Acts 15:1-2

Chapter 46

Prayer

Almighty God, because thou art full of compassion our lives are spared until now. We are wicked, and deserve not to live, but thy grace is greater than our sin, and thy love enables us to live even amidst the corruption of sin. We have read of thy lovingkindness and thy tender mercies in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament of thy Son we see thy grace and truth and love. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He is thy Son. In him shone the fulness of thy glory. He was the express image of thy Person. So we do not only read of thy love: we see it, and touch it, and rest upon it, in the Person of Immanuel. He is all our salvation, and all our desire. In heaven he is the light; of the cities of the earth he is the One Saviour. By his grace he has redeemed all time from contempt, and saved the earth from being swallowed up. The Cross of Christ is our hope, and light, and infinite strength; hidden within its purpose, we know no pain, or shame, or fear: we have peace with God. Enable us continually to realize this sacred truth, and to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Keep us to vital principles. Root us and ground us in the unchangeable truth. Deliver our mind from all influences that are local and temporary, and fix our hearts upon eternal realities. Then shall we be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; not living in our own opinions, but in the broad and full and holy revelation of thy truth. May thy grace glow in our hearts like a hidden fire, which burns but not consumes. In that fire may we find thyself the God of history and the God of prophecy, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last filling the one circle which includes infinity. Reveal thyself to us day by day in new aspects, and speak to us with tones that shall surprise even the hearts that are most familiar with that sweet music. Thus shall we have the old and the new, eternity and time, the holy heaven touching with benediction the unholy and transient earth. Thou knowest us altogether. That is our terror and that is our joy! Give unto us according to our sin, necessity, and pain, and enable us in all thy gifts to trace the Image of thy Person. So shall we be consciously near thee, and every occurrence in life shall come to us, not as an accident that shall alarm, but as part of thy purpose which thou art carrying out with all the breadth of infinity, and all the duration and calmness of eternity itself.

We pray for one another: for the heart that is enduring the anguish of its first great sorrow; for the eyes that are looking upon death as they never looked upon it before; for the heart that feels the intolerable coldness of death. Thou dost make us acquainted with the enemy. Some of us thou hast made familiar with his presence, and some of us are now looking upon him for the first time, and the sight affrights us by its infinite ghastliness. Come, thou Spoiler of Death, and bless us with one glance of thine eye, with one smile of love, and all the darkness shall flee away, and the valley of the shadow of death shall be as the sanctuary of thy presence.

Regard those of us also who are in high glee of heart, full of prosperity, and abounding in strength, lest in the rioting of our power we forget that our breath is in our nostrils, and our roots are covered by a very shallow soil. Help us to make prosperity an altar, and success a place of sacred worship. Send messages of comfort to those who are in the sanctuary of home prisoners for a time, but prisoners of hope; from thy banqueting table send some gift which shall make them glad also, yea, lengthen the table till it reaches from the church lo the house, and makes the banqueting chamber as large as human necessity. Kiss all the children, and give them to feel that thine arms are about them. Find flowers for them in the darkness, and sing songs to them when their little hearts are afraid. Send messages to the despairing; to the men who have broken all the commandments, and torn down the cross, and trampled under foot the blood of the everlasting covenant. We do not know their speech: it is not in our power to say one word to them; but thou dost make speech. Language is but an instrument in thine hand; make new words that shall touch this intolerable desperation. The Lord comfort us, enlarge our inheritance, show us that our estates and riches are in eternity, and away in the fair land where there is no sin, no night, no death. Amen.

Act 15:1-2

1. And certain men came [were not sent; for the kind of men they were, see Acts 15:5 . Peter may have preceded them; in that case we have Paul's opinion of them in Gal 2:4 ] down from Judaea and taught the brethren, saying, Except ye be circumcised [ Gal 5:3 ] after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved [liberal Jews, like Hillel, especially Grecian Jews, accounted devout Gentiles to be true proselytes, although uncircumcised: Pharisees, such as Shammai, would not eat with them; such persons worshipped Jehovah and kept the seven precepts of Noah and were afterwards called proselytes of the gate]. And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and questioning with them, the brethren [ Act 15:1 and Act 15:3 ] appointed that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them [Titus, Gal 2:1 ] should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question [ Gal 2:2 ].

