Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 15:18

"Saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old." — Acts 15:18 (ASV)

Known to God are all his works (Acts 15:18).—The better manuscripts give “all His work”—that is, the great work of the government and education of mankind. The words are an implicit answer to the charge of innovation. If the work were of God, it could not be so called, for His mercies are everlasting, and the work which He carries on now must be thought of as contemplated and purposed from eternity.

The principle clearly has a wider range than that within which St. James applies it. We do well to remember, whenever we are tempted to offer an obstinate resistance to what seems to us a novelty, and which we therefore are ready to condemn, that we ought first to inquire whether the “signs of the times” do not indicate that it is part of the divine plan, working through the ages, that the old order should change and give place to the new.