Chapter 20: Peter'S Deepening Experiences Of The Holy Spirit
Chapter 20: PETER'S DEEPENING EXPERIENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Acts iv. 32; v. 33
"Be still and strong,
O Man, my Brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong!
That so, as life's appointment issueth,
Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death!"
— B. B. Browning.
ONE OF THE greatest affirmations possible to man is that of the ancient creed, "I believe in the Holy Ghost." All knowledge, power, success, and victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil, depend on the recognition and use of the fellowship or partnership of the Holy Spirit. As Peter said in his great Pentecostal sermon — When our Lord passed through all the Heavens to the right-hand of power.
He asked the Father and received from Him the authority, to confer upon each member of His mystical body the infilling and anointing by the Holy Paraclete, as He had Himself received it at His Baptism. As God He was one with the Father and the Holy Spirit; but when He assumed our nature, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, infilled and anointed by Him, and wrought his life-work in His power and grace. The Father gave not the Holy Spirit by measure to His Son, and it was through the Eternal Spirit that He offered Himself without spot to God.
He ascended that He might receive and bestow gifts on His Church. Of His fulness may all we receive, and grace upon grace. Indeed, unto every one of us grace has been given, according to the measure of the gift of Christ, although we must make the sad confession that we have failed to appropriate our respective shares in the Pentecostal gift. We have been satisfied with half-filled cups, when the river of God might be flowing through our lives. "The promise is to us and to our children, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call"; but how few of us have accepted the enduement, or been anointed by that sacred chrism, with which the Father inaugurated the public ministry of our Saviour, and which He now waits to impart to the humblest and weakest, though they be but as the skirts of His robes.
I. PETER'S PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES. — On the evening of the Resurrection Day the Lord had breathed on him and the rest as they gathered in the Upper Room. "Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this. He breathed on them, and said, 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit.' " We gather, therefore, that their reception of the Spirit was directly intended to qualify them for their mission. It was a distinct equipment for service.
For ten days Peter awaited the promise of the Father, in pursuance of the Master's command: "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."
When the Day of Pentecost was fully come, he, like the rest, was filled by His Advent, and began to speak as the Spirit gave him utterance. Thus we learn that the filling, enduement, and anointing are equivalent terms, and are all associated with the service we are called upon to render. We may have been born of the Spirit, and have so received the seed of the new life, but we must also be anointed by the Spirit, if we expect to be fully used by the Master in our brief mortal life.
When our Apostle faced the Sanhedrim on the morning after the miracle on the cripple at the Beautiful Gate, we are told that on arising to reply to his accusers, he was again suddenly and gloriously filled with the Holy Spirit, proving that we may claim successive and repeated infillings, especially when overtaken by an hour of crisis.
On the return of Peter and John to their own company, the place where they were assembled was shaken as by waves of holy power. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness. "With great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection." Evidently this further experience of the incoming tides of God fell also to Peter's lot equally with the whole rejoicing and triumphant company. Why should not we be subject to these repeated experiences? We have not, because we ask not, and because we fear to take risks for Jesus Christ!
Peter had also had repeated evidences of the convicting power of the Spirit of God. "When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart." Of this quality in the blessed Paraclete we have many conspicuous modem examples. As he was dying, Brainerd said to his brother: "When ministers feel the special gracious influences of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, it wonderfully assists them to come at the consciences of men, and as it were to handle them; whereas without these, whatever reason or oratory we may employ, we do but make use of stumps instead of hands." So Peter had discovered.
But further experiences were to be granted before he and his fellow Apostles fully explored their inheritance as leaders of the infant Church. They were to be taught that the Divine Spirit had to do with the collective Church as well as with the individual, and that He is the President of the Church on earth, the Vicegerent of Christ, the Supreme Guide and Teacher of His Body, the Co-witness of His Resurrection, the Superlative Source of Eternal Life.
To adopt the great words of Archer Butler — "When Christ ascended to the Father He sent forth the Spirit, who should be His Vicegerent in the Church; and as long as the Sovereign reigns in Heaven, His Spiritual Viceroy reigns in human souls. They are correspondent and correlative one to the other. ' If I go not away,' said the Saviour before He ascended, 'the Spirit cannot come.' If He be away, then the Spirit is in the Church. The absence of one is the presence of the other; or let me rather say that there is no absence, no presence, no departure, no separation! Christ Himself is one with the Holy Spirit, and with Him temples in the heart of His mystical body."
