Il commento del pulpito
Atti degli Apostoli 5:1-42
ESPOSIZIONE
Anania (Ἀνανίας) In Nehemia 3:23 il nome ebraico היָנְנַעֲ (Dio copre o protegge) è così reso nella LXX . Ma il nome non si trova da nessun'altra parte. Il nome molto comune היָנְנַהֲ , Hananiah (Dio è misericordioso), è reso anche nei LXX . Anania (Ἀνανίας), ed è senza dubbio il nome inteso qui e in At Atti degli Apostoli 9:10 ; Atti degli Apostoli 23:2 , ecc.
Saffira non si trova altrove. Deriva dall'arameo הרָיפָשַׁ, bello, o dall'ebraico ריפִסַ, zaffiro. Un possesso (vedi Atti degli Apostoli 2:45 ). Il tipo di possesso non è specificato dalla parola stessa, che si applica a case, campi, gioielli e ricchezza in generale; ma la natura della proprietà è mostrata dalla parola χωρίον , applicata ad essa in At Atti degli Apostoli 23:3 e At Atti degli Apostoli 23:8 , che significa specialmente "un appezzamento di terreno" ( Giovanni 4:5 ), "un campo" ( Atti degli Apostoli 1:18 , Atti degli Apostoli 1:19 ).
Tuo per te , disse AV Peter. In questa occasione fu dato a Pietro, dallo Spirito Santo, di leggere i segreti del cuore di Anania, proprio come fu dato a Eliseo di scoprire la menzogna di Gheazi ( 2 Re 5:25 , 2 Re 5:26 ); e la rapida punizione inflitta in entrambi i casi dalla parola dell'uomo di Dio - lebbra in un caso e morte improvvisa nell'altro - è un altro punto di forte somiglianza.
Mentire allo Spirito Santo. È solo un esempio tra i tanti della pura atmosfera spirituale in cui la Chiesa allora si mosse, che una menzogna per l'apostolo era una menzogna per lo Spirito Santo sotto la cui guida e per il cui potere l'apostolo agiva. La frode di Anania fu un'ignoranza dell'intero carattere spirituale del ministero degli apostoli, e di conseguenza fu punita con una punizione immediata. La morte di Anania e Saffira fu un terribile adempimento della promessa: "A chi ritenete i peccati, sono ritenuti" ( Giovanni 20:23 ).
Non è rimasto perché non era, AV; tuo per te , AV; com'è che hai per perché hai, AV; il tuo cuore per il tuo cuore, AV Non è rimasto , ecc.? Il significato esatto è: non ti è rimasto? cioè invenduto era tuo, e quando è stato venduto il prezzo era tuo. Non c'era costrizione a darlo via. L'atto era di deliberata ipocrisia, un tentativo di ingannare Dio stesso.
Su tutti quelli che l'hanno udito per tutti quelli che hanno udito queste cose, AV e TR hanno rinunciato al fantasma (ἐξέψυξε). La stessa parola di Atti degli Apostoli 5:10 e Atti degli Apostoli 12:23 , ma non trovata da nessun'altra parte nel Nuovo Testamento. Grande paura, ecc. Abbiamo qui un esempio di punizione che è correttiva, non per la persona punita, ma per gli altri, mostrando il giusto giudizio di Dio come un avvertimento contro il peccato.
E lo avvolse per averlo avvolto, AV; portarono per trasportati, AV I giovani ( νεώτεροι : chiamato in At Atti degli Apostoli 5:10 νεανίσκοι , ) . Non sembrano esserci motivi sufficienti per supporre, con Meyer, che qui si intenda una determinata classe di servitori della Chiesa. I giovani della Chiesa, naturalmente, avrebbero svolto servizi come quello di cui qui si parla, quando diretti dai πρεσβύτεροι, gli anziani, per età o ufficio.
E si trattava di, ecc.; reso meglio, con Meyer, e succede, dopo un intervallo di tre ore, che sua moglie, ecc. È un idioma ebraico (comp. Luca 5:12 ). Luca 5:12
E Peter ha risposto , ecc., La domanda di Point le ha dato l'opportunità di confessare la frode se fosse stata pentita. La terra (vedi nota ad Atti degli Apostoli 5:1 ).
Ma per allora, AV ; porteranno per portare, AV Per tentare lo Spirito, ecc.; vale a dire così audacemente mettere alla prova lo Spirito Santo, se è in grado o no di discernere i pensieri dei vostri cuori malvagi (comp. Luca 4:12 ). I loro piedi, ecc. La sepoltura, inclusa la distanza tra andata e ritorno, era durata tre ore, e stavano appena tornando all'assemblea cristiana quando Saffira stava confermando la sua colpevolezza come complice della menzogna del marito.
E cadde subito perché poi cadde subito, AV; rinunciato per arreso, AV; la portarono fuori e la seppellirono per averla portata via la seppellirono. È caduta subito. Lo Spirito che uccide e vivifica così ha confermato il suo discernimento e la sua potenza, e ha testimoniato la verità del suo profeta San Pietro, per bocca del quale aveva appena preannunciato la morte di Saffira.
Rinunciato al fantasma ( Atti degli Apostoli 5:5 , nota). L'ha seppellita dal marito . Che strano esempio di unità coniugale! Uno nella loro religione ebraica, uno nella loro conversione alla fede di Cristo, uno nella loro ipocrisia, uno nella loro terribile morte, uno nel loro comune bosco! uno nel registro immortale della loro colpa nel Libro che viene letto da ogni nazione sotto il cielo!
La Chiesa intera per tutta la Chiesa, AV ; tutto ciò che udiva per quanti lo udivano, AV La terribile morte dei due bugiardi a Dio non solo ha suscitato un salutare timore nelle menti di tutta la Chiesa, ma ha riempito di timore tutti al di fuori della Chiesa che l'hanno udito; e senza dubbio diede un temporaneo freno alle persecuzioni, mentre disponeva molti ad ascoltare la predicazione degli apostoli.
Per mano degli apostoli, ecc. Due cose sono qui notevoli. Quello che il cristianesimo ai suoi inizi è stato potentemente aiutato e avanzato dai miracoli fatti nel Nome di Gesù Cristo. L'altro che l'autorità degli apostoli come governanti della Chiesa è stata grandemente rafforzata da questi miracoli operati esclusivamente dalle loro mani. Non possiamo comprendere né le relazioni esterne della Chiesa con il mondo, né le relazioni interne del popolo con i suoi capi spirituali, a meno che non teniamo debitamente conto di queste due cose.
Di comune accordo (vedi Atti degli Apostoli 4:24 , nota). Nel portico di Salomone (vedi Atti degli Apostoli 3:11 , nota). È del tutto naturale che il portico di Salomone, essendo stato teatro del miracolo, divenne luogo di frequenti assembramenti. C'è una differenza di opinione tra i commentatori sul fatto che il tutto si riferisca all'intero laicato cristiano come in Atti degli Apostoli 2:1 o solo agli apostoli.
Alford pensa il secondo, Meyer il primo. L'opinione che l'intero corpo dei cristiani è destinato sembra più probabile, sia dall'utilizzo delle parole in Atti degli Apostoli 2:1 e dalla frase ὁμοθυμαδον (in particolare in connessione con ἁπαμτες) , che sembra più applicabile ad una moltitudine mista rispetto a dodici colleghi come gli apostoli. Difficilmente si potrebbe dire che tutti i ministri della regina si siano incontrati in un Consiglio di Gabinetto di comune accordo. Non c'è bisogno della parentesi come nell'AV
Ma per e, AV; Nondimeno per ma, AV Il resto sembra più naturale per indicare coloro che non sono stati inclusi nel ἁπαντες , vale a dire. gli ebrei come distinti dai discepoli. L'effetto dei miracoli fu che gli Ebrei guardavano con timore e riverenza alla Chiesa Apostolica, e nessuno osò unirsi a loro per semplice curiosità o per vani propositi.
Ma, al contrario, il popolo li magnificava, li trattava con il massimo rispetto e ne parlava con ogni onore. Unisciti a se stesso (κολλᾶσθαι). La parola ricorre nel Nuovo Testamento dieci volte, di cui sette nel Vangelo di san Luca o negli Atti. Gli altri tre sono nelle epistole di San Paolo (vedi per l'uso nel senso che ha qui, Luca 15:15 ; Atti degli Apostoli 8:29 ; Atti degli Apostoli 8:29, Atti degli Apostoli 9:26 ; Atti degli Apostoli 9:26, Atti degli Apostoli 10:28 ; Atti degli Apostoli 17:34 ).
Aggiunto al Signore; come in Atti degli Apostoli 11:24 , non come a margine. moltitudini ; πλήθη , che non si trova al plurale da nessun'altra parte nel Nuovo Testamento.
Anche effettuato per portati avanti, AV e TR; che, come Pietro passava, almeno la sua ombra per quella almeno l'ombra di Pietro che passa, AV; qualcuno per alcuni, AV Insomuch; non da rinviare alla prima parte di Atti degli Apostoli 5:12 , come indicato dalla parentesi nell'AV, ma a tutta la descrizione della glorificazione della Chiesa in Atti degli Apostoli 5:12 .
E anche la moltitudine si radunò da perché vi venne anche una moltitudine da, AV; su Gerusalemme per circa fino a Gerusalemme, AV; folk per gente, AV; ciò che era per ciò che era, AV E anche lì si riunirono , ecc. Un grande risultato di questi numerosi miracoli sarebbe quello di manifestare che il Signore Gesù era ancora con la sua Chiesa così veramente come quando era sulla terra ( Matteo 28:20 ) , e questa manifestazione rimane per il conforto del suo popolo, anche ora che tali miracoli sono cessati.
Riguardo a quanto si dice in Atti degli Apostoli 5:15 si pensava che l'ombra di Pietro avesse un potere di guarigione, potrebbe essere stato vero che lo aveva, come Cristo poteva guarire con un'ombra così come con una parola o un tocco, ma non si può dire con certezza che sia stato così; fu comunque una meravigliosa stagione di ristoro per la Chiesa, preparandola alla prova imminente.
Ma per allora, AV; sono stati riempiti per sono stati riempiti, AV; gelosia per indignazione, AV Il sommo sacerdote si alzò . Era giunto il momento per lui ei suoi amici i sadducei di alzarsi e agire, se volevano fermare la diffusione della fede di Gesù Cristo e della risurrezione. Che è la setta dei sadducei ( Atti degli Apostoli 4:1 , Atti degli Apostoli 4:2 , ndr).
It does not appear that Annas himself was a Sadducee, but his son was, and hence it is highly probable that the Sadducees should have attached themselves to Annas, and made a tool of him for suppressing the doctrine of the Resurrection. The sect; αἵρεσις (see Atti degli Apostoli 15:5; Atti degli Apostoli 24:5, Atti degli Apostoli 24:14; Atti degli Apostoli 26:4; Atti degli Apostoli 28:22).
The word was applied first by Jews to Christians, anti then by Christians to sects (1 Corinzi 11:19; Galati 5:20; 2 Pietro 2:1). Jealousy scarcely so well expresses the idea of ζῆλος here as indignation does. In the First Epistle of Clement, ζῆλος is applied to the anger of Cain, of Joseph's brethren, of the Israelites against Moses, of the persecution of St.
Peter and St. Paul (4; 5). It is only occasionally that it means that kind of anger which we call jealousy. The high priest and his party were indignant at the defiance of their authority, and at the success of the doctrine which they had made it a special object to put down.
Laid hands (as Atti degli Apostoli 4:3, A.V. and R.V.) for laid their hands, A.V. and T.R.; in public ward for in the common prison, A.V. Laid hands, etc. Laid their hands is equally right, even when αὑτῶν is omitted, as the translation of τὰς χεῖρας. There is no difference in the sense in the two renderings, or in the two passages, though in Atti degli Apostoli 4:3 the phrase is ἐπέβαλον αὐτοῖς τὰς χεῖρας, and here ἐπέβαλον τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀποστόλους.
In public ward. The A.V. is more idiomatic and expresses exactly what is meant by the phrase τηρήσει δημοσίᾳ. Meyer quotes the phrases τὸ δημόσιον in Thucydides, and οἰκία δημόσια in Xenophon for the common piton (see Atti degli Apostoli 4:3).
An angel for the angel, A.V.; out for forth, A.V. An angel, etc. The phrase is a translation of the Old Testament phrase הוָהֹיְ כְאַלְםַ. But in Hebrew it is impossible to insert the definite article before הוָהֹיְ, and therefore the phrase is properly rendered, "the angel of the Lord." In the passage before us and other similar passages, Κύριος seems to stand for הוֹיְ, and therefore the rendering of the A.
V. would seem to be right, in spite of what is said by eminent grammarians to the contrary. Compare, too, the phrases ὁδὸν εἰρήνηνς (Luca 1:19); ῥῆμα Θεοῦ (Luca 3:2); φωνὴ βοῶντος (Luca 3:4); and see especially Luca 2:9, where, ἄγγελος Κυρίου ("the angel of the Lord,) and δόξα Κυρίου ("the glory of the Lord") stand in parallel clauses.
The R.V. inconsistently renders the first "an angel," and the second" the glory." In like manner φωνὴ Κυρίου (Atti degli Apostoli 7:31) is "the voice of the Lord;" and in Salmi 29:3, Salmi 29:4, Salmi 29:5, Salmi 29:7, Salmi 29:8, Salmi 29:9, the LXX.
have uniformly φωνὴ Κυρίου for הוָהֹיְ לוֹק (see Atti degli Apostoli 8:26, note). Out (comp. Atti degli Apostoli 12:7, etc.).
Go ye for go, A.V. In the temple; not in the house, but in the courts. The words of this Life; i.e. this life which is in Christ, whom ye preach, through his resurrection from the dead (comp. Giovanni 6:68, "Thou hast the words of eternal life;" see too the whole chapter and 1 Giovanni 1:1).
This for that, A.V.; about day. break for early in the morning, A.V.; prison-house for prison, A.V. About daybreak. In the hot climate of Jerusalem people are about very early in the meriting (comp. Matteo 26:57, Matteo 26:75). But the high priest, etc.
The narrative would run more clearly if the passage were translated more literally, Now when the high priest and they that were with him were come (to the council-chamber the next day) they called together, etc. The narrative is taken up from Atti degli Apostoli 5:17, Atti degli Apostoli 5:18. Having (Atti degli Apostoli 5:18) put the apostles in prison, they met the next morning to decide how to punish them.
The council (τὸ συνέδριον); i.e. in the Hebraeo-Greek, the Sanhedrim, the great council of the nation, consisting of seventy-two members, usually presided over by the high priest. It is frequently mentioned in the New Testament. On the present occasion, besides the members of the Sanhedrim, there were gathered together all the senate (γερουσία) of the children of Israel, an expression which occurs only here, but which seems to comprise all the elders of the Jews, even though they were not members of the Sanhedrim.
But some (Schleusner, Heinrich, etc.) understand it as merely another phrase for the Sanhedrim, added for explanation and amplification. The council, of course, were ignorant of the escape of the prisoners. The prison-house (δεσμωτήριον); "prison" (A.V.) represents φυλακή in the next verse.
The officers that came for when the officers came and, A.V. and T.R.; and they returned for they returned, A.V.
Prison-house for prison, A.V., as in Atti degli Apostoli 5:21; we found shut in all safety for truly found we shut with all safety, A.V. at the doors for without before the doors, A.V. and T.R. But the within at the end of the verse seems to require the without of the T.R.
The captain of the temple for the high priest and the captain, etc., A.V. and T.R.; words for things, A.V.; were much perplexed concerning them for doubted of them, A.V. The captain of the temple, etc. Meyer, followed by Alford, retains the T.R., in which the word for the high priest is ὁ ἱερεὺς. It is true that this word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament for "the high priest.
" But in the Old Testament נהֵךֹ is very frequently used to designate the high priest, as Esodo 29:30; Esodo 35:19; Num 3:32; 2 Cronache 22:11; 2 Re 22:10; I Kings 2 Re 1:8, etc.; and in such places is represented by ἱερεὺς in the LXX.
So that St. Luke may very probably have used it here where the context made the meaning clear, and where he intended to use the word ἀρχιερεῖς for "the chief priests." For the captain, see above (Atti degli Apostoli 4:1, note). He was especially interested as being, probably, the officer who had arrested the apostles the day before. Were much perplexed concerning.
The verb (διαπορέω), which only occurs in the New Testament here and Atti degli Apostoli 2:12, Atti degli Apostoli 10:17, Luca 9:7, and (in the middle voice) Luca 24:4, means properly "to be in doubt which road to take," hence generally to be in doubt, perplexity. Them may apply either to the words, the strange things just reported to them, or to the apostles about whom the things were reported. It seems most natural to refer it to the words. They were in doubt and perplexity as to what it would all grow to.
And there came one for then came one, A.V.; behold for saying, Behold, A.V. and T.R.; the prison for prison, A.V.; in the temple standing for standing in the temple, A.V. Standing implying the calm, fearless attitude of the men. There is an apparent reference in the mind of the writer to the words of the angel in Atti degli Apostoli 5:20, "Go ye, and stand and speak."
But without for without, A.V.; lest they should be, omitting ἵνα, for lest they should have been, with ἵνα, A.V. and T.R. Lest they should be, etc. The best way of construing the words, whether ἵνα is re-rained or not, is to make the clause "lest they should be stoned" depend upon "not with violence;" putting "for they feared the people" into a parenthesis; thus explaining why they thought it dangerous to use violence.
We straitly charged for did not we straitly command? A.V. and T.R.; not to for that ye should not, A.V.; teaching for doctrine, A.V. We straitly charged, etc.; ἐπερωτάω seems to require a question to follow. Your teaching (for the command, see Atti degli Apostoli 4:18). Intend to bring, etc. Here the secret of the persecution comes out, The guilty conscience winced at every word which spake of Jesus Christ as living.
