Filled with the Holy Spirit (compare 4:8), Saul (here first called Paul) [looks] straight at Elymas (compare 3:4; 14:9) and delivers a verdict that reveals the sorcerer's true character, stance and activity. All that fills Elymas is deceit and the trickery of wrongdoing (contrast 1 Thess 2:3). He is a child of the devil in his stance as an enemy of everything that is right, literally "of all righteousness" (compare Lk 8:12). He perverts the right ways of the Lord in that he twists the path that would lead to salvation (taking tou kyriou as an objective genitive; Hos 14:9; compare Ps 119:1; Is 40:3, 5; Lk 1:79; Acts 8:21).

The divine sentence is that the sovereign hand of the Lord, which directs his saving purposes in history (Acts 4:28) and otherwise acts in healing and salvation blessing (4:30; 11:21), will be against Elymas, placing temporary physical blindness on him. Is the blindness to picture his own spiritual blindness (compare 9:8; 26:18)? Since it is temporary, is it intended to bring the sorcerer to repentance?

By juxtaposing the judgment to Sergius Paulus's faith response, Luke clearly shows how the gospel's power is greater than the power of the occult. Immediately, though not instantaneously, the sentence is carried out. The blindness comes on gradually as a gathering mist and in the end becomes total. Elymas finds himself groping about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand.

In Luke's account, the church's evangelists consistently meet overt demonic opposition through practitioners of occult arts when they first thrust into new ethnic or geographical territory: Samaria (8:9-24); Cyprus, first missionary journey (13:4-12); Philippi, thrust into Europe (16:16-18); Ephesus, third missionary journey (19:11-20). There is no culture today where, to one degree or another, such a spiritual battle is not joined. Not presumptuously, but confidently—by prayer, filled with the Spirit—we must boldly proclaim the gospel and, as the Lord directs, confront hostile spiritual powers.