The Christian Magna Charta

THIS is one of the most important chapters in ecclesiastical history. This chapter is the Magna Charta of the Christian Church. I make bold to say that if we could fully master the reasoning of this chapter, and fearlessly reduce it to practice, we should give the Church of Christ a new standing-place in the mind and heart of our age. This is the chapter which the Church either cannot or will not learn. The key to universal confidence and progress is here, and we are afraid to use it. There arose a certain number of men who said to Gentile Christians, "Except ye be circumcised, after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." What has that to do with this age? I reply fearlessly that with this age, and every age, this matter has to do vitally. The voice of the Judæan teachers was clear, and their doctrine was short. Behind it there was an. undoubtedly sacred history, and in the spirit of the men there was what would be regarded, without questioning, as a loyal and filial obedience to law and tradition. Just at this moment the Church needed a kind of man it had not yet fully known. From this point Paul becomes the man that God meant him to be when he elected him as a chosen vessel unto the Gentiles. Paul made history at this moment Just this type of man was wanted. Barnabas was no debater when he was alone. Peter could make a short, distinct, and emphatic speech; but even Peter had not escaped the period of education in which even noble spirits may momentarily dissemble. A new type of man was needed. Paul was a minister without whose presence the Church, humanly speaking, would not have been complete. He was intellectually and spiritually gifted with piercing insight; a man who could lay hold of the essential realities of things and distinguish between the accidental and the permanent. That man is needed in every age. So Paul, having had much dissension and disputation, said, "This matter must go further, and must be settled." The Judaizing teachers said to the Gentiles: "We are quite willing for you to come into the Church: you may believe in Christ as we have done; but you must do more; you must obey Moses as well as Christ; therefore, unless you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved; add circumcision to faith, and then all will be right." That seemed to be a reasonable case. The most difficult positions to assail are those which seem to be supported by-most obvious reasons. How will Paul address himself to this occasion? Compare his speech with others, and see how it rises immeasurably above them in spiritual majesty and moral massive-ness. Peter will make a good speech, but his speech will relate to an incident that occurred in his own life. Peter will relate an anecdote, and found upon it a gracious judgment. Paul will develop a philosophy. That is the difference between the men. This question must be settled upon principle. Any anecdote that can be quoted may be taken as helpful and elucidatory, but we cannot build a great temple of truth upon a personal incident; we must have principles, philosophies, and reasons time can neither change nor impair. At this moment Paul became his very self. "What," said he, "having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" "By the works of the law no flesh is justified." "If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." The men who want you to submit to the Jewish rite of circumcision know not what manner of spirit they are of; they are bondmen, not freemen; they are still in the beggarly elements, they have not advanced to spiritual principle. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Christianity is not a set of rites and ceremonies; it is spiritual; it is a condition of the heart. All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." That was the grand speech which Paul made. He had no personal anecdotes to quote, beyond giving an account of his missionary journey; but he felt that this was the only right and unchangeable view. We know some things without having been formally instructed in them. The heart is often its own theologian. Deep communion with Christ brings away from the sacred and glowing fellowship a power of insight and exposition which no formal teaching can ever give. But what has this to do with the century in which we live? No man wants us now to be circumcised; all references to circumcision are out of date; we live under new conditions, and the sooner circumcision is forgotten the better. In that view you are mistaken. The Pharisees still live, so do the Judaizers, so does every man who in any age ever sought to add anything to the simplicity and dignity of faith. Probably there are no men who say in so many words, "You must be circumcised, or ye cannot be saved"; but there are men who say, "Except ye be baptized your Christian position is at least doubtful." There are Christian men in this country, but still more in the United States of America, who would not allow us as infant Baptists to sit down with them at the table of the Lord! That is true of a comparatively small community in this country, but it is very broadly true of Christian communions in Transatlantic lands. This is the answer, this is the reply, to which there is no possible answer that can stand, "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" The question of baptism does not turn upon Greek terminations and Greek conjugations, or pedantic references to Greek concordances nothing vital can ever turn upon such mechanics. We need Paul here; the philosophic spirit, the prophet-mind, the piercing genius, the inspired teacher. Paul says, "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" You are inverting spiritual sequence; you are changing violently and without right the law of cause and effect! We must remember that beginnings are often reversed by processes, and that at the end they may be turned upside down. Advancing according to God's method of educating the world namely, from the natural to the spiritual, from the vulgar to the refined, from the broad to the typical, take this very matter of circumcision. The rite was intended for children eight days old, but it did not begin with them; circumcision began upon a man who was ninety-nine years old! Nothing, therefore, can be argued from the mere point of origin. You must begin somewhere, and it has pleased God often to begin with a man when he meant, in the working out of the process, to get hold of the child. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised, but the rite was not meant for adults. Christ said, "And be baptized" to adults, following exactly the analogy of Jewish history. But who dare say, with that analogy fully in view, that he the very God who ordered the circumcision of Abraham did not mean in this second instance also to begin with the children? The suggestion is supported by analogy and is vindicated by history; it therefore ought to be answered with something better than contempt.