Our Lord may have revealed this great mystery during the forty days in which He instructed His friends in the things concerning the Kingdom of God.
But their practical realization was gradually unfolded to Peter and the rest, as Pentecost receded into the background of their memory. The experience of Peter in this matter is very illuminating. He was led step by step into the full apprehension of the Spirit's association with the Church.
II. THE HOLY SPIRIT'S PRESIDENCY OF THE CHURCH. — It became apparent in connection with the finances of the Church. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul, so that none of them claimed any of his possessions as his own. All was held as a common property. There was therefore no poverty or clamant need. Those who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the whole amount that had been realized and gave it to the Apostles, by whom distribution was made to every one according to his wants. Out of this fund a certain amount would be laid aside for the rooms and meals which they had in common. So much would be allotted for the maintenance of the Apostles and their fellow-workers. Also the destitute, sickly, and widowed would be relieved according to their requirements.
This practice is not to be confused with Communism, because the latter system abolishes all property by force, imposes a compulsory division of profits, and compels all workers to place their possessions and earnings in a common purse. In the early Christian practice, while a field remained unsold, it was still the property of its owners; and when it was sold, the proceeds remained absolutely at their discretion. This system was clearly a temporary expedient for the special circumstances of the Jerusalem Church, and the Apostles made no attempt to institute it in any of the Churches formed among the Gentiles.
Many members of the Church, like the good Barnabas, made great sacrifices, and stood proportionately high in the esteem of their fellow-believers; and their desire to obtain the same notoriety without paying the same price for it led Ananias and his wife to act their lie. They sold some land, and encouraged the belief that they had brought the entire amount obtained for it to place at the Apostles' disposal for the common good. There was no obligation on them to sell the land. There would have been no sin in bringing part of the proceeds, if they had frankly acknowledged that it was only a part. But they pretended that the sum handed to the community was the entire amount of the purchase-money. Thus they gratified their love of money on the one hand and their vanity on the other.
It was an acted falsehood.
We will not stay to particularize the duplicates of this sin in modern life. We are all tempted to appropriate credit for more earnestness, prayerfulness, and generosity than we practise. Thank God, there is no need to yield to this insidious temptation; but who has not been conscious of the suggestion? Thank God, though Satan may flash the suggestion upon our consciousness, the grace of the indwelling Spirit is sufficient to keep it at the threshold, and prevent it from filling the heart. "Why hath Satan filled thy heart. . . ." When we are filled with the Spirit, there is no space left for filling by Satan. The air that fills the diving-bell excludes the entrance of the water into which it presently descends. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." Ananias and Sapphira did not avail themselves of His grace.
They had been enlightened, had welcomed the heavenly gift, had been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and had tasted the good word of God and the powers of the new era; but they had fallen away, and become as land, which, though it has drunk of the rain that comes off upon it, bears thorns and thistles, and is therefore nigh unto a curse. That curse would never have befallen, if the sin had been confessed, and their crucifying afresh of the Son of God arrested. But in the absence of any sign of compunction in either of them, their sin incurred the punishment of a tragic death. By one stroke they were cut off from membership with the Church, lest the contagion of their sin should spread.
We will now concentrate on Peter's illuminated and illuminating utterances: "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?"..."How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?" What stronger evidence could be given of the Personality or Deity of the Holy Spirit? It is clearly impossible to tempt or deceive an influence, emanation, or breath. If you lie, you lie to a Person.
If you tempt, you tempt a Person. The charge of either implies Personality of the beings concerned, of the Spirit equally as of Ananias or Sapphira. But how was their act a sin against the Spirit of the Lord? Was it not rather committed against that infant society, and notoriously against its poor? Undoubtedly it was a mean-hearted wrong perpetrated on them; but it was so flagrantly a sin against the Spirit that the human aspect sank into comparative insignificance.
In point of fact, the Church differs from all other assemblies in this, that it is the Body of Christ and the seat or throne of the Holy Spirit; and this made their sin so flagrant.
If a handful of people, however obscure, gather in the Name of Christ to consider and further the interests of His Kingdom, the Holy Spirit is not only present, but He presides. He holds court as the Representative and Vicegerent of Christ. He sees to it that in their unanimity after united prayer, the will of Christ is reflected, and that through their united action it is done. What is bound or loosed on earth is in harmony with what is bound and loosed in Heaven.