The high priest, too, would not so much as name the name of Jesus. It was "this name," "this man;" as in the Talmud, Jesus is most frequently spoken of as Teloni, i.e. "such a one," in Spanish and Portuguese Fulano, or still more contemptuously as "that man". This terror of blood-guiltiness is a striking comment on the saying recorded in Matteo 27:25.
But for then, A.V.; the apostles for the other apostles, A.V.; must for ought to, A.V. Peter is the spokesman, the sentiment is that of the united apostolate. Must obey God, etc. The rule is a golden one for all men, all circumstances, and all time (comp. Atti degli Apostoli 4:19). Peter does not deny having received the prohibition, but pleads the superior force of the command of God, as set forth in the following verses.
Hanging him for and hanged, A.V. The God of our fathers, etc. Observe how carefully Peter preserves his own brotherhood with the Jews whom he was addressing, and the continuity of the New Testament with the Old Testament as being the sequel of the acts of the same God of Israel. Raised up; viz. from the dead; ἤγειρε, not ἀνίστη, as Atti degli Apostoli 3:22, Atti degli Apostoli 3:26.
Some, however (Calvin, Bengel, etc.), take ἤγειρε, as here used, to mean "raised up" in the wider sense of ἀναστῆσαι, as in the T.R. of Atti degli Apostoli 13:23, where, however, the R.T. has ἤγαγε. Slew; viz. with your own hands, as διεχειρίσασθε means. It only occurs besides in Atti degli Apostoli 26:27.
Did God exalt for hath God exalted, A.V.; remission for forgiveness, A.V. With his right hand; i.e. by his mighty power, as the instrument of Christ's exaltation. A Prince (Atti degli Apostoli 3:15, note). Repentance first, "a new heart and a new spirit" (Ezechiele 36:26), and forgiveness next (comp. Atti degli Apostoli 2:38; Atti degli Apostoli 3:19, etc.).
Witnesses for his witnesses, A.V. and T.R.; so is the Holy Ghost for so is also the Holy Ghost, A.V. and T.R. We are witnesses. The direct reference is to the command recorded in Atti degli Apostoli 1:8, which they felt imperatively bound to obey. So is the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost bare witness to the gospel preached by the apostles by the powers which he gave them to heal and work miracles, and by the conversion of many who heard the word: "the gospel preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven" (1 Pietro 1:12).
Mark the solemnity and authority which Peter claimed for the gospel by thus asserting that the Holy Ghost was the witness with the apostles to the truth of their testimony concerning Jesus Christ.
But they, when they heard this, for when they heard that, they, A.V.; were minded for took counsel, A.V. and T.R. (ἐβούλοντο for ἐβουλεύοντο, as also Atti degli Apostoli 15:39). The word for were cut to the heart (διέπριοντο) is found only here and in Atti degli Apostoli 7:54, where the full phrase is given.
It means literally, in the active voice, "to saw asunder," and is so used by the LXX. in 1 Cronache 20:2. In Ebrei 11:37 it is the simple verb πρίω which is used; πρίω and several of its compounds are surgical terms.
But there for there, A.V.; in honor of for in reputation among, A.V.; the men for the apostles, A.V. and T.R.; while for space, A.V. A Pharisee named Gamaliel. St. Luke had mentioned (Atti degli Apostoli 4:1 and Atti degli Apostoli 5:17) that there was an influential party of Sadducees in the Sanhedrim.
He, therefore, now specially notes that Gamaliel was a Pharisee. There can be no doubt that this alone would rather dispose him to resist the violent counsels of the Sadducean members, and the more so as the doctrine of the Resurrection was in question (see Atti degli Apostoli 23:1. Atti degli Apostoli 23:6). Moreover, Gamaliel was noted for his moderation.
That Gamaliel here named is the same as that of Atti degli Apostoli 22:3, at whose feet St. Paul was brought up at Jerusalem, and who is known in the Talmud as Rabban Gamaliel the elder (to distinguish him from his grandson of the same name, the younger), the grandson of Hillel, the head of the school of Hillel, and at some time president of the Sanhedrim, one of the most famous of the Jewish doctors (as the title Rabban, borne by only six others, shows), seems certain, though it cannot absolutely be proved.
The description of him as a doctor of the law, had in honor of all the people; the allusion to him as a great teacher, learned in the perfect manner of the Law of the fathers, and one whose greatness would be as a shield to his pupils, in Atti degli Apostoli 22:3; the exact chronological agreement; the weight he possessed in the Sanhedrim, in spite of the Sadducean tendencies of the high priest and his followers; and the agreement between his character as written in the Talmud and as shown in his speech and in the counsel given in it, seem to place his identity beyond all reasonable doubt.
There does not seem to be any foundation for the legend in the Clementine Recognitions, that he was in secret a Christian. If the prayer used in the synagogues, "Let there be no hope to them that apostatize from the true religion; and let heretics, how many soever they he, all perish as in a moment," be really his composition, as the Jews say, he certainly had no inclination to Christianity ('Prid. Conn.,' 1.361).
He said for said, A.V.; as touching these men transposed from the order of the A.V.; are about to do for intend to do, A.V.
Giving himself out for boasting himself, A.V.; dispersed for scattered, A.V.; came for brought, A.V. Rose up Theudas. A very serious chronological difficulty arises hero. The only Theudas known to history is the one about whom Josephus writes ('Ant. Jud.,' Atti degli Apostoli 20:5), quoted in full by Eusebius ('Ecclesiastes Hist.
,'Ecclesiaste 2:11) as having pretended to be a prophet, having lured a number of people to follow him to the banks of the Jordan, by the assurance that he would part the waters of the river, and as having been pursued by order of Cuspius Fadus, the Procurator of Judaea, when numbers of his followers were slain and taken prisoners, and Theudas himself had his head cut off.
But Fadus was procurator in the reign of Claudius Caesar, immediately after the death of King Agrippa, ten or twelve years after the time when Gamaliel was speaking, and about thirty years after the time at which Gamaliel places Theudas. Assuming St. Luke to be as accurate and correct here as he has been proved to be in other instances where his historical accuracy has been impugned, three ways present themselves of explaining the discrepancy.
1. Josephus may have misplaced the adventure of Theudas by some accidental error. Considering the vast number of Jewish insurrections from the death of Herod the Great to the destruction of Jerusalem, such a mistake is not very improbable. 2. There may have been two adventurers of the name of Theudas, one in the reign of Augustus Caesar, and the other in the reign of Claudius; and so both the historians may be right, and the apparent discrepancy may have no real existence (see Wordsworth, in loc.
). 3. The person named Theudas by Gamaliel may be the same whom Josephus speaks of ('Bell. Jud.,' it. 4.2) by the common name of Simon, as gathering a band of robbers around him, and making himself king at Herod's death ('Sonntag,' cited by Meyer, etc.). But he was killed by Gratus, and the insurrection suppressed. A variety in this last mode has also been suggested (Kitto's 'Cyclopaedia'), viz.
to understand Theudas to be an Aramaic form of Theodotus, and the equivalent Hebrew form of Theodotus to be היָתְתִםַ, Matthias, and so the person meant by Theudas to be a certain Matthias who with one Judas made an insurrection, when Herod the Great was dying, by tearing down the golden eagle which Herod had put over the great gate of the temple, and who was burnt alive with his companions, after defending his deed in a speech of great boldness and constancy ('Ant.
Jud' 17.6). A consideration of these methods of explaining the apparent contradiction between the two historians shows that no certainty can without further light be arrived at. But it may be observed that it is quite impossible to suppose that any one so well informed and so accurate as St. Luke is could imagine that an event that he must have remembered perfectly, if it happened under the procuratorship of Fadus, had happened before the disturbances caused by Judas of Galilee, at least thirty years before.
But it is most certain that Josephus's account of Theudas agrees better with Gamaliel's notice than that of either of the other persons suggested, irrespective of the identity of name. The first way of explaining the difficulty above proposed has, therefore, most probability in it. But some further corroboration of this explanation may be found in some of the details of Theudas's proceedings given by Josephus.
He tells us that Theudes persuaded a great number of people to "collect all their possessions" and follow him to the banks of the Jordan, where he promised, like a second Elijah, to part the waters for them to pass over; that they did so, but that Fadus sent a troop of horse after them, who slew numbers of them, and amongst them their leader. Now, if this happened when the business of the census was beginning to be agitated, after the deposition of Archelaus (A.
D. 6 or 7), all is plain. Theudas declaimed as a prophet against submitting to the census of their goods ordered by Augustus. The people were of the same mind. Theudas persuaded them that, if they brought all their goods to the banks of the Jordan, he would divide the stream and enable them to carry them over to the other side out of reach of the tax-gatherer. And so they made the attempt. But this was an act of rebellion against the Roman power, and a method of defeating the purpose of the census, which must be crushed at once.
And so the people were pursued and slaughtered. But apart from the census of their goods, one sees no motive either for the attempt to carry away their property, or for the slaughter of an unarmed multitude by the Roman cavalry. So that the internal evidence is in favor of St. Luke's collocation of the incident, at the same time that his authority as a contemporary historian is much higher than that of Josephus. Still, one desiderates some more satisfactory proof of the error of Josephus, and some account of how he fell into it.
Enrolment for taxing, A.V.; some of the for much, A.V.; as many for even as many, A.V.; scattered abroad for dispersed, A.V. Judas of Galilee, otherwise called the Gaulonite, as a native of Gamala, in Gaulonitis. He was probably called a Galilaean because Galilee was the seat of his insurrection (Josephus, 'Ant.
,' 18, 1.1 and 6; also 'Bell. Jud.,' 2. 8.1; 17.8). He was the great leader of the Jews in opposing the census ordered by Augustus, after the deposition of Archelaus, and carried out by Cyrenius, or rather P. Sulpicius Quirinus, the Propraetor of Syria, with the assistance of Cumanus, the subordinate Governor of Judaea. Judas, with Zadoc his coadjutor, was the founder of a fourth Jewish sect, nearly allied to the Pharisees, and his sedition was founded on his philosophic tenets.
Josephus speaks of him as the author of all the seditions, tumults, slaughters, sieges, devastations, plunder, famines, ending with the burning of the temple, which afflicted his unhappy country. He gives no account of his death. But his two sons, James and Simon, were crucified by Tiberius Alexander, the successor of Cuspius Fadus. Another son, Menahem, having collected and armed a large band of robbers and other insurgents, after a partially successful attack on the Roman camp at Jerusalem, was miserably slain.
The enrolment (ἡ ἀπογραφή, as Luca 2:1). The purpose of Augustus, which had been delayed some years from causes not accurately known, perhaps in deference to some remonstrance from Herod the Great, was now carried into effect. Quirinus was sent, apparently the second time, as Proprsetor of Syria, to which Judaea was now attached, with Cumanus under him as Procurator of Judaea, to make a valuation of all their property.
The Jews had been first persuaded by the high priest Joazar, i.e. apparently in the end of Herod's reign, or the beginning of Archelaus's, to submit to what they greatly disliked, but were now roused to insurrection by Judas of Galilee ('Ant.,' 18, 1.1). He also perished. Nothing is known of his death beyond this notice of it. Scattered abroad. Not crushed, for the insurrection broke out again and again, having the character of a religious war given to it by Judas of Galilee.
Be overthrown for come to nought, A.V.
Is for be, A.V.; will not be able to for cannot, A.V.; them for it, A.V. and T.R.; to be fighting for to fight, A.V.
Called unto them (προσκαλεσάμενοι) for simply called, A.V.; they beat them and charged them for and beaten them, they commanded, A.V.; not to speak for that they should not speak, A.V.
They therefore for and they, A.V.; dishonor for the Name, for shame for his Name, A.V. and T.R. (see 1 Pietro 4:12; Giovanni 15:21).
Every day for daily, A.V.; at home for in every hour, A.V. (see Atti degli Apostoli 2:46 note); to preach Jesus as the Christ for preach Jesus Christ, A.V. and T.R. The meaning is that they daily preached Jesus Christ both in the temple and in the house or houses where the disciples were wont to meet (see Atti degli Apostoli 2:46, note).
The spirit and conduct of the apostles here recorded is a precious example to their successors. To glory in the cross, to count shame endured for Christ's sake the highest honor, and to be unwearied and undaunted in teaching and preaching Jesus Christ through good report and through evil report, is the true character and work of every bishop of souls.
HOMILETICS
The first hypocrisy.
Hitherto all had been bright and beautiful in the new-born Church of God. Brotherly love, disinterested kindness to one another, heroic courage in the face of danger, unhesitating devotion to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, and an unflinching profession of faith in his Name, had been the common characteristics of the multitude of them that believed. The Church was as the garden of the Lord in the midst of the world's wilderness.
It was a bright spring-tide, soon, alas! to be checked by the cold blasts of selfishness and the love of this world. The time of millennial blessedness was not yet come. Satan was not yet bound. On the contrary, he was unusually busy, with persecutions from without and temptations from within, in his endeavors to hurt and corrupt the children of the kingdom. Indeed, we may notice, as a universal feature in the economy of the kingdom of darkness, that every great step in advance of the kingdom of light is followed by some corresponding movement intended to defeat it.
The sowing of the good seed is the signal for the sowing of the tares. The salvation of God is confronted with some counterfeit of Satan. The faith of God's elect was opposed, even in the first century, by subtle heresies of man's or Satan's devising. The glorious spread of the gospel in all lands had a counterplot in the extraordinary growth of the imposture of Mohammed. The great Reformation in the sixteenth century was hindered by the hypocrisies and fanaticism which sprang up by its side.
And so it was now. The great enemy of man could not look on the blessedness of the company of Christians without trying to mar it. He must have some portion even within the enclosure of Christ's Church. Even there all must not be guileless truth, all must not be unselfish love. He must have some to do him service even though they called Christ their Lord. But how could he find an entrance into those holy precincts, how climb up into that heavenly fold? In human character the highest rank consists of those who love righteousness for its own sake, and with various degrees of success actually attain to it.
There are those among them who attain the sublimest heights of virtue and godliness, and there are those who at the best, and amidst many stumblings and falls, are only struggling upwards. But they all belong to that highest class who really desire to do the will of God and to be conformed to his image. But there are others who do not belong to this class at all. They, perhaps, admire virtue in others.
But especially do they covet the praise and high esteem which virtue conciliates to itself. In a religious society they perceive that certain actions are praised of men and bring certain pleasurable consequences to the doers of them. These fruits of goodness they desire to possess. But then they will not make the sacrifices, suffer the losses, endure the privations, which are inseparable from such actions.
The double heart immediately casts about to find some method of obtaining the good without making the sacrifice. To be thought righteous, good, religious, not really to be so, becomes the aim and object. Fraud, deceit, lies, false pretences, are called in to help, and the hypocrite stands, kneels, gives alms, talks religiously, by the side of God's true saints, till his hypocrisy is brought to light, and he stands revealed as a dissembler before God and man.
But meanwhile, in the sight of the world, true godliness is discredited by each fresh exposure of the hypocrite. The defamers of God's people are encouraged to say that there is no such thing as the pure love of God and disinterested obedience to his will; and they argue that the most consistent livers are only the best dissemblers. There are, doubtless, many other useful lessons to be learnt from the study of this first hypocrisy in the Church of God.
It is good to dwell upon this account of it, upon its detection, and upon its awful punishment, because it is only a type of countless other cases which have since happened, and are daily happening, and which, whenever they do happen, do injury to the cause of Christ. We may learn in this melancholy example how the love of money, or the love of the praise of men, or a greedy appetite of applause, or an ungodly emulation of the fame of other men, or the habit of thinking of appearances more than of reality, and of putting on a religious garb without taking care that our hearts are really moved and guided by the Holy Spirit of God, may, almost before we are aware of it, be leading us into the paths of the hypocrite instead of into the way of the just.
And in the fearful exposure and punishment of these first Christian hypocrites, we may learn how certain it is that sooner or later every hidden thought and every secret of the heart will be brought to light; and that none will be able to stand before the all-searching eye of God but those who walk before God in godly sincerity, while they trust with a steadfast faith in the merits of their almighty Savior.
But anyhow we may be sure that this example of hypocrisy by the side of eminent holiness in the primitive Church, is thus set forth in its distinctness by the inspired historian, to be a touchstone by which to try future actions, to be a type of an evil which would be found to exist in all subsequent ages, and to be a warning to the children of God to watch against the very first beginnings of declension from simplicity and sincerity in their relations to Almighty God.
The advancing tide.
The gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ crucified and risen again had issued from Jerusalem at the bidding of the Lord. Would it ever stop? would it ever cease to advance? would it ever meet with obstacles sufficiently strong to turn back its current and to arrest its progress? When the flowing tide is hurrying towards the shore, some particular wave is checked by an opposing rock, and is shivered into spray before it can reach the shore.
But wait a little and the rock is sunken beneath the waters, and the waves roll on unchecked to their goal. Sometimes a temporary lull seems to have fallen upon the languid waves, and three or four in succession do not reach the bounds which their predecessors had attained. But yet a moment and the tide advances in its unbroken strength, and never fails to fulfill its destined course. It is just so with the gospel of Christ.
Its advance is sure. Its strength is in the unchanging will of God. It has a course to run; it will run it. It has an end to fulfil; it will fulfill it. Hindrances, obstacles, defiance, it will meet with from man in a thousand varying forms. The opposition of hard unbelief in those who boast that they have intellect and philosophy on their side; the opposition of adverse creeds seeking to supplant the true faith; the fierce persecutions of ungodly power hoping to stop by force the progress of a hated truth; the divisions and dissensions of Christians among themselves; the abounding of iniquity and the chilling of Christian love; the sudden rise of some heresy or apostasy;—these and such like hindrances may occasionally seem to check the onward flow of the waters of life, and at times to threaten its further advance.
But, like the irresistible tide of the mighty ocean, God's purpose is pressing surely on; and by the time decreed by his eternal wisdom the whole "earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaia 11:9). The chapter now before us gives a most striking view of this irresistible advance as well as of the obstacles opposed to it.
