Chapter 21: THE DOOR OF FAITH UNTO THE GENTILES
Chapter 21: THE DOOR OF FAITH UNTO THE GENTILES
Acts vi. 1-7; viii. 14-25; ix. 31x. 16
"While ye sit idle, do you think
The Lord's great work sits idle too?
That light dare not o'erleap the brink
Of morn, because 'tis dark with you?
Though yet your valleys skulk in night
In God's ripe fields the day is cried,
And reapers with their sickles bright
Troop, singing, down the mountain-side."
— Lowell.
WE OPEN AT this point a new chapter in the history of the unfolding of the Divine purpose for our race. Let us take the shoes from off our feet, for this surely is holy ground. "O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things."
There are certain facts which we must recapitulate as we seek to understand the mystery or secret, which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Divine Spirit, who searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
We agree that the Church was born on the day of our Lord's Resurrection. He had always referred to it in the future tense. "I will build my Church." When He descended, to use the Apostle's words, "into the lower parts of the earth," He laid the foundations on which the glorious edifice arose which was to be builded together — a house not made by hands — as a habitation of God by the Spirit.
We agree that when the Saviour ascended to His throne in the Heavens, the Divine Comforter, as His Executor, descended to His throne or seat in the Church, to become its Teacher, Inspirer, and Guide.
"He sat upon each of them." God is still resident among men. As the Lord Jesus was incarnated in "that holy thing" which was born of the Virgin, so the Holy Spirit became incarnated in the Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
We agree also that from the first the Divine objective was to include in the one Church, not Jews alone, but Gentiles who had not received the seal and sign of the Abrahamic covenant, but had entered directly from the Gentile world by the simple act of faith. This was God's secret purpose, as Paul tells us in the closing paragraph of his Epistle to the Romans, which had been hidden from before times eternal, and the unfolding of which was specially entrusted to him, as to one born out of due time, but specially honoured to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. Until the reception of Cornelius into the Church, the idea had hardly dawned on the Apostles or the body of disciples that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise of Christ.
Gentiles, it was generally supposed, could only enter the door of the Christian Church by first becoming Jews. The Scripture indeed foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and by faith alone. This Gospel was preached beforehand unto Abraham, in the earliest stages of his career as the father of them that believe; and he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. When our Lord commissioned His Apostles to go into all the world and make disciples from all the nations, they probably supposed that the rite of circumcision would precede their administration of baptism. It was only by a very gradual process that the whole truth broke on them that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Him.
We agree that it was befitting that he, to whom the keys of the Kingdom were committed, and who had opened the door of Pentecostal blessing to Jews, should be honoured by fulfilling the same ministry to the Gentiles also. For eight years with his fellow Apostles Peter had confined himself to the consolidation of the Mother Church, he was now to learn that her children would be gathered equally from a great multitude, whom none could number, of every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue. We have, therefore, to consider the steps by which he was led forth into a larger conception of the Divine purpose, by that guiding cloud, which led him out of the Jerusalem of bondage to an outward ordinance into the Jerusalem that is above, which is eternally and spiritually free.
Peter was a strict Jew. He was inclined to view with suspicion even the Hellenist, or Greek-speaking, Jews, who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire. And he knew the Gentiles, only as he had, from boyhood, beheld the glitter of their civilization, which transformed the Lake of Galilee into a Roman pleasure-resort. He was intimately acquainted with Roman officials, collectors of revenue, centurions and soldiers; but he had never entered a Gentile home, had never sat at a Gentile table, and had never transgressed the rigid prescriptions of the Levitical dietary. He shrank from familiar intercourse with Gentiles, as a Brahmin in India to-day with a Sudra. Hence his exclamation when invited to eat of the heterogeneous contents of the great sheet: "Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that was common or unclean."
The Divine Master is willing to take infinite pains with us, before He demands the ceding of our wills and the taking of an irrevocable step. He causes the light of His illuminating Spirit to fall on us, before calling us to strike our tents for a march into the unknown. The reasonableness, necessity, and urgency of some course to which we are summoned, are unfolded, "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, by divers portions and in divers manners."
Let us watch the stages of the process in the present case.
(i) There arose a murmuring of the Grecian, the Hellenist Jews against the Hebrews. The Hellenist always regarded Jerusalem and the Temple with fond and reverent affection. Thither he turned as he prayed.