The Roman Catholic Church makes use of the mysterious word "See." It is "the Holy See" from the first syllable of the Latin word sedere, to sit, and in reference to the inspired statement that the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost sat on each of them. Their inference is that the primitive Church was the seat or throne of the Paraclete, that when Jesus took His seat on the throne at the Father's right hand, the Holy Spirit descended to the throne of the Church, and that the Apostate Church of the Seven Hills is the lineal descendant of that Church. We are prepared to accept the two first of these propositions, but not the last. It is quite true that when our Lord went up to His throne in the Heavens, the Holy Spirit came down to His in the Church. It is quite true that the Church is the throne from which the Divine Spirit issues His mandates, and through which He exerts His energy. But it is not true that Rome is that throne or seat. Nay, verily, but wherever a group of people meet in the Name of Jesus, and for the maintenance of the holy ordinances which He enjoined, and uniting for mutual edification and for the purposes of His Kingdom, there you have the divine seat and throne, and there you may count on the living Presence of the Sevenfold Spirit of the Eternal. "Grace to you and Peace from the Seven Spirits which are before His throne and from Jesus Christ." Happy is that Christian community which understands and realizes this blessed fact, as it was perceived and realized by Peter and the rest on that momentous day, when the Serpent threatened to enter their newly-planted Paradise, as he entered and destroyed the Paradise of Eden.
The falsehood on which these two sinners against their own souls agreed was sin against God the Holy Spirit, and through Him against the Lord Jesus; and the penalty which was inflicted was due to His own direct action, as a warning for all after-time. "And great fear came upon the whole Church and upon all those that heard these things." Would that similar fear, the fear born of reverent love, might come upon all gatherings of God's people! There would be more intensity in every act of worship, more love and faith, more of the adoration and humility which are evident in that upper sanctuary, where the very seraphim veil their faces with their wings, as they hymn the praise of the All-Holy. Keep thy foot, when thou enterest the House of God, if the Church is in session, for God is there by His Spirit. Worship Him in spirit and truth! Refuse to harbour anything which is not consistent with His Nature! And bring with thee in thine own ardent heart some contribution to the solemn and blessed atmosphere, in which He expands His tenderest and mightiest energies. Thus when we meet with the Church, let us do so under the searching gaze of its President, and in Him draw nigh to the General Assembly and Church of the firstborn, whose names are written in Heaven, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to God the Judge of all, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant.
III. THE COWITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. — The public sentiment of Jerusalem was strongly in favour of the Church. This was largely accounted for by miraculous works of healing that gathered the crowds around the Apostles, as formerly to the Person of the Lord. In the early days of His popularity the people pressed to touch Him. "Wheresoever He entered, into villages, or into cities, or into the country, they laid the sick in the market-places, and besought that they might touch if it were but the border of His garment; and as many as touched Him were made whole." Those scenes were repeated in the narrow streets of Jerusalem, that as Peter came by his shadow might be cast at least on some of the sick who were laid on beds and couches along his pathway. The tidings of the marvellous cures which were effected spread to the cities and towns round about and attracted immense multitudes to see and hear and be healed. The country rang with the tidings of the wondrous cures wrought in the Name of Jesus.
For a time the Rulers stood rigidly aloof. "Of the rest," i. e. of those who were not of the ranks of the common people, "durst no man join himself to them." But finally the smouldering embers of their jealousy burst into fire, and the whole Apostolic band was arrested and thrust into the public prison. On the following morning, when the Sanhedrim, reinforced by others of the elders, or senate, of Israel, met to adjudge the matter, the prison was empty, and news came that their prisoners were standing in the Temple and teaching the people. Notwithstanding the miraculous character of their liberation, the trial was proceeded with, and Peter, as spokesman of the whole body, had another opportunity of proclaiming before the ruling classes of the nation the Resurrection and Exaltation of his Lord.
That the God of their fathers had raised up Jesus whom they slew; that He was seated at His right hand; that He was Prince and Saviour; that repentance and remission of sin were offered through Him to Israel — these truths had been voiced in that august assembly before; but there was a new emphasis laid on the corroborating witness of the Holy Spirit. "We are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit whom God hath given to them that obey Him."
