Jews sometimes say F26, that

``every work which is renewed in the world, the holy blessed God has commanded (or ordered) it from the day the world was created.''


FOOTNOTES:

F26 Zohar in Exod. fol. 78. 2. Vid. ib. in Lev. fol. 25. 4.

Acts 15:18 In-Context

16 After these things I will turn back, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, that is fallen down, and its ruins I will build again, and will set it upright --
17 that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the nations, upon whom My name hath been called, saith the Lord, who is doing all these things.
18 `Known from the ages to God are all His works;
19 wherefore I judge: not to trouble those who from the nations do turn back to God,
20 but to write to them to abstain from the pollutions of the idols, and the whoredom, and the strangled thing; and the blood;
Young's Literal Translation is in the public domain.