Thither he came with his family, as often as the cost permitted, to the annual festivals. In the Holy City he desired to die, and in its precincts be buried. A large contingent of these Jews of the dispersion were present on the Day of Pentecost, and had then, as in the following years, identified themselves with the Christian community. Many of them, like the good Barnabas, had parted with their possessions, placing the proceeds in the common stock, and their poor were in the habit of receiving their sustenance from the common purse. But suddenly the calm waters of Peace and Love became ruffled by dissatisfaction and heart-burning. Their widows complained that undue partiality was shown in the daily distribution, and that home-born women fared better at the hand of the Apostolic almoners than they did.
The peril of a serious rent in the seamless robe of the Church became at length so imminent that Peter and his brethren were compelled to take action. After anxious consideration, they arrived at the conclusion that their highest vocation was to prayer and the ministry of the Word, and that this service of tables should be entrusted to seven men of good report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. They advised the Church, therefore, as the ultimate authority, that they should proceed to choose that number from amongst themselves. "Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men, whom we may appoint over this business, but we will continue stedfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the Word."
In a parenthesis we may notice the importance of this action, and the light it casts on the precise position that Peter occupied in the primitive Church. If he had been invested with the authority which has been attributed to him by those who have specially posed as his successors, it is inconceivable that he should have left this momentous decision to the general assembly of believers. Surely he would have acted on his own authority, and with the acquiescence of his fellow Apostles would have appointed these seven deacons. But it was not so. The Church must elect, and the Apostles, by prayer and the laying on of hands, endorse their choice.
It is remarkable that they were all Hellenist Jews, with the exception of the last, who was a Gentile proselyte. The unanimity of the Church in this solemn act was so evidently due to the presence and direction of the Spirit, whose supreme action had been apparent in the case of Ananias and his wife, that Peter could say nothing to the contrary, however startling to his preconceptions such action must have appeared.
(2) Then came the great arguments, apology, and martyrdom of Stephen. In the familiar intercourse that ensued, Peter would have been attracted to the eloquent young Hellenist, whose face must often have shone "as the face of an angel." He often listened to the burning words with which Stephen insisted that throughout their history the chosen people had resisted the Divine Spirit, when He summoned them to a new advance. The note of a trumpet-call rang through his speech in private conference and public debate. And, as he listened, Peter may have recalled the Master's words, that it would be found impossible to put the new wine in the old bottles. Almost unconsciously his mind must have been prepared for a more generous interpretation of his Master's purpose. Already the breath of a new age fanned his cheek, as the door was being slowly opened for the admission of the Gentile world.
(3) The mission to Samaria followed. Beneath Philip's preaching vast numbers of Samaritans, who had for long been held under the spell of what we now know as Spiritualism, had broken away from Simon the Sorcerer, and been baptized in the name of Jesus.
This movement needed to be regularized, and the Apostles, who had dared to remain in Jerusalem, despite Saul's fiery persecution, determined to commission Peter and John to visit the scene of revival, and lead the new converts forward into the full enjoyment of the gifts of Pentecost. The heart of the Church was still beating strongly, though so many of its sons and daughters had been obliged to flee for their lives.
Here, again, Peter used the keys of teaching, prayer, and the imposition of hands, with the result that the miracle of Pentecost was repeated. "They received the Holy Ghost." Though the special rite of the Abrahamic covenant was of national observance among the Samaritans, they were regarded as a mongrel race. Their name was employed as a term of reproach. "Thou art a Samaritan!" A good deed like that attributed to the Good Samaritan was not generally expected from a race that was looked upon as accursed. But, to the obvious astonishment of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit, in answer to their prayer, descended on these believing Samaritans, with absolute impartiality.
Indeed, Peter was so impressed with what he saw that he could do no other than keep in the current of the Divine purpose; and therefore he and John, in their leisurely return to Jerusalem, preached in the villages of Samaria through which they passed. Here, again, was a further unfolding of the horizon of God's purpose.
(4) But the process was still further accelerated by the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. It was a startling rumour that reached Jerusalem, that the arch-persecutor of the Church had been arrested by the direct intervention of the Lord, and had become His humble follower.