One hundred and twenty men and a few poor, weak women are, as it were, the seed which the hand of the Lord has sown in an uncongenial soil. Immediately around them was all the bigotry of Pharisaic Judaism, clinging with desperate and impassioned obstinacy to the traditions of their fathers, and ready to kill and be killed on behalf of the Law of Moses, on the one hand; and the hard, cold skepticism of the Sadducees on the other, denying with agnostic incredulity the existence of anything beyond the ken of their eyes or the grasp of their hands.
In the wider circle of the outside world there was the iron heathenism of Rome. Imperial tyranny and Caesarean power; military force and the despotism of the sword; sensuality of the deepest dye; idolatry of the most aggressive and all-engrossing kind; philosophies the most adverse to the cress of Christ. How and where could the gospel make its way? Would it not die in the upper room where it was born? But what do we read? "There were added to the Church about three thousand souls;" "Many believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand;" "Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women;" "The number of the disciples was multiplied;" and so on, marking the constant advance of the Church of God.
And yet all the while every effort was being made to check this advance. There were already "prisons oft." There were the fierce threatenings of those who had power to execute them; there were stripes inflicted; there was the majesty of the law and the authority of rulers arrayed against them. But it was all in vain. The preachers could not be silenced; the preaching could not be stopped; the miracles could not be hid; men's hearts would turn to Christ when they heard of his grace; multitudes would leave the side of the persecutors and join themselves to the persecuted.
The tide would flow on. It rushed over the heads of the opposing rocks. And then worldly wisdom came in with its prudent counsel, "Leave these men alone." And so for a time the work of God went quietly on, gathering strength and acquiring solidity from day to day, in preparation for future hostility from the world without, and future hindrances from corruption within. But these first fortunes of Christianity have left to the Church in all ages a model of the conflicts that await her, and of the only method of obtaining victory.
They show us that through opposition and contradiction, in sunshine and in storm, amidst encouragements and under depression, the servants of God have to persevere steadily in proclaiming the grace of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, have to go forward in an unswerving obedience to the commandment of Christ and an unfaltering confidence in his almighty power, and that success is sure. "On this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
A fatal forgetfulness.
There are several truths which this sad incident suggests to us. We may view them thus—
I. THAT A NEW ENTERPRISE MAY SURVIVE A VERY DAMAGING BLOW. It was a very serious misfortune to the new Church that two of its members should commit a sin worthy of death, and pay that terrible penalty in the view of all. The apostles must have felt that they and the cause with which they were identified had received a severe blow; but it was far from being a fatal one.
It was one from which the cause of Christ soon recovered; nay, it was overruled "for the furtherance of the gospel." Let not any Church or any sacred cause be too much disheartened by a check at the beginning. With truth and God on its side, it will survive and flourish.
II. THAT VERY SERIOUS SIN MAY BE CONNECTED WITH AN ACT WHICH IS OUTWARDLY VIRTUOUS AND GODLY. To those who looked on as Ananias and Sapphira brought the money they did bring and laid it at the feet of the apostles, their action must have seemed pious and generous in a very high degree.
But we know it to have been utterly and even fatally defective. It becomes us to search with fearless and faithful glance those of our deeds which men approve as most commendable, lest, while around us is approval and congratulation, there should be entered in the book of account in heaven a sin of great enormity against our name.
III. THAT WE MAY BE COMMITTING A HEINOUS SIN IN AN ACTION WHICH SEEMS VENIAL TO OURSELVES. In all likelihood, Ananias and Sapphira imagined that they were doing an action which, while it was calculated to win respect, was not very, if at all, reprehensible in itself.
They probably reconciled it to their own sense of rectitude. Men do so now. In connection with religion and philanthropy they do guilty things which kindle the wrath of the righteous Lord, supposing that they are only departing a few degrees from integrity, or are even worthy of praise. "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults."
IV. THAT IT IS A FALSE AND MOST PERILOUS THING TO SUPPOSE THAT THE GOOD CONNECTED WITH ANY COURSE WILL COUNTERBALANCE SOME ONE SERIOUS SIN THEREIN.
Ananias and Sapphira may have thought that the piety and charity of their conduct would more than balance the sin of their deception. They were miserably wrong and were fearfully disabused of their mistake. If we willfully break one of God's plain commandments, supposing that the virtues of our action will cancel the wrong, and thus allow ourselves to fall into deception (as here), or into dishonesty, or into excess, or, into arrogance and pride, we shall have a sad and, it may be, a rude and awful awakening from our grievous error.
V. THAT THERE IS A FORGETFULNESS WHICH IS NOTHING LESS THAN FATAL. Ananias and Sapphira made a mistake which was simply ruinous. They overlooked the fact that the Holy Spirit of God was in close connection with his Church, and was acting through his servants.
They forgot that when they were trying to deceive inspired men they were acting falsely in the face of the Divine Inspirer, so that when they imagined they were lying unto men they were really lying unto God (Atti degli Apostoli 5:4). For this guilty oversight they paid the last penalty of death. Is not their sin too easily reproducible and too often re-enacted? Too commonly men guiltily overlook the presence and agency of the Divine Spirit.
1. A Church does so when it is resting in human and earthly advantages for its prosperity; when the minister trusts to his eloquence, the people to those arts and influences which are from below and not from above; when both are forgetting that there is an almighty power which is within their reach and at the command of believing prayer.
2. The human soul does so when it disregards the influences which are at work upon and within it; when it treats lightly the pleadings of the pulpit, the warnings of friendship, the prickings of conscience, the convictions and impulses which call it to newness of life. Is not this to sin against the Holy Ghost, and is not the penalty of it spiritual, eternal death?—C.
Elements of influence.
Instead of the sin and death of Ananias and Sapphira proving disastrous to the infant Church, the melancholy event was followed by a period of extraordinary success: There was a high tide of prosperity; the gospel showed itself a great power in the community (Atti degli Apostoli 5:14). Here are some of the elements of that power.
I. THE TERRIBLE. "Great fear came upon … as many as heard these things" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:11). "By terrible things in righteousness" God sometimes answers us and impresses us. The fearful has a work to do in inspiring awe and leading to conviction and conversion. There are awful truths in connection with the gospel (Matteo 21:44; Matteo 24:51; Matteo 25:46, etc.), as well as terrible facts happening in the providence of God, which do their work in the mind, solemnizing, subduing, preparing for thought, devotion, consecration.
II. THE BENEFICENT. (Atti degli Apostoli 5:15, Atti degli Apostoli 5:16.) In apostolic times Christian beneficence took the form of miraculous healing, and it was most efficacious in attracting and winning men. Now it takes other forms hardly less effective. The hospitals of the missionary in India and China, and the philanthropic institutions of England, initiated and sustained by Christian sympathy and self-sacrifice, are great elements of power. Christian kindness, taking a thousand shapes, flowing in a thousand channels, is an untold, incalculable influence for good.
III. THE SACRED. "The people magnified them" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:13). To whomsoever this applied, whether to the apostles only or to the band of believing disciples, it is clear that a certain reverence was paid to those who bore about them such marks of close association with the Divine. To those who walk with God, who are men of prayer and of real devoutness of spirit as well as blamelessness of life, there will attach a certain sacredness which will cause them to be "magnified by the people," and their word will be with power.
IV. THE SUCCESSFUL. It is clear, from the fifteenth and sixteenth verses, that the publicity gained by the "many signs and wonders of one day brought together a still larger congregation of the sick and the expectant the following day. Success in Jerusalem begat success in "the cities round about." The moral and spiritual triumphs of the truth have been elements of influence of signal worth.
What God has wrought in opening blind eyes of the mind and cleansing leprous souls has been the means of extending the healing and renewing power of Christ on every hand. What stronger argument have we than this—What Christ has done for such sad and sinful souls he can and will do for you?
V. THE SUPERNATURAL. "Signs and wonders are not now wrought by the hand of the ministers of Christ." But the supernatural is with us still, though the miraculous is gone. In connection with the preached Word, and in answer to believing prayer, the iron will is bent and the rocky heart is broken, the blind eyes are opened, and from the grave of sin dead souls come forth to newness of life.—C.
Three things Divine.
The success of the Christian cause had the effect which might have been anticipated; it aroused the intense hostility of the enemies of the Lord, and their bitter opposition found vent in a speedy arrest and imprisonment of the apostles (Atti degli Apostoli 5:17, Atti degli Apostoli 5:18). But man's adversity was God's opportunity, and we have:—
I. DIVINE INTERPOSITION. (Atti degli Apostoli 5:19.) How vain all bolts and bars to shut out those whom God would have to enter, to shut in those whom he would have escape! The hour had come for his interposing hand, and all the contrivances of man's wrath were broken through as if they were but "the spider's most attenuated thread.
" We often wish for the direct interposition of God now; we often ask for it; we often wonder that it does not come, thinking that the hour for Divine manifestation must have arrived. The duty and the wisdom of true piety are
(1) to ask God to deliver in his own time and way;
(2) to expect his delivering hand at some time and in some way;
(3) to wait in patient endurance till his time has come;
(4) to recognize his gracious hand in whatever ways he may be pleased to act.
II. A DIVINE INSTRUCTION. "Go, stand and speak … all the words of this life" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:20). Doubtless the apostles well understood what was the tenor of their commission. They were to speak all those words which would enlighten their fellow-citizens on the great subject of the new spiritual life which they had begun to live.
They who stand now in the relation of religious teachers to the men of their own time, may take these words of the heavenly messenger as a Divine instruction to themselves. They are to "speak all the words of this life;" i.e.
(1) to explain and enforce the truth, that beneath and beyond the life which is material and temporal is the life which is spiritual and eternal;
(2) to make known the conditions on which that life is to be entered upon—repentance toward God, and faith in a crucified and risen Savior;
(3) to make clear the way by which that life is to be sustained—by "abiding in him;"
(4) to assure all disciples that "this life" is to be perpetuated in the other world.
III. THE DIVINE DEMAND. "We ought to obey God rather than man" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:29). God demands our first obedience—that is the teaching of his Word; it is also the response of our own conscience. We agree, when we consider it, that God has a claim, transcendently and immeasurably superior to all others, on our allegiance.
That Divine One who called us ourselves into existence; by whom we have been endowed with all our faculties; in whom "we live, and move, and have our being;" from whom we have received every single blessing we have known; who is the righteous and holy Sovereign of all souls throughout the universe of being; on whose will absolutely depends our future destiny;—to him we owe our allegiance in such degree, that any claims man may have upon us are "as nothing, and less than nothing.
" There are many reasons why we should yield ourselves to his service—the example of the worthiest and the best of our kind; the excellency, dignity, exaltation of that service; the present and future advantages we gain thereby; the awful issues of disloyalty and persistent rejection, etc. But there is one thought which should weigh the most, and be of itself sufficient—" we ought to obey God.
" We cannot decline to do so without violating the plain teaching of our moral judgment. When we do yield ourselves to him, we put ourselves in the right and have the strong and blessed sanction of our conscience. We should hear the voice within, saying daily, hourly, in tones which will not be silenced, "You ought to obey God."—C.
The cross and the crown.
In this address which Peter delivered to the Sanhedrim we have another epitome of the gospel.
I. THE LOWEST DEPTH OF EARTHLY SHAME. "Whom ye slew and hanged on a tree" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:30). The Son of God was "made a little lower than the angels," even a Son of man, "for the suffering of death" (Ebrei 2:9). He stooped to the level of our humanity, in order that he might "taste death for every man.
" And he underwent that experience in its most dreadful form—in darkness, pain, shame, desertion, inexpressible agony of soul. He went deliberately down to the very lowest point to which he could stoop, that he might finish the work the Father had given him to do.
II. THE HIGHEST SUMMIT OF HEAVENLY HONOUR. "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus … him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:30, Atti degli Apostoli 5:31). "From the highest throne of glory to the cross of deepest woe" he had come; now he reascended from the grave to the throne, to the seat of heavenly power and blessedness. He has become an enthroned Redeemer, a sovereign Savior,
(1) occupying the foremost place in heavenly rank,
(2) dispensing salvation to the lost children of men, and
(3) receiving the willing homage, the affectionate service of the multitude he has redeemed. What more honorable, enviable, blessed position can we conceive than that of One who, seated in the very highest post of honor, is conferring the best of all imaginable boons, and is receiving, in return, the freest, richest, most rejoicing worship and service of his redeemed, both of those who are about his person "in the heavens," and of those also who are serving him and striving to follow him below?
III. THE METHOD OF THE REIGNING SAVIOUR. He is a Prince and a Savior, "to give repentance.., and forgiveness of sins." How does the exalted Lord carry on his great work as he reigns in heaven? By giving repentance and remission.
1. He gives to human souls a sense of the heinousness of their sin.
2. He dispenses to them, through his atoning sacrifice, full and free forgiveness of their sin. Thus he leads men everywhere away from their iniquity, and restores them to the favor and so to the happy service of the Supreme.
IV. THE BLESSED CERTAINTY WE HAVE OF THE FACT OF HIS ELEVATION. (Atti degli Apostoli 5:22.) The apostles could assure the council that these things were so; they could place it beyond all doubt, inasmuch as
(1) they themselves were witnesses of the facts, and
(2) the Holy Spirit had confirmed their testimony by the signs and wonders he enabled them to work. We too have testimony, both human and Divine.
1. The human testimony of the apostles of our Lord; also of all Christian souls in all succeeding generations, who have witnessed for him and the power of his grace; and also the assurance of our contemporaries, who rejoice in the liberty with which he has made them free.
2. The Divine testimony of that gracious Spirit of God, who, though he works no signs and wonders around us, does work conviction, comfort, sanctity, strength, within us.—C.
Our attitude towards God.
There are three attitudes it is possible for us to assume towards our Maker and Savior. They are those of—
I. HOSTILITY. We may "be found even to fight against God." It is, indeed, as new as it is old for men to contend with God and to oppose themselves to those ends for which he is working.
1. Good men do so unwittingly; as when earnest and holy Catholics have persecuted Protestant men and women; as when devout Protestants have thrown obstacles in the way of their more energetic co-religionists who have been evangelizing in ways not considered legal and correct; as when we ignorantly misconstrue the sacred Scriptures, finding out, farther on, that those views we combated were in harmony with truth.
2. Bad men do so deliberately and guiltily:
(1) when they endeavor positively to overturn influences which they know to be holy and remedial;
(2) when they practically encourage that which they feel to be wrong and hurtful.
II. NEUTRALITY. We may take the position which Gamaliel advised with so much policy on this occasion: "Let these men alone" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:38). When any sacred cause comes up before us, challenging our approval and asking our aid, we may determinately stand aloof, declining either to befriend it on the one hand or to withstand it on the other: we neither bless nor curse.
1. It is impossible to take a neutral position, upon the whole, in relation to Christ. "He that is not with him is against him," as he has said to us. Our influence is either telling in favor of his holy service, of Christian truth, of eternal life, or else against these sacred things.
2. It is possible that we may assume a neutrality toward particular institutions, usages, movements, habits; and this neutrality may be
(1) necessary, because we have not the means of arriving at a judgment at all;
(2) wise, because we have not yet had the opportunity of coming to an intelligent decision;
(3) culpable, because cowardly, selfish, unfaithful.
III. CO-OPERATION. (Atti degli Apostoli 5:40.) When they had beaten the apostles—an act of severe bodily castigation was a grim method of "letting them alone; it was probably a concession to the party of hostile action—they did let them go, with strict prohibitions in their ear. We are to be "co-workers with Christ," "workmen together with him;" and we shall become this by:
1. Speaking for Christ. "Daily in the temple.., they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ" (Atti degli Apostoli 5:42). In the Church, in the school, in the home,—anywhere, everywhere, we too may speak for him; uttering the truth which he has taught us to prize, more especially upholding him himself as the one great Teacher, almighty Savior, Divine Friend, and rightful Lord of the human soul.
2. Suffering for him. The apostles endured suffering and shame for his Name; they did so gladly, rejoicingly. We may be "counted worthy" to do the same. Many thousands of men, in heaven or on earth, have had this high honor (Matteo 5:10; 1 Pietro 4:13). And if we are thoroughly true and unflinchingly faithful to our Lord, serving him to the full height of our opportunity, we shall surely
(1) suffer bodily inconveniences, fatigue, exhaustion, if not pain and sickness, for his sake;
(2) endure the dislike and ridicule, if not the blows and imprisonment, of the ungodly. In such ill treatment we shall find occasion for heavenly joy, as they did.—C.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
The sin of heart: untruth and its punishment.
As the shadow follows the light, so Christianity has been marked in its progress by a deep and broadening shadow of hypocrisy. After the glorious picture of sunny days of the Spirit's life in the preceding chapter, a dark view of human deceit is presented. The root of bitterness springs up amidst the Divine delights of the time, and many are troubled.
I. THE SIN OF ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA. Essentially it was the acting of a lie. The part of the produce of the sale was put before the apostles as if it had been the whole. Many will act lies who will shun to articulate them. But the value of actions in a moral point of view lies in the expression they give to feeling.
The motive cannot be left out of consideration. This action was intended by the guilty pair to pass with others as having a moral quality it had not. The understanding was that the whole and unreserved produce of the sale of property should in every case be given in. The act of the couple was intended to be received in this meaning while that meaning did not exist. We are responsible for the constructions which we know will in certain cases be put upon our actions.
And the action of Ananias and Sapphira is typical of all those by which we dishonestly compromise with conscience, or seek to pass under false colors. There are times when it is a duty to abstain from action, if we know that our action will convey an impression that is false, have an appearance to which no reality corresponds.
II. PETER'S EXPOSURE OF THE SIN. His words are deep and mysterious. Let us not pretend to fathom them.
1. The dark source of crime—"Satan filling the heart." The deeds of sin are dark in every sense: they excite shame in the doer; they shun the light; they are lying in their origin, process, and consummation.