The Master had promised that this should be their experience. "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me; and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning." There we have the Saviour's own promise that the Church may count on the corroborating affirmations of the Spirit of Truth. When the voice is heard from Heaven, proclaiming the blessedness of those that have died in Christ, the Spirit utters His emphatic Amen in the hearts of men. In the story of Paul's first missionary campaign we are told that the Lord bare witness to the word of His grace; and in the opening chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews we learn that God bare witness to the earliest Evangelists of the Cross by signs, and wonders, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Always the Spirit and the Bride say. Come.
The Bride says it audibly, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." The Spirit confirms her words with groanings that cannot be uttered, though they pervade the soul.
It was a great discovery and announcement that Peter made that day. It is of immense and transcendent importance to us all! Often when the preacher or teacher is most appalled with the obstinacy and resistance of the human heart, he may comfort himself by remembering that he is in partnership with the Divine. The child's finger may be able only to strike one note after another with one finger on the piano keys, but who will break his heart over such a trifle, when a master of music sits beside her accompanying each of her notes with magnificent thrilling chords, and is able to turn even her mistakes into profounder harmonies? We must never allow that thought of the co-witness of the Divine Spirit on the behalf of the truth to fade from our minds. Obviously we must see to it that we utter only such truths as He will find it possible to corroborate. As Peter put it in this address, it is when we announce Jesus as dying, rising, and exalted, as Saviour and Prince, as the Fountain and Lord of Life, that we may count most surely on the Divine Spirit endorsing and attesting the truth, as though He said: "It is so! By Me He offered Himself without spot to God. I was there when He died. His blood atones. I am One with Him, in the stream which proceeds from the throne of the Lamb.
We are one both in its current and its source."
IV. THE SUPERLATIVE SUPERIORITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. — The Evangelist Philip had been the means of a marvellous spiritual revival at Samaria, and had there encountered in Simon a crafty and ambitious man, who was clearly an adept in the occult learning of the age and in the black arts of sorcery and witchcraft. Miracles were wrought by his collusion with demon influences, which in our own time have revived under the name of Spiritualism. This science has been defined as an attempt to obtain power by the aid of unknown and spiritual agencies, without regard to those moral and religious conditions of purity and piety under which alone will God discover Himself to man. As in Egypt Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so did Simon endeavour to counterfeit the beneficent achievements of Philip, using only the Name of Jesus. Forthwith unclean spirits surrendered their victims with loud cries, and many that were palsied and lame were healed. But the Evangelist was not content with these manifestations of spiritual power, he preached unto them the Christ, and the people gave heed with one accord and believed. "There was great joy in that city!"
Presently a demand arose for further help than Philip could give, and the Apostles, who had remained in Jerusalem, notwithstanding the persecution, which broke out after Stephen's death, that they might focus and guide the entire Christian movement, sent Peter and John to give on their behalf formal recognition to the infant Christian Church which had arisen from the gracious work of this Revival. During the solemn act which sought and obtained a further bestowal of the Holy Spirit, there seems to have been such a conspicuous manifestation of spiritual power as astounded the beholders and specially Simon. With amazement he beheld the exaltation that transfigured spirit, soul and body, and lifted the converts into unparalleled ecstasy. H only he could obtain the talisman of a similar power it would be worth a mine of gold; and so he hazarded the offer which has for ever stamped his name with the infamy, and made it, as Simony, the brand of similar proposals. Turning on the wretched and misguided man, Peter sternly rebuked him. "Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the Gift of God may be obtained by money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is not right with God." But, as Peter uttered those terrible words, did there not break in on his soul, by force of contrast, a fresh and living conception, not only of the superlative power of the Holy Spirit, but of the divine purity and beauty of His workmanship, and of the absolute necessity that the character of those with whom He cooperates must also be pure and holy, free from the taint of greed, and able to receive His blessed help, with no selfish ambition, but as the humble and cleansed channels and instruments of His will? "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord!"
The lesson of Uzzah in the Old Testament and of Ananias in the New compels one to self-examination lest we too may sin against the awful holiness of God. If His nature is Love, and comparable to fire, we must remember that fire consumes. Especially in prayer, though we know that He is our Father, let us ask for grace that we may offer acceptable service, with reverence and awe. "Take off the shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is Holy Ground!"