Unquestionably, Christian baptism began with adults; there is no doubt whatever about that. But the Apostle would say to any man who wished to add baptism to faith, as a necessity of salvation, "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" God moves by the contrary method; first the natural, then the spiritual; first the water, then the Holy Ghost. This is the line along which we, as pædo-Baptists, proceed. Speaking for myself, when the little child is brought to me it is something more than a little child; it is human life, than which there is no greater term but one it is human immortality. I do not baptize the child a few weeks old; I baptize the child that may never die! I begin thus in the flesh; the perfection is in the spirit. I begin in the typical, knowing that the fulfilment of the thought will come in God's due time. We can add nothing to faith without insulting Christ. It is not enough to say that at the beginning the relations were such and such; so they were in the case of circumcision, but, apart either from the one view or the other, this is the principle that settles everything having "begun in the Spirit," we are not to be "made perfect in the flesh." This view of the case, if limited to any one set of Christians, however small, would not be worth discussing if the principle which is involved did not touch every point in the whole circumference of Christian liberty and education. How glorious is this principle! It drives off all door-keepers; it kills the priest, thank God! There are those who would love to keep the door of the Church, and to say, " You may go in. but not you." There are some who like to sit in guard-boxes, and watch-towers, and confessionals, and who like to be able to say, "You may pass into the Church, but that other man must on no account go in." This principle of Paul's kills the damnable priest, whether he be dissenter, or episcopalian, or baptist, or congregationalist, or presbyterian, for the Pope is in every man, and this principle kills the universal Pope, and therefore to my mind it is true and Divine. The Pope may be in a Nonconformist pulpit! We must never allow that a minister is officially needed to admit people into Christ's heart. I will not have anything to do with a religion that only a minister can explain. My minister must be my other self a great-hearted, royal-souled man, who calls me brother, and says, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with US." I will not have the Benediction that is pronounced upon me as somebody out of the ministry; the minister must say "US," and then the communion will be complete. My fear is and it makes me cold with a deadly chill sometimes that young men should imagine that by going through certain processes of so-called, or rightly called "education," they become qualified in some magical sense to explain the heart, the love, the grace of Christ; then they will be pedants, tricksters, priests, self-appointed gatekeepers, and against the whole progeny of them, if making such official claims, I launch a protest of fire. It is not the minister who has any priestly rights in this matter; you are all God's clergy; the Church is a sublime democracy. Certainly there are men amongst us greater than their brethren "chief men among the brethren" is a phrase in this very chapter but their greatness is not a question of priestly quality, or magical qualification, or official authority; it is personal: a question of capacity, sympathy, devotedness; a spiritual heroism, not an official elevation. Let us drive the priest away from the Cross! No priest can be saved until he renounces his sacerdotalism. We should drive off all ceremonialists. It pleases us to be a little ceremonial. It suits human nature to go to heaven through one set of antics rather than another. It looks very pretty in the eyes of idiotic infancy of mind to go to heaven down one aisle of the church in preference to another. This is Paul's answer to ritualism, ceremonialism, formalism, and all the other "isms." Some men are born priests; they are born ecclesiastics; they seem, by some unaccountable mystery of Providence, to have been so shaped as to wear clerical clothes. In any other clothes their nearest and dearest friends would not know them! These are the men who tell us that if we belong to this Church, we are all right, but if we belong to some other Church, in the spirit of charity, they would merely doubt whether we are right or not! Away with their notions! not themselves. The Lord burn their sophisms, but spare their souls! With the immortal Robertson, of Brighton, I would say with my whole heart, "If any man, or any body of men, stand between us and the living God, saying, 'Only through us the Church can you approach God; only through my consecrated touch can you receive grace; only through my ordained teaching can you hear God's voice; and the voice which speaks in your soul in the still moments of existence is no revelation from God, but a delusion and a fanaticism,' that man is a false priest. To bring the soul face to face with God, and supersede ourselves, that is the work of the Christian ministry."