2. The struggle involved in sin. The opposition of the good, the striving of the Holy Spirit, is ever felt. No man lies to his fellow-men until he has first lied to the truth revealed within. Discussions about the personality of Satan and of the Holy Ghost are foreign to the spirit of the simple New Testament language, and only divert the mind from the solemn truth of immediate inner experience. The meaning of these dread figures of speech is sufficiently clear without any dialectics.
3. The peculiar aggravation of this sin. It had not the excuse of overwhelming temptation. They need not have sold the property at all. There was no law or special apostolic edict requiring it. The free spirit of love alone set the practice on foot. Certainly those sins which men commit under no pressure of necessity or of sudden and strong coincidences of opportunity with desire, are the worst.
Gratuitous sin, so to speak, shows so diseased a moral state that it infers a person will require a temptation to do right, will go wrong without temptation at all. It was a fixed and deliberate determination, this act of Ananias, taken in the full daylight of conscience. In all probability it was the crowning act of u life long directed to counterfeiting goodness. For how true the proverb, that no one falls suddenly into the extreme of baseness! His life in Judaism had been a counterfeit, his conversion a sham, his participation in the joy and power of the time a mockery; the act which he intended to seal his Christian reputation fixing on him the damnation of the devil-led impostor. And through all or much of this there doubtless ran a vein of profound self-deception.
4. All moral offenses are irreligious. This is important, for the craft of the heart would often separate morality from religion. But a lie to men is a lie to God under all circumstances; it is he whose light is in the breast which falsehood confuses, his truth which is practically denied. There is no genuine morality which is not founded on reverence for the living God. And no security that men will speak truly or act rightly when the pressure of fear or the mechanical action of habit is not felt, except in the sense of the eternal imperative of God.
5. The complicity of the wife in the guilt adds another element of aggravation. The one should have restrained the other. The guilt of their joint act was like a mutual agreement of unfaithfulness. The sanctity of marriage rests on the recognition of the covenant between each soul and God; it is broken down and defiled by the common consciousness of a crime.
III. THE JUDGMENT. It was sudden, marking the interposition of God. It was received in both cases in silence—a tacit confession of its justice. Thus did sin long nourished in the heart at last come forth, full-born, only to meet death. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Great dread fell, as well it might, on all who heard and on the whole Church. It was like a bolt out of a clear and serene sky. And we should learn the solemn lessons that suggest themselves for every time.
1. Moral dangers lurk near every scene of spiritual manifestation.
2. The highest features of spiritual character and action will always find false imitators, and this in the very bosom of the Church.
3. Hence the need of heart-searching for ourselves, of constant prudence and vigilance. "Our enemy goeth about." "Behold, I have told you before."—J.
The healing personality of Christ's servants.
I. THEY ARE VEHICLES OF DIVINE POWER. The lips and the hands are consecrated to the service of doing good. Here especially the hands. It is a beautiful organ, the human hand, and may stand in Christian thought as the very symbol of beneficence. Signs and wonders are wrought, betokening that God is in immediate connection with the agency of man, that his presence is loving and healing, that Christianity brings in an era of deliverance from pain and sickness.
II. THE REPELLENT FORCE OF HOLY PERSONALITY. False souls are scared by the presence of a true man. They are in polar antagonism to him. They cannot bear his direct glance, his clear tones, his indefinable influence. There are those whose presence silences the ribald jest and scoff.
The holy man awakens dread and love wherever he goes. Society seems to divide into its elements as he approaches. He is magnetic. Hence the slander of some is an equal testimony to moral greatness with the admiration and love of others.
III. ITS ATTRACTIVE FORCE. The multitude love goodness and revere it in their inmost heart. And not for long can the sympathies of the multitude be held except by goodness. In this case Divine power set its seal too plainly upon the character and work of the apostles to be resisted. In the vast concourse of sick and suffering in the streets and open places of Jerusalem we have the picture of the effects of Christianity.
It is and ever has been the religion of the poor and the suffering. It remains the Divine will that the Christian minister should be the healer, the comforter. His pattern is to be found in the description Christ gave of his own mission in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luca 4:1.), and it is surely a sign of weakness somewhere when the public organs of Christianity fail to command the attention and to supply the heart-wants of the lowly and the suffering.
By the ordinary laws of mind to work for the spiritual help of such is better than all the power to work signs and wonders. Let every Christian minister be like "Peter's shadow," a refreshment and a rest by his spirit and teaching to weary souls.—J.
Arrest of the apostles.
I. THE TEMPER OF THE RULING POWERS
1. Zeal. It is good or evil in its effects, according to the objects to which it is directed. There is no mood of which more opposite descriptions have been and may not be with justice given. In the excitement of feeling, the fire and fervor which zeal implies, egotism may be so easily mistaken for public spirit. Our self-passions may and must mix with those of a purer kind. Resentment against injury to our interests or indignity to our party, or contempt for our opinions, is constantly mistaken for pure zeal for the kingdom of God and the cause of goofiness.
2. Whenever anger and violence break out it is a proof that the dangerous force of zeal is at work. The only way to correct its mischief is by denying any personal interest which is apart from that of the truth. It is the clear calm gaze at truth which cools the undue heat of zeal, or gives the force its true direction. Here violence showed that egotism was the principle of priestly zeal, and passionate interest, divorced from truth. The apostles are seized and put in prison. Zeal is blundering, thinks that force is a remedy for moral feebleness, believes that truth and spirit can be put down.
II. THEIR VIOLENCE DIVINELY REBUKED. The angel of the Lord comes as an emissary of freedom, for the Word of God cannot be bound. And freedom means new scope for duty. God does not give liberty to tongue and hand for nothing.
"If our virtues go not forth from us,
'Tis all as one as though we had them not."
Freedom imposes duties. If God sets us free front the fear of man, which muzzles the tongue, then let us go and publicly speak to the people "all the words of this life." Again, with freedom courage is given. The apostles go at daybreak to the temple, and in the teeth of ecclesiastical prohibition proceed to teach. How truly is courage the gift and grace of God! Too often we think of it as a mere pagan virtue founded on pride.
Far otherwise with the true courage of the Christian soldier. "It was a great instruction," said Mrs. Hutchinson, in her 'Memoirs,'" that the best and highest courages were beams of the Almighty." As every passion and energy of the soul contains its opposite, so moral courage contains fear of God, moral cowardice contains the false courage to be untrue to God. The apostles, having chosen the fear of God and obedience for their guide, knew no other fear.
III. RENEWAL OF OPPOSITION. (Atti degli Apostoli 5:22, etc.) Here is another study of the human heart. When men are blinded by passion, the strongest arguments and warnings of God seem only obstacles on which wrath breaks with the greater vehemence. The news conies that the prison is empty, and under significant circumstances.
The guard stands as before at the door, unconscious of the prisoners' escape. The tidings are confirmed from another source. The prisoners have escaped and are again in the temple, teaching. Was not this the finger of God? Would not men in their senses, free from the madness of passion, have argued that they did wrong to offer violence to a power so majestical and so contemptuous of the fetters of force and the ordinary laws of nature? Yet once more the foiled attempt of human force against the will of God is renewed, and the apostles are brought with a gentleness due to the fear of their captors before the tribunal.
IV. THE CONTEST OF WORLDLY AUTHORITY WITH SPIRITUAL. The Sanhedrim are at the outset again baffled and defied.
1. Authority weak without moral support. The judges can only helplessly repeat themselves. They refer to their former command and ask why it had not been obeyed. As if the apostles had not warned them it should not be obeyed. Might without right can only repeat its experiments and its failures; is no match for right which rests upon eternal might.
2. Physical weakness mighty is moral support. Here were but a few unarmed men, without armed following, only temporarily backed up by the uncertain sympathy of the crowd. What is the secret of their immovable bearing? It is moral. Obedience to the higher law is the secret of all command over the minds of others. Here again is the coincidence of opposites. The servant of self-interest is weak, though he sits on a throne and is surrounded by guards; while one moral will, one divinely determined personality, suffices to set a city in com- motion and to overturn established order.
3. Truth irresistible. The truth of the place, time, persons, circumstances, launched from firm lips, is certain to go home. This is infallible. If we fail with the truth, it is because of want of respect to some of these conditions.
(1) The act of God in raising Jesus is again insisted on. Fearful fact in its grandeur, disquieting in its stubbornness, illustrated now by the events of every hour.
(2) The guilt of the crucifiers again emphasized. Their own dark passions are reflected in the cross of wood, and at the same time God's rebuke of them and disappointment of them.
(3)The exaltation and dominion of Jesus again set forth. At the fight hand of God; at the apex of the moral universe, he now draws men unto him, changing their hearts and pardoning their sins.
(4) The living evidence again appealed to. We, living, acting men, working works that by the confession of one of your number (Nicodemus) no man can do unless God be with him; we, not in our independent name and personality, but as vehicles and agents of a holy power, are the evidence that these things are so. And if they are so, then is the power of the Sanhedrim, with all its sup- port in Roman arms, the mere shadow and ghost of authority.
It is superseded by that of Jesus the true King of Israel. Well may the priests and rulers be cut to the heart by a conviction, all the more penetrating because it is in the minds of all, yet adored by none.
(1) The root of courage, energy, moral influence, and command lies in conscience, or obedience to God.
(2) Where men combine against conscience and conspire against truth, they undermine the foundations of authority and prepare their own ruin.—J.
Power and weakness.
I. INNOCENCE AN OBJECT OF HATE TO THE UNJUST. No wound is more deadly than that inflicted by words of truth upon false hearts. If the heart will not receive the truth, the truth will pierce through it. And murderous counsels show that truth has been denied in the heart.
Instead of answering the witnesses with reason for reason, the Sanhedrim seek to stop their mouth with earth and put them to death. A cause is lost when it can be no longer argued in the court of reason, when its only argument is the sword, or the stake, or the rod, or the prison-cell.
II. SUGGESTIONS OF NEUTRALITY. Gamaliel is the type of common sense undisturbed by zeal—of clear judgment unbiased by prejudice. It is pretty evident that he did not sympathize with the apostles; still less, probably, did he sympathize with the fears or the fanaticism of his colleagues. He is perhaps "old and cold." Seldom do men of strong reflective habit feel much interest in novelties in religion.
Seldom do the observers of life, the students of human history, expect much from sudden popular movements or popular teaching. Such was Gamaliel's character. But where so little is said there is much room for difference of opinion as to what that character really was, how far really inclined to Christ's doctrine, possibly believing in his mission, or a disciple in secret. In the absence of further knowledge of the man, we may consider his counsel, and draw the following lesson :—
1. Prudence and caution are ever seasonable and especially so where there is a temptation to violence and repression of others' freedom. We should never act without a clear call to do so. The alternation of inaction is best in doubtful cases.
2. Experience shows that movements which have no vitality in them come to an end if left alone. They die for want of fuel, while persecution supplies that fuel on which they live. Such had been the case with the insurrection of Judas and that of Theudas.
3. Time is required that the true nature of a movement be clearly seen. Many a seed springs up that cannot live; many a threatened man lives long. A new force cannot be judged by the first appearances and manifestations.
4. There is always a danger in repression. The force you seem to have quelled for the moment only bursts forth in a new direction. You may, while you think to be putting down your enemy, be rousing up a more formidable one, or exposing yourself to attack in some unguarded quarter. Above all, you may be contending against Divine power and will, and inviting its vengeance.
5. Faith in truth, utter contempt for falsehood and imposture, is our safest temper. This gives calmness under every emergency. The truth can never harm us if we are on its side, nor can it be defeated by any power on the other side. After all, this true attitude was Gamaliel's. He was a man who understood and believed in the moral laws. Well would it have been had the Sanhedrim shared his intelligence and honesty.
And had his advice been followed at similar crises of religious history, much bloodshed and retardation of the good cause would have been avoided. In private life, how many an occasion when there is a restless desire to act, to fetter the free action of others, to stop the course of moral laws, when the simple question is pertinent!—"Can you not—let it alone?"
III. WEAK VIOLENCE. Threats—prison—rods; to this the Sanhedrim in its might resorts against helpless and unarmed men. Rods are for the backs of those who are not amenable to reason. The chastisement which is appropriate to the fool is absurdly applied to the man who acts from deliberate counsel and proved determination. Blows are no match for prayers. The martyr is never in the tyrant's power. He clings to God's skirts, and malice cannot touch his soul.
IV. THE MARTYR'S JOY. Joy of the purest quality and most triumphal power starts from the very seed-bed of pain. Pain may be to the soul the expression of God's displeasure or of his love. If it is incurred in obedience to him, the soul wears it as a testimonial of his goodness. The honor of suffering for God's sake is one of peculiar worth.
There is a natural feeling that any great suffering entitles the patient to some respect. The consciousness of being selected for suffering in the noblest cause ennobles the soul. It feels crowned and throned. Our capacity is enlarged both for thought and feeling and for joy by such an experience. It is strengthened, and every fresh trial, faithfully endured, prepares for new effort, goads to perseverance, and so defeats the persecutor by the very means of his own weapons.—J.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
The death of Arian
Raphael's cartoon manifestly founded, not on the simple narrative of Acts, but on the corrupt Church's falsification of it. The apostles represented on a throne, from which with despotic decree they command men to death. Our object is not to terrify men into religion and ecclesiastical submission, but to win them to Christ; to save men's lives, not to destroy them. Solemn and awful as the facts are, they are yet beams from the Sun of Righteousness.
I. A revelation of THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.
1. As the kingdom of light. Wisdom in discernment of spirits and judgment of human character. Distinction between pure and false fellowship. Exaltation of the great light-principle of self-sacrifice.
2. As the kingdom of righteousness. The act of Ananias was an act of rebellion against the first law of the gospel, both as a lie and as selfishness.
3. As the kingdom of order and peace. The rising brotherhood was the germ of a new human society, in which all men should be blessed. Ananias sinned against the Holy Ghost, i.e. defied and insulted the Spirit in his new work, trampled on the rising life. As a vindication of the kingdom, the sentence, though it looks at first sight unduly severe, was merciful, as a sign, not merely threatening, but inviting. It cleared the light of clouds.
II. An instructive example of HUMAN WEAKNESS AND SINFULNESS. A Judas among the apostles, an Ananias among the first believers. We must expect such things always.
1. The work of the Spirit is thus shown to be necessary. The deceit of the heart. The power of temptation. The influence of a multitude in hiding us from ourselves. The possibility of being carried away by a wave of excitement. The lure of ambition. Man and wife encouraging one another; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The gospel needed to lift up even the ties of nature and renew and strengthen them in the grace of God.
2. The Christian Church must be prepared to encounter the facts of human fallibility and sin. We must rest upon the supernatural guidance and support. We must leave judgment in the hands of God. Peter pronounced no sentence. He simply, by spiritual power, proclaimed the truth, and left conviction to work its own work. A great lesson in the exercise of discipline. In the case of the wife, the fact became a prophecy, by inspiration, in Peter's mind. He saw the work of God beforehand. No assumption.
III. A PRACTICAL ADMONITION.
1. Against selfishness and dishonesty. They kept back for themselves part of the price, intending to deceive.
2. Against untruthfulness, which was deliberate, prompted by meanness mixed with ambition and desire of display, daring against the manifest signs of the Spirit. Not a mere lie unto men, but a defiance of God.
3. Against trifling with holy things. They, perhaps, thought that what they kept back would not be needed, but they made light of the Spirit's evident demand. They did dishonor to the infant Church and to the apostles.
4. Rebellion against the Holy Ghost. He put it into their heart to sell their property and join the Church. They recognized his command to give up all for Christ. They saw what he had done and could do. Yet they did violence to his order and might have produced endless confusion in the Church. Fighting against God is perilous work.—R.
Conspiracy against God.
While much in the previous paragraph repeated here, a new phase of sin presented. It was distinctly on the ground of deliberate agreement to tempt the Spirit of the Lord that Sapphira's death was added to that of her husband.
I. The intimate connection of the proclamation of gospel truth and mercy with THE RENOVATION OF HUMAN SOCIETY.
1. Family life, domestic intimacy, the root of public life. We must choose all our relations with the light of God in Christ.
2. The conspiracy of Ananias and Sapphira was a blow at the work of the Spirit in raising up a new spiritual life on the basis of self-sacrifice and absolute truthfulness.
3. The awful judgment was a proclamation of mercy—Come and hide under this Divine power and be safe.
II. A marvelous display of THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY poured out on the apostles. The words of Peter an example:
1. Of the Spirit of truth and grace in him; he proceeded with the utmost care, publicity, tenderness, pity. The wife had the opportunity of repentance, while the appeal was made, not on the ground of terror, for she knew nothing, but on the ground of simple truth—Tell me the truth.
2. Of the spirit of discernment and, in the Name of the Lord, of prediction. Had not Peter under supernatural impulse foreseen the death of the woman, he would not have dared to utter such words. As it was, it was a responsibility which none but an inspired man would have assumed. Such a fact speaks volumes on the supernatural state of the Church at that time.
III. A GRACIOUS APPLICATION of extraordinary facts.
1. To the Church itself. The solemnization of fellowship. God thus said," Take heed how you join my people." The ethical set in the light of the spiritual. "Be ye holy." The sins of falsehood, presumption, avarice, self-confidence, set forth. The Divine kingdom clearly revealed. If God is so near, and yet to all who trust in Christ near to bless, how glorious this time! What is he not doing? and how little need we fear the world's opposition when he can strike dead our enemies? "Stand still and see the salvation." Compare the Israelites looking back on Pharaoh's host and forward to the promised land.
2. To the world. "All that heard these things." Such facts preached, loudly and widely, where the preacher's voice did not reach. We must remember that grace and providence go hand-in-hand. Fallow ground broken up by the ploughshare of terrible events and warning dispensations. "Judgment begins at the house of God; what shall the end be," etc.? Yet the "fear was a fear mingled with the light of hope;" for these deaths pointed to the way of life.
