Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
The times or the seasons - . Times here may signify any large portion of a period, era, or century - such as an Olympiad, lustrum or year; and seasons, the particular part, season, or opportunity in that period, etc., in which it might be proper to do any particular work. God has not only fixed the great periods in which he will bring about those great revolutions which his wisdom, justice, and mercy have designed, but he leaves himself at full liberty to choose those particular portions of such periods as may be best for the accomplishment of those purposes. Thus God is no necessary agent - every thing is put in his own power, ͅ ͅ ͅ , under his control and authority; nor will he form decrees of which he must become the necessary executor. The infinite liberty of acting or not acting, as wisdom, justice, and goodness shall see best, is essential to God, nor can there be a point in the whole of his eternity in which he must be the necessary agent of a fixed and unalterable fate. Infinite, eternal liberty to act or not to act, to create or not create, to destroy or not destroy, belongs to God alone, and we must take care how we imagine decrees, formed even by his own prescience, in reference to futurity, which his power is from the moment of their conception laid under the necessity of performing. In every point of time and eternity, God must be free to act or not to act, as may seem best to his godly wisdom.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Luke 24:51
John 21:14
1 Thessalonians 5:1
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