But as the further tidings filtered in, and fuller details were furnished of this wonderful event, they learnt that Saul had been compelled to flee from Damascus and had gone to Arabia. Some time elapsed, and finally, to Peter's surprise, he presented himself at his humble dwelling in Jerusalem, and took up his abode there, remaining as his guest for fifteen days. We are strongly tempted to draw aside the veil and consider the converse of these two men, so different in age, education, and mental outlook, and yet so closely united in Jesus Christ. Did not the newly-constituted Apostle, who had just seen the Risen Lord, ask his new-found friend to take him through the scenes associated with the Master's closing days? Would they not go together outside the city wall to Gethsemane, Calvary, and Joseph's Garden? "There He lay on that plot of grass, and I came there afterwards at dawn, when my heart was breaking." "It was on this spot that I drew my sword, because I couldn't endure to see them binding His dear hands so roughly." "Yes, we will go to Calvary." "That's where His cross was lifted up, I could just catch the outline, as I stood in the distance, but it was very dark." "I couldn't stay to the end, because the mother was in an agony, and one of us had to be with her; so I went back to release John, who was staying with her till I returned." "Now come to the grave." "They laid Him there on the Friday afternoon, but at daybreak, on the first day of the week, the women brought a message that He was alive and wanted to see me." "In that glade yonder we met, but I can never tell all that happened there. It is locked up in His heart and mine." Thus Peter must have told the story, whilst Paul listened with rapt interest.
Thus the fortnight passed, when suddenly the younger man burst in on Peter with a strange glory on his features, as though he had seen, as Isaiah did, the Lord high and lifted up. His train filling the Temple, whilst the seraphim, in a burning row, stood around with their ceaseless ascription of holiness. "Brother," said he, "what do you think, as just now I was praying in the temple I seemed to lose myself, and saw the Lord, and He said to me. Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, because they will not receive of thee testimony concerning Me. And I said. Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee. But He said unto me. Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence to the Gentiles. You see, therefore, I have no alternative, and must be gone."
Peter must have been sorely troubled at the danger which beset his new-found friend, and took instant steps to arrange his passage out of the danger-zone for Caesarea, and ultimately to Tarsus. When he was safely away, however, those parting words must have rung in his heart — Far hence to the Gentiles. He could not challenge those words. Clearly they were spoken by the Master, but they still further prepared him for the fresh demand which would soon be made on himself.
(5) The process was completed at Joppa. After the departure of Paul the Church throughout Judaea and Samaria had peace, and walking in the Paracletism of the Paraclete was multiplied. Peter took advantage of this halcyon period to make an itinerary through the smaller congregations that were scattered throughout Judaea, and in course of time came to Lydda, where, as the medium for the health-giving word of Christ, he lifted Aeneas from his eight-years' paralysis. Thence he was summoned by an urgent message to Joppa, six and a half miles distant on the rocky seacoast, to the room of death, where the beloved Dorcas lay. His prayer on her behalf prevailed with God, and when he gave her his hand she arose to become once more the gentle friend of all the saints and widows in the little town.
There, however, his work seemed finished. Before him lay the sea of the Gentiles. Its restless waters were the symbol of the restless fret of a world without Christ, and at the end of its resources. The house in which he lodged — the house of Simon the tanner — had associations with death and its accompanying ceremonial pollution, which must have been extremely distasteful to a conscientious Jew. The Jerusalem Church had become so diminished by persecution and flight, that its concerns failed to afford him the wide scope and sphere to which for eight years he had been accustomed. What was to be the next step in the fulfilment of his life-work? Was the cloud about to move forward? Was some new development of the Divine pattern at hand which he must realize for himself and others?
At this juncture, one noon, when the blazing sunshine poured down on the burnished mirror of the sea, and on the white houses of the little town, he went up to the housetop for prayer — prayer probably for further light. Whilst they prepared the midday meal, he fell into a trance, and through the opened heavens he caught the vision of a redeemed world, like a great white sheet. The variety of its contents — four-footed beasts, creeping things, birds clean and unclean, startled him; and still more the declaration that God had cleansed them all, that the old Levitical restrictions were removed, and that any of them were fit for food.
Rise, Peter, slay and eat.
Then, whilst he was much perplexed in himself as to what the vision which he had seen might mean, the knocking at the gate, the voices of men, that rose in the noon-silence, as they called his name, together with the assurance of the Spirit that there was no need for fear or hesitation — all indicated that the hour of Destiny had struck, that a new epoch was inaugurated, and that he was to lead the Church into the greatest revolution she had known since the Ascension of her Lord.
What a lesson is here for our perplexed and anxious hearts! We find it so difficult to wait the Lord's leisure. Like imprisoned birds we beat our breasts against the wires of the cage. Though we pray, we do not trust. We find it so hard to obey the injunction of the Psalmist and roll our care, our way, and ourselves on God. Let us be silent to Him, and believe that even now the messengers are hastening along the road, with the summons, or direction, or help we need. "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will look forth to see what He will speak. The vision is yet for the appointed time, and it panteth toward the end. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. The just shall live by his faith."