The Church was the more conspicuously revealed as a refuge opened by God for all. So in the terrible times of human history religion has gone forth with special power. What message has philosophy at such times? Where are the rationalists and the doubters in the great crises of the world? Press home the facts upon those who tempt the Spirit of the Lord by untruthfulness, rebellion, indifference, worldliness.—R.
"Clear shining after rain."
The blessed effects of what at first is not fully understood. The outpouring of judgment may be a preparation for the outpouring of mercy. The Church has to be made and kept pure; then the deeper the work of grace among God's people becomes the larger the work of the gospel in the world. Notice—
I. An increase in the manifestation of THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT.
1. In the working of miracles, which bad their special value in rousing attention and proving the nearness of God's kingdom.
2. In the separation, and magnifying in the eyes of the people, of the true Church. The rest durst not join them; the people magnified them.
3. In the solidifying of the Church as a society. Solomon's porch; one accord.
4. In the work of conversion. Multitudes—men and women; notwithstanding the awful deaths.
5. In the diffusion of the glad tidings in the surrounding neighborhood, not as mere idle rumor, but as a practical appeal which brought the needy and suffering to the feet of Christ.
II. THE UNFOLDING GRACE OF GOD to mankind. Solomon's porch the place of meeting still. The center of new life in the midst of the old corruption. Invitation to both Jews and Gentiles. Public place, yet connected with the temple. The Divine society inviting all to new life—a life that healed, that cared for the sick and dying, that drew the multitudes, the miracles giving confidence and pointing out the way.
The manifest testimony of the world to the Church, speaking of man's preparation for the gospel, The marvelous progress of the truth in the growth of the Church a sign that the grace was being abundantly bestowed. A time of great awakening and many conversions is a time of tremendous responsibility. At least the shadow of the messenger falls upon us, as he passes by. It is not said that the shadow healed, but it may help to the faith which is a prerequisite.
The people magnify the work, though they may not receive the blessing. God works generally from the lower to the upper strata of society. All great moral changes have begun among the people. The rich will resist, for it is hard to them to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Church must look well to itself if it is to be the power of God in the world. The circle of grace will widen if only the force keeps going out from the center.
We must avoid the fatal mistake of enlarging that circle by mere human methods. Let God do it in his way. What we want is not large Churches as, communities, or wealthy societies, or great signs and wonders wrought in our cities, but "believers added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women;" and they will be "the more added" because the rest dare not join themselves unto them because the Spirit of God is manifestly among them.
Our great danger is impatience and unbelief. Resorting to our own expedients, because we think God's methods fail. Out of the dark cloud of Ananias's and. Sapphira's sin broke forth a new baptism of zeal, devotion, and spirituality.—R.
Second persecution of the Church.
Notice:
1. It was the result of marvelous success. We must expect such opposition when God gives us power among the people. The proud and formal have no liking for that which can be set in contrast with their own inefficiency.
2. It proceeded from the sect of the Sadducees, i.e. the heretical school. The league between the high priest and the scoffers was a sad sign of religious degeneracy. So it is. When religion decays it becomes the food of unbelief. The latitudinarians hate spiritual earnestness.
3. It was weak and timid, evidently because there was a reproaching conscience and a growing apprehension in the background. The apostles were put into the public ward or prison, but probably not very jealously guarded.
4. The empty form of justice and wisdom was maintained—the council was summoned, that the weight of ecclesiastical authority might be used to crush the feeble apostles, that the people might be awed by the fear of great dignitaries. They often are, but the Spirit of God can overcome such fear.
5. Divine wisdom is more than human craft. The public trial or examination of the apostles was a public proclamation of the weakness of their enemies and the heavenly sanction given to their cause. The angelic deliverance of the prisoners became a notorious fact through all Jerusalem. The effect on the council, on the captain of the temple, on the populace, must have been immense. Evidently there was great excitement. "They feared the people, lest they should be stoned."
6. The two weak apostles in the presence of the council, boldly challenging the contradiction of facts and appealing from man to God—a striking manifestation of spiritual power. "We are witnesses, so is the Holy Ghost."
7. The division in the council between the furious fanatical party and the temperate Gamaliel party, reminding us of the division in the nation itself; some dead to the voice of God, others ready to follow it though not recognizing it. The influence of Gamaliel a sign of hope; there was a remnant still according to the election of grace, and it promised a future restoration of Israel.
8. The whole occurrence a great help to the Church, to feel its power, to deepen its devotion, to rejoice in hope of victory, to trust in the gracious providence of God.—R.
The Church's mission to the world.
"Go, stand and speak," etc. Acts of apostles the model for acts of God's people always. Lessons on relation of the Church and the world. Gospel began to lay hold of the masses. Envy and hatred of the Sadducean party, because a religion which lifted up the people, they thought, would lower the wealthy and ease-loving. We must expect social difficulties as the kingdom of righteousness spreads, but the angel's message is the rule of all times; while opportunity offers, stand and speak, not your own message, but "all the words of this life." While we listen to the angel's words, we should keep our eye fixed on the unveiled secret of Divine strength delivering and protecting all true-hearted preachers of Christ's truth.
I. THE GREAT COMMISSION. "Speak … to the people."
1. Copy the example of the Master. "Common people heard him gladly."
2. Best on the adaptation of the gospel to the people's wants. They are deceived by false teachers, run after false remedies.
3. Take courage by the facts of the early history of Christianity. All moral prowess from the people. Illustrate in the course of Christianity in the Roman empire—from the cottage to the throne. In the Reformation, especially in England. Lollards. Luther. Preaching of the revivalists in the eighteenth and present centuries.
4. Note the events. The future in the hands of the people. Speak to them of Christ; for their power is great, and they may abuse it to the destruction of society. Babel-greatness must end in confusion and misery.
5. Consider the responsibility of Christians. Believe, and therefore speak; silence is shame. Activity is the hope of the Church, the cure of its strifes and the uprooting of its doubts.
II. THE GREAT MESSAGE, "All the words of this life."
1. Reality—life. Men's daily struggle is about life. Yet the world full of delusions about life. This life! That life! We invite the people to live the true life, Christ's life, the life that death cannot touch.
2. Announcement. "Words of this life." We proclaim facts, a Divine Person, a life that can be described by example, confirmed by testimony, studied in the written pages. Religion no dream of enthusiasts, no mere sentiment floating like a cloud in the air, no empty ritualism, but words of life translated into action.
3. Philanthropy. "All the words." Different from mere human teachers with their reservations and selfishness. Philosophers taught for money. Christ says, "Speak all to the people freely." Religion in the hands of priests has made the people enemies, but this new message in the temple would shake down the wails of superstition, prejudice, and pride, and build up a new humanity. In our message we must put so much heart that the people see we give them all that we have, because we love their souls first and their earthly interests as included in their spiritual welfare.
4. Aggression. "Go, stand in the temple;" "Be not afraid of their faces." Bold policy always the wisest in spiritual things. Special necessity that the desecrated temple should witness the faithfulness of Christ's messengers. False religion the great obstacle to progress of the gospel. People misunderstand the message; think of priests as their enemies; have reason to think so.
The gospel does not reject what is good in other systems, but plants itself in the midst of the world as it is; finds in the temple of the old religion a standing-place from which to preach the new tidings. Every fresh instance of Divine interposition should embolden us. You are free now, go to the work again. In all fields of labor discouragement must be absolutely excluded. Follow the angels of God, and they will point to new platforms. We shall speak with fresh power if we refuse to be thwarted by opposition or put out of countenance by suffering.—R.
"We ought to obey God rather than men"
(or, "we must," Revised Version). A great principle requires to be seen in the full daylight before it can be made the foundation of great action. Fanaticism borrows its strength from the night of ignorance, not from the noon of truth. Persecution may vindicate itself on the ground of obedience to God, but it proves itself to have no title to such a principle because it destroys freedom.
I. THE GREAT REQUIREMENT. Obedience to God.
1. It is a requirement abundantly set forth in the Scriptures, in conscience, in the teaching of providence in connection with revealed truth, and especially in that inspired guidance which no true and earnest man is left without.
2. Enforced by the work of the Church, by the dangers of the world, by the deceitfulness of the heart, by the promises of God's Word.
3. Rewarded by the sense of inward strength, by superiority to circumstances, by successes in Christian effort—if not in this world fully, in eternity.
II. THE GREAT TRIAL.
1. Human laws, human requirements, human errors, human passions, all may say, "Obey the voice of man rather than of God."
2. Compromise the great danger of the Church. Under its new disguise of a pantheistic submission to inevitable law of development, specially subtle.
3. Lack of moral courage and conviction, obscuring principle and magnifying the strength of surrounding obstacles. We need the Holy Ghost, upholding the work of God in our own hearts, penetrating the deceptions of the world, arming us with spiritual preparation against inevitable assaults from without.
4. Individually the same great question to be settled between ourselves and God. His controversy. "Yield yourselves to God."—R.
The throne of mercy.
"Him hath God exalted," etc. The Jewish temple a material symbol of the Divine method of grace. The chief chamber was the place of God's glory—the inner, nest presence-chamber of the great King; its chief feature, the mercy-seat, a proclamation of love to all. Yet access to the blessedness only by the appointed way, through the consecrated rites and persons; thus the will and righteousness of God sustained at the same time as his mercy. Compare heathen ideas of Divine favors—slavish, cruel, degrading, capricious, destructive of righteousness both in God and in man. Moreover, no heathen system appealed to a universal humanity.
I. THE COMMON WANT.
1. Deliverance from sin, both by remission and moral elevation. Show that the conscience regains satisfaction, the life security, the heart peace.
2. A free and unpurchased forgiveness, lest we should be burdened by their inequalities, destroyed by their despair, seduced by their errors, enslaved by their superstition.
3. Confidence without fanaticism, peace of mind without inertia, and a sense of righteousness without pride.
II. THE DIVINE SALVATION.
1. It is built upon facts—a personal history, an accumulation of historic evidence, an ascent from Bethlehem to the heavenly throne. The supernatural absolutely necessary to hold up the human spirit in its greatest emergency. God's right hand must be seen, must be conspicuous. We cannot depend on mere human sympathy, wisdom, or strength.
2. The twofold character of Christ meets the twofold demand of the soul, for the greatness of the King and the compassion of the Savior. The exaltation of Christ was both human and Divine. We recognize the great fact of mediation and reconciliation.
3. The one supreme test of sufficiency, the gift of the Holy Ghost. We do not appeal to men on the ground that God can save them, or that there is in Christianity a satisfactory theory of the atonement, but on the ground that the Spirit of God is saving them, that the gift is there—repentance and remission.
APPLICATION. What was true of Israel is true of us. The state of the Jewish world was the condemnation of all men. If God so wrought for us," how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" The gift has all God's heart in it. Return his love.—R.
Atti degli Apostoli 5:38, Atti degli Apostoli 5:39
A study of Jewish character: Gamaliel.
"And now I say unto you," etc.
I. REGARD IT AS THE PRODUCT OF JEWISH EDUCATION.
1. Reverence for the Word and will of God—in truth and in providence. The Jews, possessed in their Scriptures a good philosophy of history. Taught that God must triumph.
2. Sense of humanity and righteousness deeply pervading all the Jewish system. "Refrain from these men."
3. Yet evidence of the corrupt and formal state of the Jewish teachers—temporizing policy, weakness of conviction, unwillingness to face truth, the ecclesiastical spirit in its mildest form.
II. CONSIDER IT IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY.
1. The influence of Gamaliel on Saul of Tarsus (see Conybeare and Howson; Farrar) and so on the history of the gospel.
2. The contrast between Gamaliel and his fellow-counselors in the Sanhedrim. They agreed to him then, but how about their former action and what followed? The Gamaliel character was then exceptional.
3. The contrast between Gamaliel and the apostles. He was prudent, they were earnest. Consider the necessity of following conviction. Sweetness and light are not means but ends; they have to be fought for, not rested in, before they are fully obtained.
4. The great appeal: "Lest haply ye be found … fighting against God." All must acknowledge it. How easily ignored! The position of the soul is here indicated; it is either fighting with God or against God. Though Gamaliel did not see it, there is no middle position. "A fearful thing to fall into his hands."—R.
Atti degli Apostoli 5:41, Atti degli Apostoli 5:42
The true witnessing spirit.
"And they departed," etc.
I. THE NAME OF CHRIST the source of it. No such spirit in the world. Heroism may sustain strength, but does not give joy, unless it is like the apostles'. Had not the Name been Divine, how could it have produced such fruits in such men?
II. THE TEACHING AND PREACHING, both in the temple and at home, must be in the martyr spirit. We must expect to suffer some dishonor. But such a spirit invincible and victorious.
III. THE HONOUR OF THE CHURCH over against the honor of the world. "Counted worthy." God's reckoning. Spiritual worthies. The joy was not only a secret joy, it was the foretaste of heaven. Enforce the example.—R.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER
Jerusalem's second summer.
While we read these fewest verses of what was going on in Jerusalem, and of how "multitudes from the cities round about Jerusalem" thronged that "mother of them all," to seek, not in vain, healing virtue, we seem to be removed by a world's diameter from the Jerusalem that was stricken to the heart and its very sky darkened by the Crucifixion. And we also seem removed by centuries from the time when certain lips (which could not open but to speak truth whether simplest or deepest) had said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,… behold, your house is left unto you desolate!" and when Jesus "wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
" On the contrary, we are in fact separated only by weeks from the dread solemnities of the Crucifixion, and scarcely by months from the lamentations of Jesus over Jerusalem. Yet the sun is shining again; storm, darkness, and nothing less than the chill of severest winter are passed over; and summer days, with striking similarity to the best of those of Jesus himself, burst on Jerusalem. Surely it is second summer with Jerusalem.
Reminiscences of bright days, indeed, these were, and they were bright in their own brightness; yet, alas! to linger but for a while. Meantime what a touching evidence they were, for Jerusalem, of the unrevengefulness of Jesus, of his forgivingness, of the very wistfulness of his loving-kindness! Let us notice the distinguishing features of these days.
I. THEY ARE A GLORIOUS REPRODUCTION OF SOME OF THE GRANDEST OF THE DAYS OF CHRIST'S OWN MINISTRY. That such a thing could be said with literal truth was part
(1) of the condescension of Jesus; again, it came
(2) of the genuine reality contained in the profession that he wore human nature; and
(3) of the one absorbed interest of his heart in the work of man's salvation. The point is surely worthy of attention, so beautiful in its own moral bearings; so significant of the intention of Jesus to share his ultimate triumph and glory with his own people, and their captains and princes not last; and so great a contrast to the methods and the "inward thoughts" of the "world" and "the kings of the earth.
" Jesus is not of those who would cut off from the followers in his train those who might be successful imitators of his career, sharers of his renown. He is exactly the opposite of this. He calls, invites, incites us all to seek to be in every best sense imitators of him, and promises that so we shall not fail of a just share of his renown. The likeness between these days and days in the ministry of Jesus Christ is patent in respect of:
1. The miracles which found a place in them.
2. The beneficent character of those same miracles.
3. The abundance and the variety of them—ranging from the healing of" the sick" to the healing of those "vexed with unclean spirits."
4. The very methods by which the friends of the afflicted compassed the bringing of them within the reach of the "virtue" which in some way "came out" of the apostles. The "touch of the hem of the garment" must be allowed to be equaled by the device of securing the chance for some impotent man of the "shadow of Peter … overshadowing him."
5. The eager, longing, thirsting appropriation of such blessings on the part of the masses of the people. Crushed by want, by suffering, by sin; hope, light, nay, almost the mind crushed out of them;—with what irresistible, unceremonious tide do these ever press forward, and sweep round or over every obstacle, when genuine help, precious, precious, precious salvation proffers itself! What care they for Sanhedrim and Sadducee? They are the rulers, and the others are cowed and cower before them.
6. The widespread practical success of the miracles—" they were healed every one."
7. The moral triumph which "the people" accord to the authors, or those who appear as the authors, of their blessings. They repudiate sophistication, and "render honor to whom honor is due." Indeed, there are not wanting very satisfactory and sufficient indications now that "the people," on the one hand, rendered to the apostles the distinction justly due to them as the trusted servants of their vanished Master, and, on the other, recognized the fact that "the power was of God.
" Infidelity was not altogether either the prevalent or the hardened fact in some directions then that in some directions it is now. "The people" had a great idea of the impregnability of the position of the man who did "works such as none other could do," and "such as no man could do save God were with him."
II. THEY GIVE NOW WITH UNCHALLENGEABLE AUTHORITY THEIR PROPER DIGNITY AND STATUS TO THE COMPANY OF THE APOSTLES.
Peter and John are the two apostles whose names and whose work had hitherto received prominence. Of these Peter has been with evident and with just design by far the more prominent. Till Paul shall come upon the scene he will also remain similarly conspicuous. But during these days the whole college of the apostles seem to receive the baptism of their work, as on the day of Pentecost they had received the baptism of the Spirit for it.
They are "all with one accord in Solomon's porch." And the chief evidence of the dignity and status, not artificial but real, which were now given to them, may perhaps be best expressed in a somewhat antithetical mode of statement, viz. that
(1) while "the people magnified them" with hearty acclamation for instant and grateful acknowledgment,
(2) "no man of the rest" (i.e. presumably of those who would not care to be classified altogether among "the people," and who would have been quite prepared to snatch at any possible dignity at which they could "dare" to snatch) "durst join himself" to those apostles. They did not dare this, because their abilities could be immediately put to the proof. They did not dare it, because of the warning, so fresh, of the end of Ananias, when he had tampered with the sacredness of the society organized by the apostles.
And likely enough, in many cases, they did not dare it from a sincere awe and an intelligent, respectful reverence for men who were doing the things that the apostles were now doing. Any way, the result was obtained that round these apostles was drawn the cordon of a moral regard and a moral support, which would be a strong comfort to the believers and a strong condemnation to the unbelievers. A very few hours were to find the use of this. And a very few hours would show that it inferred no danger of the access of superficial vanity or the incursion of deeper pride.