In Scotland there were, long ago, two sects one called the "Lifters," and the other the "Anti-Lifters." The "Lifters" were those who took up the bread on the Lord's table who "lifted" it, and brake it. The "Anti-Lifters" were those who let the bread lie on the Lord's table, and allowed people to come and take it for themselves. These are the people who would have torn up the seamless robe of Christ and sold it at so much a square inch! That Christ's dear Cross and sacred blood should have been dragged down to so infamous uses is incredible. Let us then "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." We need no baptism after faith. What can come after faith but love? I wonder not that Paul should have said, "I thank God that I baptized none of you but about as many as I can count on my fingers; for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." I speak not about those who do not make baptism essential to salvation; they entirely escape the purpose of my criticism. My remonstrance is addressed in other directions, in which you will find that there are persons unscrupulous and anti-Christian enough to tell you that "except ye be circumcised [or, in modern language, 'baptized'], ye cannot be saved." Paul's answer is complete. It does not turn upon little points of learning and exegesis, of declining Greek nouns and conjugating Greek verbs, but this heaven-wide principle Having begun in the Spirit, we are not to be made perfect in the flesh.

Selected Note

"It is to this period that we assign the contest of Paul with Peter, which is mentioned in the Epistle to the Galatians. Peter, it would appear, went down from Jerusalem on a visit to the church of Antioch. He had heard so much of its flourishing condition, that he wished to have the pleasure of seeing it himself. He associated freely with the Gentile converts, and his visit was hailed by all as a cause of joy. Some Judaistic teachers, however, came down from Jerusalem. They were strict in their notions of Jewish purity, and held it unlawful to eat with the Gentiles, as by doing so they might be defiled. Peter, carried away for the time being by the same feeling of timidity which induced him to deny his Lord, withdrew from the Gentiles and manifested a sinful compliance with the prejudices of the Jews. His example was contagious. Other Jewish Christians followed, and even Barnabas, one of the apostles of the uncircumcision, was carried away by the current. Again the peace of the church of Antioch was disturbed, and here, unfortunately, by the pernicious example of those who were regarded as the leaders of Christianity. Then it was that Paul came boldly forward and rebuked Peter for his inconsistency; and no doubt the rebuke was well taken, and the fault corrected. Peter, like most impulsive men, was ready to acknowledge the error which he had committed. It is to be observed that no change of opinion is attributed to Peter, but merely an inconsistency of conduct. It was an inconsistency, however, which, if unchecked, might have led to the gravest consequences. Nor is there any trace of a disagreement between these great apostles. Their writings show that they taught the same Gospel, viewing it in the light of their individual peculiarities; and in his last Epistle Peter speaks of the writings of his beloved brother Paul."