III. THEY GO BEYOND OTHER MOST SACRED DAYS OF MIRACLE IN THE DIRECT SPIRITUAL RESULTS WHICH THEY RECORD.
(Verse 14.) It is quite possible that, among the "multitudes both of men and women" who now were "added to the Lord," some may have proved apostates as time went on. On the other hand, the supposition would be most gratuitous that any disproportionate number turned thus away. The fair inference from what is said here and from the tenor of the history that follows would be, if anything, in a contrary direction.
Assuming this or contenting ourselves readily with the other and lower estimate, in either case we are justified in noting the kind of use to which at this time miracle was ordained to be subservient. It is not to be disputed that the fervent attachment which bound not a few to the person, yes, and to the character and truth, of Jesus during the days of his flesh was wakened and fixed by some miracle that he had wrought for them or theirs.
Nor need it be denied that that attachment answered to a genuine spiritual change, a change of heart, evidencing itself in a change of life. Nevertheless, it can scarcely be said that this was the clear rule in the operation of the miracles of Jesus, or that this was their aim. Neither, perhaps, now was this the primary object of the miracles and "the many signs and wonders wrought by the hands of the apostles.
" But the miracles were distinctly the pioneers of those spiritual results. In the track of miracle went a most efficacious working of the convincing and converting Spirit! The miracle drew many together; it wakened and held the attention; it undoubtedly did have this practical and so far forth moral effect, viz. the effect of compelling many to say, "Lo, God is here!" and to feel it.
To deny the possibility of a miracle-falls nothing-short Of denying a personal God. To allow the fact of any individual miracle is to allow that God is offering to the help of a poor memory, to the help of a struggle always arduous enough against sense and the numbing sway of habit, to the help-of conviction itself, the enlivening touch of his personal presence. Sophistry has a vanity in weaving its web to snare miracle, but vainly weaves.
The faith that inheres in the world's great heart is too strong for it, and sweeps away that vanity with equal ease and contempt. In the track, then, of miracle viewed for a moment thus, it is quite optional what follows. The miracle, like all other mercy, may be to condemnation, as Jesus said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin (Giovanni 15:22, Giovanni 15:26).
The miracle may be what it so often was in the very dearest specimens of it, those of Jesus himself, to the great gratification of curiosity—that of people, of priest, and of ruler, and after a while to their deeper sleep and their more reckless disbelief. But it may also be all the blessed contrary. In the track of what or of whom would the quickening, enlightening. convincing, converting Spirit himself rather follow? And this is what was seen nosy.
When Jesus himself wrought his own mightiest works, the Spirit's course seemed restrained. But, wonderful grace! when his disciples and apostles are facing the world and encountering the inevitable dangers involved in doing so, mighty miracles are brought home by the mightier Spirit, and spiritual results follow such as may be described in terms unknown to the lifetime of Jesus himself. "Believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.
" Nevertheless, then were plainly fulfilled the words of Jesus to his disciples, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do: because I go unto my Father" (Giovanni 14:12).—B.
A grand victory for the truth along the whole line; all the positions of the enemy taken.
The few hours that were covered by this portion of the history must have been hours charged with confirmation of the faith for the apostles. It is not merely that they are again attacked and again get in the end the victory, but that every position is carried for them by some strong arm invisible. It is not altogether the force of the truth, at least of the truth as spoken and spoken by them; still less is it their own force that gains this glorious and memorable day, although doubtless both of these are involved in the day's achievements.
But there was a "fighting from heaven" for them," and the stars in their courses fought against" their enemies. And as nothing so much daunts an enemy as the impression of this latter, so nothing can be conceived more reinforcing to the faith and courage of the army or the general who have evidence of the former. While, then, the bold and faithful utterance of "all the words of this life" was now the loving care of the apostles, God's watchful providence and the living Spirit whom Christ sent made the "heaven that fought for" them.
We may view the present portion of the Church's history under this light. It is the history of a succession of incidents, every one of which shows the foe as the party signally discomfited. The apostles are still the representatives of the Church. They sustain the brunt of any attack. And it is noteworthy, that at present, so far as we read, no private member of the Church is exposed to any similar treatment. Notice, then—
I. THE INCIDENT OF A NEW TRIAL OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IMPRISONMENT. The high priest and those who were acting with him had not, it appears, learned the lesson which their former failure might well have taught them.
It had been attended by circumstances and followed by a sequel which should have made a lasting impression on their memory. But memory's good offices were scorned, and wisdom's lessons set at naught and lost. The experiment is to be tried again, whether certain facts to which the word of the apostles gives great notoriety, with certain comments upon them and explanations of them, can be hushed up, and a prison's doors be mightier than miracles.
This very point was soon settled, and in the shape that should have carried conviction and reproof in equal proportions. It is to be remembered that the imprisonment policy stands condemned, not altogether necessarily in itself, but emphatically, in this case, because the facts to which the apostles gave the notoriety so unwelcome to the authorities were facts within the knowledge of those same, and because the whole action of the apostles had the abundant attestation of surpassing miracles.
Mouths can be stopped by imprisonment, no doubt. And the method may, no doubt, be a legitimate method, even though there be allowed to be prima facie a likely moral danger attaching to it. That danger has shown itself so repeatedly and so malignantly—in matters of religion to the oppressing of the conscience, in matters of science to the clouding of the prospects of truth and the growth of knowledge.
But the point of interest and at the same time the hopelessness of the present conflict turned on the fact that the method of imprisonment attempted to stop the mouth of God's Word and truth. The enemy was confounded signally. An "abundant door" of exit from the prison for the apostles made a more than ever "abundant door of entrance" for the truth, and it occasioned "great boldness" of utterance of "all the words of this life" in the temple of temples, and before the enemy was so much as awake.
II. THE INCIDENT OF A SECOND TRIAL OF ARRAIGNMENT BEFORE THE COUNCIL.
1. In this proceeding embarrassment awaited the council; they stumble upon the very threshold. The prisoners are duly sent for, but they are not to be found. The prison is there; the keepers are there; the doors were shut with all appearance of safety, and if they had been opened, there is not a sign of it nor of any violence that might have effected it; the keys are neither lost nor injured; and the locks are not disobedient to their own keys, as though they had been tampered with.
Yet to what all this, when the prison itself proves as empty as ever place was? The officers return with tale and face, no doubt, equally blank; but blankest of all was the astonishment of those in authority under these new circumstances. That "they were in doubt concerning them" (so the apostles) was no unnatural, no unlikely account of the case in which "the high priest, and the captain of the temple, and the chief priests" found themselves.
And perhaps it might have suited them and their reputation about as well if all had ended here. But this was not to be. They had meddled with strife, nay, had not "forborne them meddling with God" (2 Cronache 35:21); and they shall not "leave off contention" before it has worsted them signally, decisively. For:
2. Un improvviso sollievo dallo smarrimento indegno non lascia loro altra scelta che continuare con un'azione penale, rischiosa molto più per coloro che perseguono che per coloro che sono perseguiti. Che da questo momento hanno cominciato a sentire questo non mancano certe indicazioni.
(1) Sebbene la narrazione sia molto concisa, molto condensata, non omette di descrivere il tenero trattamento dei prigionieri trovati a parlare nel tempio, un trattamento tenero tanto più notevole perché erano prigionieri evasi. "Il capitano e gli ufficiali andarono e li portarono senza violenza, perché temevano il popolo, per timore di essere lapidati" - una situazione sfavorevole, tutto considerato, certamente.
(2) Presumibilmente perché la narrazione è molto condensata, ci chiede un secondo pensiero su quale sia il significato preciso quando si dice: "Il sommo sacerdote, il capitano del tempio e i capi dei sacerdoti, dubitava di loro [vale a dire gli apostoli], fino a che questo sarebbe cresciuto". Riteniamo che la loro oscurità più intima abbia cominciato a essere molestata con l'alba; la loro mente più intima con le convinzioni nascenti di avere a che fare con un tipo molto nuovo di uomini; la loro coscienza con il sorgere di una paura molto sconosciuta al loro modo finora di portarsi verso quella stessa coscienza.
Forse, più che probabilmente in seguito, lo stesso messaggero che ha portato parola su dove gli apostoli erano e cosa stavano facendo indicati anche i conto del modo in cui aveva ottenuto dalla prigione Apostoli. Avrebbe avuto tutto il tempo per farlo mentre il capitano e gli ufficiali andavano a portarli. Quell'intervallo imbarazzante deve essere stato riempito in qualche modo dalla corte costernata. Né si può dubitare che sia stato riempito da abbondanti chiacchiere, domande e discussioni.
Questa o una tale opinione è, ci sembra, essenzialmente corroborata dall'apparente silenzio della corte, quando gli apostoli furono finalmente introdotti alla sua presenza, per quanto riguarda la loro fuga, e dalla sua assidua astinenza da qualsiasi interrogatorio sulla questione. Il silenzio assoluto su quell'argomento era certamente la loro migliore saggezza quando avevano sentito i fatti reali e, udendo, li avevano visti con gli occhi forzati.
Il silenzio della narrazione è una cosa, ed è un segno di accuratezza e fedeltà storica. Il silenzio della corte è un'altra cosa, ed è un tocco abbastanza fedele alla natura, anzi, una grande dimostrazione della natura, che a volte, nel supremo sforzo di coprire la sconfitta, poi la maggior parte si convince di sconfitta. Che dunque, con un certo rigonfiamento e borbottio di coscienza prima, e poi con il disagio procurato dalla chiara scoperta di come erano andate le cose, si può ragionevolmente immaginare che il sommo sacerdote e coloro che gli erano associati desiderassero già di stare bene chiaro di tutta la faccenda.
3. Ma è giunto il momento per l'accusa stessa. È in ogni caso chiaro, il suo significato e. le sue implicazioni non sono oscure. "Hai disobbedito al nostro rigoroso comando, hai riempito Gerusalemme con la dottrina che disapproviamo, e stai andando lontano per fissare su di noi la responsabilità e forse la vendetta del sangue di quest'uomo". Probabilmente uno spirito di disprezzo e l'intenzione di esprimerlo hanno velato un timore crescente appena velato, quando usano le parole "questo nome" e "la tua dottrina" e "il sangue di quest'uomo", invece di nominare il Nome che era già "sopra". ogni nome" e nominando la dottrina che certamente non era "la dottrina né secondo i comandamenti degli uomini" ( Colossesi 2:22 ), e nominando "il sangue che dice cose migliori di quello di Abele".
4. Ma la sfida è subito accolta dalla banda apostolica. Ammettono la loro disobbedienza al comando umano. Affermano la loro obbedienza al comando divino e ne affermano la necessità, il suo dovere morale . Essi onorano subito, con una sua ferma e ripetuta espressione, il Nome che era stato appena disprezzato, ma che, in effetti, designava Colui che aveva conosciuto le transizioni senza precedenti della risurrezione e dell'ascensione, e che possedeva i titoli di Principe e Salvatore dell'umanità.
Il suo dono principesco è il potere del "pentimento", il suo dono salvifico è la " remissione dei peccati". Occupando una posizione di vasto acquisto morale sui loro giudici, gli apostoli non si propongono di proteggerli da un briciolo della loro responsabilità. Si erano rifiutati di nominare il Nome di Gesù; gli apostoli non esitano affatto a nominare il nome del loro peccato e colpa, né si astengono di descriverli come le persone responsabili del sangue di Gesù.
"Chi avete ucciso e appeso a un albero". E così compongono il loro testo. "Dobbiamo obbedire a Dio". E poiché Dio, il Dio dei nostri padri, è stato colui che ha "risuscitato" Gesù, e che lo ha "esaltato", noi siamo i suoi "testimoni", in queste gloriose meraviglie, della storia di suo Figlio Gesù. E Pietro aggiunge, in una delle affermazioni più pronunciate dell'ispirazione peculiare della rivelazione, che, dicendo così tanto, intende che "lo Spirito Santo" in loro è il vero Testimone, quello Spirito Santo che Dio dona a coloro che obbedirgli.
Che Dio sia da obbedire, probabilmente gli ora giudici degli apostoli non oseranno negare. Pietro e gli apostoli si sono fatti valere quando hanno dimostrato che a questo si riduce la loro condotta censurata e imprigionata. Quindi la chiusura della loro difesa ne stringe l'apertura.
III. L'INCIDENTE DI UN FRESCO ESPERIENZA DI IMPOTENTE INABILITA IN IL CONSIGLIO . Questa esperienza è stata introdotta, in effetti, da una di carattere molto più pronunciato. In una parola che esprime essa stessa un'intensità di sofferenza, ci viene detto che quelli del concilio "furono tagliati" sul vivo, e nel primo parossismo di agonia non videro altra scelta che uccidere i loro prigionieri.
Gli apostoli furono nuovamente chiamati a ritirarsi dalla corte ( Atti degli Apostoli 4:15 ) mentre si deliberava lo stato delle cose. E «nella moltitudine dei consiglieri si trovò sicurezza» almeno di qualche sorta, e di breve durata, grazie alla saggia prudenza che abitò in uno di essi, e apparentemente uno solo. Nota qui a quale diverso problema gli uomini sono stati colpiti.
1. Alcuni a profonda penitenza, contrizione, conversione; così Pietro ( Luca 22:61 , Luca 22:61, Luca 22:62 ), e i primi convertiti (Atti 2:1-47:67).
2. Ma altri alcuni alla condanna più profonda e al suicidio sia reale che morale; così Giuda ( Matteo 27:4 , Matteo 27:5 ) e quelli qui descritti, con molti antenati, molti discendenti. La cecità dell'intensa rabbia e l'azione maligna dell'intenso dispiacere possono essere annoverati tra i certi precursori dell'incapacità, ma anche qui lo rivelano.
E che leggiamo in queste condizioni, "si consigliano di ucciderli", serve poco più che a rassicurare doppiamente che l'inerme naufragio è l'attuale ordine delle cose nell'apparente sede della giustizia.
IV. L' INCIDENTE DI UNA FRESCA FUGA INDEGNATA DA UNA POSIZIONE INDEGNATA . Un fariseo - salva il segno! - apre la via d'uscita. E la via d'uscita porta appena indietro per il modo in cui sono entrati. Che i membri del consiglio si mettano il più lontano possibile proprio dove si trovavano prima che si agitassero affatto nella faccenda è la politica che propone Gamaliele.
Arriva a questo, che sostiene con forza che era di gran lunga la cosa migliore da mangiare, sia le parole che le azioni. L'accortezza conservatrice e la dolcezza di questo consiglio, e del modo cortese con cui viene proposto, sono ugualmente inconfondibili e in un certo senso ammirevoli. Tuttavia, sarebbe poco caritatevole negare che sia aperto anche alla lode intrinseca.
1. Gamaliele ha annotato e fatto tesoro e ora usa bene le lezioni della storia.
2. Evidentemente è prima del suo tempo, e ha un occhio largo e aperto per i principi anche della libertà civile.
3. Ancora più sorprendentemente, sembra aver colto il principio e il fondamento stesso del principio della libertà religiosa. "Questi uomini" ( Atti degli Apostoli 5:35 ) devono essere guardati, come dovrebbe essere guardata qualche cosa forse sacra. " Questi uomini" ( Atti degli Apostoli 5:38 ) devono essere "lasciati stare", come uomini che forse compiono "l'opera di Dio".
E i loro attuali sedicenti giudici devono "astenersi da" loro, perché dovrebbero essi stessi rifuggire, per se stessi, dall'incorrere nella responsabilità anche lontana di "lottare contro Dio". Il principio della libertà religiosa postula sempre questi due aspetti: uno presenta il punto di vista del danno che può essere fatto agli altri ostacolando le loro convinzioni morali o la natura; l'altro il danno che può essere fatto a se stessi sfidando le responsabilità più solenni e critiche che persino "gli angeli potrebbero temere".
4. È difficile resistere all'impressione che Gamaliele fosse uno di quelli che «non erano lontani dal regno di Dio». La narrazione a malapena giustifica il nostro dire che aveva una propensione per "questi uomini" stesso. Ma questo «dottore della legge, che aveva fama presso tutto il popolo» ( Atti degli Apostoli 5:34 ), sembra che avesse in sé questo della religione, che «temeva Dio», e che osò dirlo a proposito con un schieramento molto impopolare.
To the advice of Gamaliel his fellow-councilors "agreed," glad to escape the position in which they again found themselves. They retreated from it for reasons which Gamaliel takes the credit of putting before them, but which should have been before them long before, and should have saved them from being where they now were. They do retreat, they know they are in the wrong, they are morally again beaten; but the only thing which would have taken from their retreat the description undignified is withheld, for they do not confess their error. On the contrary, we notice—
V. LASTLY, THE INCIDENT OF A GRATUITOUS BEATING OF THE APOSTLES AND A BARREN COMMAND LAID UPON THEM. Whatever may be thought or charitably hoped of Gamaliel, the adviser in this crisis, very clear it is that those whom he had influenced had no deeper sympathies with the grounds of his advice.
Against these they now as much sin in principle as if they had laid violent hands on the apostles, according to the first dictates of their rage. And so again do these men drop awhile from our sight. They drop into the ignominious shade, while it fares far otherwise with their beaten, commanded, but withal released prisoners. Cruelty is the covering with which cowardice now chooses to take its unavailing chance of concealing defeat already too shameful, but which rather adds to it and to the revealing of it.
They disappear from view, "beating" the apostles, and "commanding them not to speak in the Name of Jesus." But it is a token of the literal fact that they themselves have been ignominiously beaten along the whole line of battle, the apostles and the truth and "the Name of Jesus" winning the day.—B.
The theme of themes: the angel's charge.
"Go, speak, of this life." There can be no doubt as to what is essentially the reference in this expression used by the angel. But whence the angel, so to say, borrowed it admits of a thought and a question. The angel speaks of the life involved in the fact of the Resurrection—that fact so unwelcome to the pinched, impoverished Sadducees, who now were the leading persecutors of the apostles.
However great the single fact of the resurrection of Jesus, its greatness is magnified by some infinite number, when we regard it as an earnest and "first fruits" of very much in its train. Had it been a unique fact, and been designed to remain so, it would have been shorn of the crown of its glory. Solitary grandeur and majesty must necessarily have robbed it of its power to thrill unnumbered millions with hope and joy, and to point all humanity to the one quarter from which light arises to it.
And probably the simplest will be the best account of the angel's naming it "this life." "Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life," viz. the life which has been the unceasing theme now for some days, of your thought, your one unbroken affection, and your testimony. We have here an angel's charge. Let us notice of what it is made up. The angel urges—
I. THAT THE LIFE WHICH IS TO SUPERSEDE THE PRESENT LIFE OF EARTH IS NOW TO RE THE BURDEN OF THE APOSTLES' PREACHING.
Some persons object to the prominence given in preaching to what is to come and the circle of subjects involved therein. They think it unnatural, artificial. However, not to do this is to put off again the unspeakable advantages of revelation. That the practical duty of the present life should be preached by the Christian preacher is a truism. That it should be preached without the light of the eternal future, and what is most distinctive of it revealed in Scripture, is to turn the back on the priceless gift of revelation.
Hence come the mightiest of living practical impulses for right, for elevated, for holy life on earth. The mind stirs with a new and wondering gaze; the imagination is divinely tempted—not to be either deluded in the nature of what it takes hold upon or defrauded in the measure of it; and the heart is reached to its deepest wants. The infinitely enlarged horizon that comes of the revelation of eternal life does neither affect nor for a moment wish to alter the foundations of moral truth and of duty.
But it does throw a light and color and interest into the very midst of them, and for the mass of mankind first brings them into the class of acknowledged practical forces. At any time machinery is one thing, and motive force another. Christ's destruction of the boundary view death, and his illimitable extension of the boundary view onward to eternal life, legitimately make the very essence (not at all of the foundations of morality, but) of a very large part of the force of his appeal to mankind.
The angel's charge is dead contrary to anything looking in the direction of affecting to be able to dispense with his method or to throw it at all into the shade. And the centuries that have passed since the angel released the apostles at early dawn from prison, and bade them go and preach "the words of this life," have vindicated his charge. The preaching that has been filled with moral aphorisms has been dead and barren of force.
That which has reverently but confidently dealt with the tremendous realities of the great future unseen—unseen except by the light of revelation and faith—has been the preaching that has been fruitful of influence and has shown changed hearts and changed lives.
II. THAT "THIS LIFE" SHALL BE THE SUBJECT OF UNIVERSAL APPEAL TO "THE PEOPLE." The distinguishing facts or doctrines of Christianity know no distinction of esoteric and exoteric.
They are what may be understood of the people, and they are what may be trusted to the people. Sadducees and others, not a few who would profess themselves conversant with these higher matters of life and its outlook, are putting from them their grand opportunity. But to "the people," "the gospel," "the words of this life," are preached. The gospel is to try its genius and its force among them, and then it tries it ever, not altogether in vain. It is to be noticed that this crowning doctrine or fact of the future life or eternal life is
(1) to be announced in closest connection with the personal history of Jesus Christ—with his Resurrection; and
(2) that it is to be announced with all the fullness and variety of which it may admit—"All the words of this life" are to be enlarged on without stint:
(a) what it is in its own intrinsic self,
(b) what it is as gained for man by Christ,
(c) what it is as illustrated by Christ's own resurrection.
III. THAT THE APPEAL SHALL BE FEARLESSLY MADE BY MEN, MERE MEN, MEN UNASSISTED BY ANY EARTHLY POWER AND EXPOSED TO ALL EARTHLY DANGERS.
Jesus Christ has done his work, so far as the part of it on earth was concerned. Angels, it clearly appears, have their share too in furthering the work of Christ on earth. But their share is of a more indirect kind. When Jesus goes, men, feeble, erring, sinful men, are called to take up the work, are honored to take it up. Let this mean what it may, and harmonize with what it may or may not, the fact merits probably more thought than all it has yet received. And if it is to be rightly estimated, equal regard must be paid to two facts—
(1) that man is to be the worker, and that
(2) the man who is thus to work is to be one "called" and one qualified by the Holy Spirit. Thus called and thus equipped within, he is to "go, and stand," as though in unassisted strength, and to stand in the place of courted and solemn observation, in the publicity of" the temple," and to take heed that he "speak to the people all the words of this life."—B.
Joy in the fellowship of shame.
"And they departed … for his Name." The great types of Christian character begin to show themselves. The appearances which we have here before us are unusual. They mean something very unreal or else they begin to speak something true to a higher nature than that commonly found among men. It is against the grain of nature to rejoice in suffering and pain; it is yet more against the grain of a high nature to rejoice in "shame.
" There must have been potent causes at work when men are to be found rejoicing in suffering shame, and in being "counted worthy to suffer shame." Neglecting the supposition, which could not be sustained in this case, that there was any affectation on the part of the apostles, it would be still open to question whether this attitude were a justifiable one, whether it were a lovely one, whether it did not betray a disdainful tendency, looking toward haughtiness, with regard to their fellow-men. Perhaps these considerations will be best met by simply asking on what grounds and moved by what influences the apostles now rejoiced.
I. THEY REJOICED IN A CERTAIN FELLOWSHIP OF SUFFERING. They are not of those who stoically glory in "suffering." They are not of those who cynically or self-relyingly glory in "shame." They have not courted the one nor flippantly encountered the other.
And these facts shelter them from blameworthiness, which might otherwise have very possibly lain at their door. It is a shame already existing, and which has already dragged a long suffering with it and after it—a shame unoriginated by themselves or by anything in themselves—that they are willing, glad, proud to share. This at once lends a character to their rejoicing, and lifts it above a common kind of joy.
There has, indeed, been an abundance of shame in the world, and of suffering consequent upon it, that could not in the very nature of things have shed any glory on the principals concerned in them. Yet that abundance of shame and suffering has found a very field of glory, new untrodden paths of glory, and lofty heights of glory for not a few, who, having no part in the guilt, have voluntarily entered into fellowship with the suffering, and the suffering of shame, which it has involved.
And here may be said to glimmer forth one of the greater moral facts of our nature. To offer to share and to be permitted to share the joy and prosperity of another can yield little praise to him who offers, may yield some to the person who permits; but to volunteer to share, while innocent one's self, the ignominy and suffering of another is all honor to him who volunteers—in ordinary cases mostly humiliation to him who receives the advantage of that fellowship. To him, however, whose suffering of shame the apostles now rejoiced to share, humiliation of this kind there was none.
II. THEY REJOICED IN A FELLOWSHIP OF SHAME WHICH, BY THE MEMORIES ATTACHING TO IT, WAS TURNED FOR THEM INTO HONOUR AND GLORY.
1. It "gathered round" Christ himself, One whom they knew to be supremely great, supremely good. The center of this fellowship was their own old matchless Friend, who had been such a Teacher, such an Example to them; whom they had seen do so many mighty and gracious works for others; whom they had watched for three years, and more and more wondered at, admired, and loved; whom they had seen tried for no offence, and condemned with no guilt on him, and crucified for sins not his own; whom a self-denying grave had restored, and a self-opening heaven had received; and of whom a descending omnipotent Spirit had given abundant and most touching attestation that he had not forgotten those same disciples, nor the word of his gracious promise to them.
2. It "gathered round" One of whom each of those apostles had, no doubt, his own individual and most precious remembrances. Take one example—Peter. What memories he had of Jesus. And now that, beyond all he believed of Jesus, before he suffered death, being "the Son of the living God," he knew him to be such, how intensified in significance many of those memories must have become!—but not least that of his own at one time great reluctance to share his suffering Master's shame, and his thrice-repeated denial of him! What a blessed revelation for Peter! And what a forgiving condescension of the great Master, that he permits Peter now to take the lead of his fellow-disciples, and gives him the opportunity of showing how he would, if he could, fain repair his old grievous transgression! Personal experience of Jesus Christ brings any one of us to a much more hearty and thorough readiness of surrender to him than all that mere description of him avails to do, though you add to it a willing admiration.
3. It "gathered round" One whose suffering and shame the apostles specially knew to be so unmerited, so absolutely uncaused by self and unendured for any necessity of discipline, improvement, or punishment to self. And yet the suffering and shame had been extreme, and, they well knew it, had been borne so patiently, so meekly, and so forgivingly. How thinking, grateful hearts must have longed, when now at last they were fully enlightened, to share ever so small a portion of his unmerited shame, though he himself had passed on and up, if it should serve his cause! We wonder nothing at the true devotion of those released apostles, but is there no room left for a wonder at the rare reproduction amongst ourselves of the same devotion? Evidently the Spirit had wrought in those apostles a real sympathy with the heart of Jesus, so that they felt this an honor, not such as the world giveth, that they were permitted, were "counted worthy," to stand in any sense on the same level of suffering and of shame with him. Though they might not, could not, suffer the same intensity of suffering as Jesus, yet they could suffer for the same sort of reasons.
III. THEY REJOICED IN THE FELLOWSHIP OF SHAME WITH ONE WHO OWNED TO A NAME IN THE FUTURE GLORY OF WHICH THEY HAD UNQUALIFIED FAITH.
"For his Name." Doubtless it has been these eighteen centuries the mightiest force and motive of all. The apostles did not rejoice to suffer with Jesus or in the track of him merely because of their grateful memories, but also because of their exulting faith in him and the career that awaited him. Their very love to "his Name" did not feed only on past mercies add pensive memories; these, indeed, were dainty and tender pasturage for it; but it fed also on the stronger food of faith.
"For his Name" was equivalent to an assertion of all he would do and all he would be to the world, as well as all he had done and suffered for it. And hence we are immediately told with what redoubled energy, with what gladdened courage, the apostles did not cease to teach and to preach Christ "in the temple, and in every house." Well might men rejoice to be "counted worthy to suffer shame for his Name," when that Name means all that has been in living form most loving and most beautiful, add all that is to be greatest and most powerful in the world's onward history, till its glory shall culminate in the day of triumph in heaven.
The apostles loved the Name of Jesus; they had come to have a perfect faith in it; they had been divinely endowed with a full sympathy with all they could understand of it; and now they were learning, in practical work and in suffering, the things which would make them really like to him who bore that Name. The "Name" of Christ turned the cross from shame into glory. It now does yet more—it turns living men's estimates right round from the false and the unreal to the real and the true.
That in which they once gloried becomes their shame, and the reproach of Christ their riches, honor, and glory. So did this Master of men's hearts, sympathies, and lives, among other things that he did by the humiliation and shame to which he bowed, secure also disciples and servants of inflexible fidelity and quenchless devotion and love.—B.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Atti degli Apostoli 5:3, Atti degli Apostoli 5:4
The conviction of Ananias.
St. Peter was, by natural disposition and the general consent, spokesman and interpreter for the Church. He could not have uttered these words to Ananias without a painful recalling of his own sin in the threefold denial of his Lord, and his own conviction of his sin at the sound of the cock-crowing. But compare St. Peter's sin with that of Ananias, and show why recovery was possible in his case, but only overwhelming judgment in the case of Ananias. We must also understand that the Holy Spirit gave St. Peter special knowledge of Ananias's deception, and guided him in what was said and done. Compare Joshua's dealing with Achan.
I. THE CONVICTION AS EXPRESSED BY ST. PETER. He urges:
1. That evil, in the shape of temptation, had been unresisted. The question "Why?" implies that resistance to the temptation had been possible. Had he resisted the tempter, he would have fled from him (Giacomo 4:7).
2. That Ananias was under no kind of compulsion. He was not bound by any rule of the Church. If be had brought, and called it, part, or if he had brought nothing, he could not have been blamed. If he was moved to sell he should honestly set forth what he bad done with the money. Man from his fellowman at least looks for sincerity and truthfulness.
3. And that while Ananias had only purposed to deceive the apostles, he had really been trying to deceive God, who dwelt, by his Spirit, in the apostles and in the Church. "Or, to state it as Peter stated it three hours after to the woman, this couple put God, the all-knowing Spirit, to the proof, tried him whether he would let himself and his Holy Church be taken in with a lie."
II. THE CONVCTION AS FELT BY ANANIAS. Throughout he must have borne an uneasy conscience, and in response to St. Peter's words it smote him hard. Shame and guilt overwhelmed him, and may even in part be allowed to explain his sudden death. Dr. Plumptre says, "In such a case we may rightly trace that union of natural causation and Divine purpose which we express in the familiar phrase that speaks of the visitation of God as a cause of death. The shame and agony of detection, the horror of conscience not yet dead, were enough to paralyze the powers of life."
III. THE CONVICTION AS CONFIRMED BY GOD. In the death of Ananias, and in the death taking place in such a sudden and awful manner. "In this case it is plain that the death of Ananias is an event supernaturally arranged by a higher power, because it is connected with the penal sentence of the apostle, which was spoken in the power of the Spirit.
" It may be pointed out that the Divine judgment here concerns only the sudden death, and the veil is not lifted to show us the eternal judgment, the secret Divine dealings with this so sadly erring disciple. Compare the teachings of such passages as 1 Corinzi 5:5; 1 Pietro 4:6.
Impress that, however our sin may be covered over and hidden from our own view now by self-delusions, the time of conviction must come sooner or later. A man must presently see his sin as it is, and see himself as he is. The conviction may come wholly by Divine inward leadings, it may come through providential circumstances, or it may be started by the word of some teacher or friend.
Happy, indeed, is he who is brought to conviction in time—in time to seek pardon and eternal life in that living Savior who is "exalted to give repentance and remission of sins."—R. T,
Helpers in sin must be sharers in judgment.
The share taken by Sapphira was manifestly a prominent and an active one. She and her husband were at full accord in the matter; and her sin is the more aggravated as she had a longer time to think it over, and had evidently planned what she would say and do if any remarks were made by the apostles or the brethren as to the gift of the land. "The question asked by St. Peter gave her an opening for repentance.
It had been in her power to save her husband by a word of warning protest. It was now in her power to clear her own conscience by confession. She misses the one opportunity as she had misused the other. The lie which they had agreed upon comes glibly from her lips, and the irrevocable word is spoken."
I. THE COMMON JUDGMENT. The same fate overtook both, as they had joined together in the sin. Compare the cases of Dathan and Abiram. There was union:
1. In the slow judgment of the deteriorated and debased soul. And this is ever the first form of the Divine judgment on the sinner. Hardening of heart, deadening of conscience, cherishing of blinding and fatal delusions, are as truly direct judgments of God, ever working, as sudden death. This truth needs to be seen more clearly and impressed more constantly.
2. In the swift and immediate judgment of the sudden death, which, in the second case, was prophetically declared to be God's witness to the exceeding heinousness of their sin. The life of all men is in God's hands, and we may well "fear him who can cast body and soul into hell." "The lives of all men are in his hand. Daily he is cutting them off in a moment—even hot with lust or red-handed from crime.
His doom now and then antedates the slower processes of human law. The time and fashion of all our deaths are with him. If one day his mercy turned to judgment, and he took from the earth two forfeited lives for, the warning and the bettering of many, who shall say either that the lesson was dearly bought or that the penalty was undeserved? It is well that men should be taught once for all, by sudden death treading swiftly on the heels of detected sin, that the gospel, which discovers God's boundless mercy, has not wiped out the sterner attributes of the judge" (Dr. Dykes).
II. THE MORAL MISSION OF DIVINE JUDGMENT. A solemn awe fell on the minds of all present. Illustrate by impressions now made by a case of sudden death in a congregation, or by such a case as that of Alexis, smitten by lightning at Luther's side. It is said that "great fear came upon all the Church.
" The Scripture meanings of the word "fear" may be given and illustrated. Here it is a solemn sense of the severity and power of God, and of the strictness of his demands. The members now felt, as they had never done before, what a serious thing it was to make a Christian profession. Dwell on two things.
1. Fear as solemnizing other professors, filling them with new thoughts about insincerity, hypocrisy, and covetousness. Reminding them that no man should enter Christ's kingdom without first "sitting down and counting the cost." "The true ecclesia must be free from such hypocritical professors, or its work could not advance." "God fills our hearts with the spirit of reverence, truthfulness, and godly fear, lest another spirit fills us with lies, with greed, with vainglory, and with presumptuous impiety."
2. Fear as deterring would-be professors. Persons in all ages are too ready to take up the mere profession of Christ's Name, and such need to be shown that such profession involves responsibilities as well as privileges. There is grave danger of our estimating our responsibilities too lightly. The vows of Christ ought ever to be a solemn and a holy burden. "What manner of persons ought we to be?" God is "known by the judgments that he executeth." We still need to recognize his hand, and we must be careful not to lose the impression of his personality in the modern sentiment about law.—R.T.
Hindrances to belief.
These are suggested by the expression, "Of the rest durst no man join himself to them." It seems that the first body of Christian converts made Solomon's porch their place of assembly. This they did, probably, for the convenience of its situation and arrangement, and possibly for the sake of its association with the teachings of their honored Master. The historian records that while the opposition of the Sanhedrim was feared, "none of the other people who had not yet joined the new community ventured to attach themselves intrusively to the Christian body.
" Whatever conviction may have been wrought by the apostolic teaching and miracles, it was repressed, and men were hindered from full confession of their faith in Christ. This is the simplest explanation of the expression, hut some think that reference is intended to the "multitude of those who were not yet converted, but whose attention was at the same time arrested by the spiritual power of Christianity;" or to the "Pharisees, who resorted to the portico, but had not the courage to attach themselves to those with whom they really sympathized.
" It is evident that there were many lookers-on, who, from one cause or another, were hindered from belief. Dr. Dykes says, "To the friendly attitude of the common people there stood contrasted, exactly as during Jesus' ministry, the displeasure of the official and educated classes.… Somewhat later a number of the rank-and-file even of the priesthood went over to the new faith. At this period, however, all the sacred and ruling orders appear to have been kept aloof from the Church by a public opinion of their own, so strong that no individual member of these orders had as yet the courage to oppose it." The term, "Of the rest," may include—
I. THE SANHEDRIM PARTY. This partly consisted of Sadducees and partly of Pharisees. Both were hindered from belief in Christ by prejudice. Doctrine blinded the Sadducees; pride of ritual holiness blinded the Pharisees. Sadducees were offended by our Lord's miracles and spiritual demands, and hopelessly enraged by the report of his resurrection, which they regarded as a mischievous absurdity and an impossibility.
Their doctrines prevented their being persuaded. Pharisees were prejudiced to a ritual system in the observance of which alone could salvation come. To their notions salvation by faith in a person, and such a person as the Nazarene impostor, was, on the face of it, unworthy of intelligent beings. These classes are but examples. Still the prejudice of doctrinal notions, and the delusion that somehow salvation must be by works, keep men from Christ.
II. THE ADHERENTS OF THE SANHEDRIM PARTY. All great parties in a state have adherents, hangers-on, people who watch and take their cue from them, and hope to get their own benefit through the party. These men are always ready to avoid what their party avoids, and to shout what their party shouts.
Such men there were in Jerusalem at the time of the apostles, and, whatever might be the force of conviction and persuasion brought to bear upon them, they were hindered by personal interest. Joining the Christians would not answer their ends, and they could not see their way to offending the party that was in power. Time-servers never can believe until they put away their time-serving. Self-interest and faith cannot dwell together.
III. THE OFFICIALS OF THE TEMPLE. Priests, Levites, door-keepers, singers, etc. These were hindered by the spirit of officialism, one of the most narrowing and conservative forces acting on men. The new is always suspected by the official mind. The routine and order must not be touched. There was much, both in our Lord's teaching and in that of his apostles, that could not fail to grieve and alarm the temple officials. And still, stiffened creeds and rigid ecclesiastical forms are often fatal hindrances to those who teach the creeds and minister the forms.
IV. THE RICH MEN OF THE COMMUNITY. These were hindered by observing what a poor lot the first Christians were, and class pride kept them from Christ. It was the constant sneer of the enemies of the early Church, and is fully expressed by Celsus, that the Christians were drawn from the very dregs of society, from the publicans and the slaves. Yet we glory in this, that "God hath made the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom."—R.T.
Atti degli Apostoli 5:15, Atti degli Apostoli 5:16
Bodily healings may prepare for spiritual ones.
Comparing apostolic miracles with those wrought by our Lord, it should be noticed that he showed power over nature by stilling storms, walking on waters, multiplying food, and withering trees; but the apostles' power was limited to various forms of bodily danger and disease. In each case the miracles illustrated the higher work of those who wrought them. Christ's miracles illustrated his Divine claims and mission as the revelation to men of the Father.
Apostolic miracles illustrated their mission to preach Christ to men as the Healer of the soul's disease, Redeemer from sin's penalties, and Savior from sin. The question is often discussed whether the power of miraculous healing has been lost to the Church. Claim to such power has been made in every age, with more or less confidence, and such claims are made now. Singular and interesting instances of bodily healing in response to faith and prayer are narrated by sober witnesses; and it may be admitted that there are certain classes of diseases which can be affected and relieved by the strong will and faith of a fellow-creature. But it is difficult for us to recognize the properly miraculous character of such cures. We may consider—
I. HEALINGS ALONE. God has provided in nature sufficient and efficient healing agents for all man's diseases, lie has given to some among men healing skill, to be used in the service of others. No nobler ministry is entrusted to men than that of healing. A vast and almost overwhelming mass of human suffering calls for the healer's art. Though some forms of bodily disease are beyond human cure, few, if any, are out of the reach of relieving agencies. Apostolic healings materially differed from those of the ordinary doctor.
1. They were immediate.
2. They were without the use of medicinal agencies.
3. They were complete, without peril of any return of the disease.
4. They were wrought by spiritual power—and that not the apostles' own, only operating through them—reaching the very springs of vitality and giving new life. How such healings illustrate the Divine work in sin-sick souls may be fully shown.
II. HEALINGS WITH TEACHINGS. This was the special feature of the apostolic ministry. The end was not reached when a suffering man was cured; that was but the means to a further and higher end, even that soul-healing which comes by the reception of Christ the Savior, whom apostles taught. Illustrate how medical missions are made the agency for winning the attention of the heathen to the gospel message. Point out what are the particular points of spiritual teaching which gain effective illustration from bodily healings; e.g.:
1. The assertion of a necessary relation between sin and suffering. Suffering is no accident, no mere calamity; it is the divinely appointed fruitage and consequence of sin. It is designed to fix the character of sin, to give men conviction through feeling, vision, and sympathy, of the evil of sin. When more clearly understood, suffering is seen to be the corrective agency through which man may be delivered from sin.
2. The assertion of the Divine relation to suffering. God does not pass aside of the diseased or disabled; every day he is working gracious works in sick-rooms and hospitals. Of this his constant work Jesus gave full illustrations in his miracles, when he came to "show us the Father;" and of this apostles renewed the assurance when they healed, in Christ's Name, all the sick and suffering ones that were brought unto them.
3. The consequent assertion of the Divine relation to sin. God would not concern himself with the mere effects; we may be quite sure that he deals with the cause. The great Physician is concerned about our sin. lie would not that any of us should perish in our sins. And, therefore, when the apostles healed a sufferer they preached unto him Jesus, who is precisely this, "God saving men from their sins."—R.T.
Angel-help.
Angels are constantly referred to in Holy Scripture. The angel-Jehovah, or angel of the covenant, who appeared in human form to the patriarchs as a sign and foreshadowing of the Incarnation, must be distinguished from the ordinary angelic appearances. The Old Testament conception of angels is that they were agents or executors of Divine missions to individual men or to communities. Thus we have angels visiting Sodom; angel of the pestilence; angels guarding Jacob, etc.
From the earlier poetical and imaginative point of view, the angels were veritable beings, belonging to other spheres but able to communicate with men in the earthly spheres. To our more formal and scientific notions, angels are regarded as the personification of material agencies, as used by God for moral and religious purposes. "He maketh winds his angels, and flames of fire his ministers." Very little can be really known about angels, and no doctrine of angelology can be pressed on universal acceptance.
The New Testament conception of angels is given in Ebrei 1:14 (Revised Version), "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation?" The precise work of ministry is that entrusted to them, and apostolic assertion of the fact of their ministry is probably designed to oppose the Sadducees' teaching that "there is neither angel nor spirit."
I. ANGEL-HELP AS GIVEN TO CHRIST. The principal instances are:
1. Angel-announce-meats and preparations for his birth.
2. Angel-comfortings in the time of his desert temptations (Matteo 4:11).
3. Angel-strengthenings in the moments of his conflict and agony in Gethsemane.
4. Angel-attendance upon his resurrection.
5. Angel-announce-meats concerning his ascension and his coming again. From these instances we may learn the kind of help which angels may be expected to give to Christ's tempted and tried disciples.
II. ANGEL-HELP AS REALIZED BY APOSTLES. This took several forms.
1. As deliverance from prison (see text, and incident narrated in Atti degli Apostoli 12:7).
2. As communicating Divine messages (see Atti degli Apostoli 8:26; Atti degli Apostoli 10:7).
3. As ensuring safety in times of peril (see Atti degli Apostoli 27:23). It may be observed that what may be called the materiality of the angel began gradually to fade away, and the visionary realization of the angel-help took its place. In this we trace the transition to the form in which we now may apprehend the help of the angels. No man may expect such actual working in the physical spheres as St. Peter knew when his prison doors were opened. Even in St. Paul's time this work was done by the natural shakings of the earthquake.
III. ANGEL-HELP AS GRANTED TO US. And we may distinctly affirm that it is granted. The only question is—In what manner do we realize the help? Spiritual forces are around us. We are influenced, for good and for evil, by unknown agencies. This is as yet almost an unstudied Christian phenomenon; one, however, which often brings comfort as a sentiment to pious souls.
Such angel-help is very properly put into a secondary place in our consideration when we have a full and strong conviction that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is with us, the Inspiration, Guard, and Guide of our whole life and thoughts. They who consciously realize the presence of the Master will make comparatively little of the presence of the Master's ministers and servants working out his gracious purposes for him. Show with what limitations we may properly cherish the idea of angel-help in everything that is good.—R.T.
The hopelessness of fighting against God.
The narrative indicates that the Sanhedrim had fully entered on the work of checking and crushing the party of Christ's disciples. Gamaliel expressed what the nature of their action might possibly prove to be—it might be even a "fighting against God." Some effort should be made to realize what they thought about their work, and how they deluded themselves with the notion that they alone were guardians of the truth of God, and in opposing the Christian party were really fighting for God.
It is one of the saddest effects of cherished exclusiveness and self-confidence that these things actually blind men, and make it impossible for them to receive truth as newly presented to them. A little self-criticism, a little skill in testing their own motives, would have revealed to these men the low and unworthy passions and prejudices by which they were permitting themselves to be ruled. So often we need to "see ourselves as others see us," and may thankfully welcome any light that reveals ourselves to ourselves. These men were really "fighting against God."
I. IN FIGHTING AGAINST GOD MAN MAY WIN APPARENT AND TEMPORARY SUCCESSES. Only apparent, because they always lead men on to attempt further schemes, which involve them in utter ruin. Only temporary, because God has the long ages in which to secure the outworking of his purposes. Illustrate by the success of the Sanhedrim in the conviction and death of our Lord, and in the imprisonment of the apostles.
II. IN FIGHTING AGAINST GOD MAN DEALS WITH FORCES BEYOND HIS REACH. And they are sure to master him. Compare man's range of power with God's. Illustrate from the treatment of Christ; death was man's limit, resurrection was in God's power.
So with apostles; imprisonment was man's limit, angel-deliverance was in God's power. God's miracles then, God's providences and overrulings now, surely mate and master man's utmost antagonism. This is true of persecutions, infidelity, or other forms of attack on Christian men, the Christian faith, or the spread of the Redeemer's kingdom.—R.T.
The present royalty and rights of Jesus.
It is interesting to notice how the Jewish conception of Messiah, as a conquering King of the house of David, gave form and tone to the earlier ideas which the apostles had of their risen and ascended Savior. He proved, indeed, to be a King in quite another sense than that in which they had regarded him, and at first they felt much disappointment in the crushing of their national hopes; but still they knew that he was a King, they gradually gained clearer notions of the spirituality of his kingdom, and they freely asserted his present royal rights, demanding the immediate submission of men to his authority.
The claim of sovereignty is closely joined to the promise of salvation. "If Christ seeks to rule over men it is that he may save them." It is usual to note the meanings of the Resurrection viewed in its relation to the redemptive scheme; but it is not so usual for Christian teachers to dwell on our Lord's office, dignity, commission, authority, and active operations as exalted to the right hand of the Father.
The circle of the Christian doctrine is by no means complete on this side, and the mystery of the Ascension is but very imperfectly unfolded. A sentiment has been allowed to prevail that Christ is practically absent now from us; the affairs of Christ's Church are delegated to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and Christ is coming some day to assume place and power, and establish an everlasting kingdom here on earth.
Gli apostoli dichiarano che il Signore è ora esaltato al suo posto regale principesco. Affermano non solo che ora ha, ma anche che ora rivendica i suoi diritti reali. Non è il loro modo di metterlo a dire che "Egli sarà prendere per sé la sua grande potenza e il regno;" dicono: "Lui ha esaltato Dio", o, come la versione riveduta, "Lui ha esaltato Dio". Questa è una verità che la Chiesa moderna ha bisogno di presentarle in modo più completo e frequente.
La dovuta attenzione ad esso allevierebbe la tendenza a rappresentazioni esagerate della salvezza mediante la fede nell'opera di nostro Signore . La salvezza si rivela alla fede nel Signore Cristo stesso, Principe e Salvatore. Cristo è in realtà ora—
I. IL PRINCIPE , O LA PRONUNCIA ONE . Spiega l'antica teocrazia come il governo diretto di Geova e mostra che l'idea si realizza spiritualmente nell'attuale relazione di nostro Signore con la sua Chiesa. Non dovrebbe essere una disabilità rigenerare e uomini spirituali che non si vedono. L'anima risvegliata può avere comunicazioni spirituali, e la vita segreta dell'anima dell'uomo cristiano è la sua vera vita.
Chi lo controlla controlla anche tutta la vita corporea e le relazioni. Nella riga del testo si può mostrare che, come Principe, la legge e la pretesa di Cristo, portate in casa alle anime degli uomini, le inchinano alla penitenza; e Cristo ha in pieno mandato l'espressione della misericordia divina nel perdono e nella restaurazione.
II. IL SALVATORE , O IL RISPARMIO ONE . La salvezza non è dichiarata come il risultato della fede dell'uomo nell'opera redentrice di Cristo, ma della fede dell'uomo che apre la sua anima e la sua vita all'opera redentrice presente del Salvatore vivente. Le forze morali che ora lavorano effettivamente per sottomettere, persuadere, rinnovare e santificare gli uomini sono le forze presenti e attive di Cristo, il Salvatore esaltato e glorificato.
Così gli apostoli predicarono agli uomini "Gesù", ordinarono loro di aprire i loro cuori al suo amore e potere, portare su di lui il fardello dei loro peccati e dei loro bisogni, e aspettarsi che egli li trattasse realmente, sebbene in modo spirituale, come egli si occupava dei dolori e dei peccati degli uomini mentre era con loro nella carne. Questa è la grande gloria del messaggio evangelico e il punto a cui dovrebbe essere dato risalto in questi nostri tempi: "Gesù vive.
"Egli è esaltato, tiene la sua commissione. Il suo 'Padre opera fino ad ora, e lui lavora.' Come il principe, che richiede la nostra sottomissione e la nostra obbedienza. Come il nostro Salvatore, si prende tutto il nostro caso su di lui, e fornisce, redime, e santifica.—RT
Il consiglio dei prudenti.
Tale era Gamaliele. Vedi la parte espositiva per un resoconto di lui e della scuola rabbinica a cui apparteneva. Gli interessa come maestro di Saulo di Tarso, ma quanto è grande il contrasto tra il calmo e prudente Gamaliele e l'intenso e impulsivo Saulo! La scena del Sinedrio in cui questo onorato insegnante si alzò per calmare l'eccitazione prevalente e implorare quella che chiamerebbe una "magistrale inattività", può essere efficacemente illustrata.
La situazione in cui si trovava il Sinedrio era estremamente difficile, e certamente non poteva essere affrontata in modo equo mentre il concilio era sotto l'influenza di pregiudizi suscitati e di eccitazione religiosa. Il temperamento cauto dovrebbe essere descritto. Coloro che hanno questa qualità caratteristica hanno il loro posto, la loro influenza e il loro lavoro; sono spesso preziosi trascinatori su ruote azionate troppo frettolosamente; ma hanno anche la loro disabilità, e non hanno la capacità di godere molto di ciò che piace ad altre nature. Non sanno nulla di emozione, entusiasmo, dimenticanza di sé o rapimento. Tale era Gamaliele, e il suo consiglio è piuttosto un modello di quello sempre dato dall'uomo prudente.
I. IL PRUDENTE UOMO CADE INDIETRO SU PRECEDENTE . Gamaliele trova alcuni casi verificatisi di recente e li discute, proprio come fa un avvocato moderno dai "casi" che può citare. I precedenti sono spesso molto preziosi. Sono spesso tristi ostacoli all'impresa.
Sono sempre più fastidiosi per coloro che sono di temperamento impulsivo. Sono un bene molto dubbioso per gli uomini di fede in un Dio vivente, che possono essere contenti di lavorare in modi nuovi e sorprendenti.
II. IL PRUDENTE UOMO HA FIDUCIA IN IL LAVORO DI NATURALI FORZE . Gamaliele dice: Aspetta e osserva come funzionano queste cose. Le emozioni religiose tendono a esaurirsi. I saltimbanchi non hanno potere di resistenza.
I leader delle sette vogliono un sostegno economico, e non appena ciò viene reso evidente, i loro seguaci svaniscono. Non c'è bisogno di alcuna interferenza, il naturale processo di esaurimento effettuerà tutto ciò che desideri. Così, ancora, l'uomo prudente spesso controlla l'energia che affronterebbe con vigore i mali sociali e morali, come il bere e il vizio. Gli uomini sinceri non possono aspettare il lungo svolgimento delle forze naturali. Con fede nel Dio di giustizia, devono entrare e affrontare i mali come una nuova forza redentrice.
III. IL PRUDENTE UOMO SI BASA SU GLI EFFETTI DEL TEMPO . Sebbene alleato alla considerazione precedente, questa ne differisce alquanto. Il tempo placa l'eccitazione; il tempo mette alla prova il valore di tutte le cose. E gli stessi capi del sistema religioso ebraico potrebbero sicuramente essere soddisfatti che il tempo sarebbe dalla loro parte. Ma gli uomini "periscono nei loro peccati" mentre aspettiamo; e l'uomo serio ascolta Dio ispirarlo a uno sforzo attivo quando dice: "Ora è il momento accettato".
IV. IL PRUDENTE UOMO TEME PER suscitare O DI MANTENERE PUBBLICO EMOZIONE . E senza dubbio molto male accompagna tale eccitazione, ma mali peggiori accompagnano la stagnazione. L'eccitazione pubblica allarma solo coloro che non vogliono che si faccia nulla .
I più prudenti tra noi cercano sempre di reprimere missioni speciali, risvegli e riforme, e temono che il fuoco fatto esplodere così in alto si esaurirà presto e lascerà solo ceneri fredde. Gli uomini di fede diranno mai che, forse, il fuoco così acceso durerà per sempre. Gli uomini cauti a volte possono fare un buon lavoro controllando saggiamente l'eccessiva impulsività e gli schemi indebitamente considerati. Ma possono anche controllare l'impresa. Coloro che vorrebbero compiere un lavoro nobile per Dio devono spesso fare come fece il grande generale: sbarcare sulle rive del nemico e bruciare le barche. —RT