Acts 15:7-11

Chapter 48

Prayer

Almighty God, may Christ thy Son be born in our hearts today, the hope of glory! We remember his birth-time upon the earth, and our prayer is that he may be born in our spirits the Child of our love and our delight, the beginning and the end, the seal and glory of our life. Thou didst make our hearts for him; thou didst intend us to receive him day by day, and to live in him, and thou didst mean him to live in us. As the branch abideth in the vine, so may our hearts abide in Christ; he is the root of all things, in him we have light and growth and hope; without him we can do nothing; may he therefore be our Christ, and may we be his saved ones! He shed his blood for us; may we in return live our life for him. Oh, thou that sittest at the right hand of God, come to us, for we, too, are God's children, made in his image and likeness, made upright; but we have sought out many inventions. We are children who have run away from the Father's house; in our hearts there is a longing to return; and this longing is the inspiration of God, and the proof that it will be answered as God answers holy prayers. We would now all return like wanderers to our home. We know we have been far away, and have plucked the fruit from forbidden trees, and have hewed out unto ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water; but our yearning to return is greater than our shame at having left the house, and this yearning is not of our creation, but of thine, thou who dost afflict the heart with hunger which thou dost mean to satisfy. The years are flying away from us, they are taking with them the delight of our eyes; the staff on which our right hand leaned with trust; the life that made our life twice itself. May we improve the years as they come and go! Thou dost send them to us as new opportunities; may we not return them to thee void of industry and faith and sacrifice! May we grow wiser with the years; may they leave behind them influences that shall give us greater liberty, truer joy, and brighter hope! Thou art making some of us old; thou art causing others of us to see the first point of decline in the setting of the sun. Thou art bringing forward others of us from youth to early manhood, with its passion, enthusiasm, and determination to win; and the little ones are always with us, keeping us from despair, showing us some new light of God, plucking for us some new flower from gardens which we thought had withered; and the rich are here, and the poor, touching one another, yet living at points immeasurably separated. The strong man sits near the man who will die to-night. Thus are we related and mixed for the time being; yet in thy love we find community; in thy Cross we are bound together in noble fellowship; at the Cross we forget all distinctions in the infinity of its love. May the spirit of the Cross rule us! Whilst we are near it, may we know the enlargement of soul which expresses itself in readiness to forgive; and whilst we tarry at the place called Calvary, may we see not only the cross, but the crown; not the Crucified only, but the angel of God, who shall liberate the dead who die in Christ from every tomb! Thus may great sights make us great, thus may tender scenes melt our hearts, and may our lives be great answers of obedience to all the will of thy love! Make our homes happy; make the smallest of them bright as a palace; pour a blessing upon the humblest dinner that shall make it a king's banquet. May we all eat honest bread, and enjoy the sleep of those who do good! Enable us to see in all the way of thy providence openings into heaven, opportunities of becoming more like thyself; and as the similitude of Christ grows upon us, may men take knowledge of us, and at eventide, in our coming and in our going, may there be a heart-warmth above all the heat of the sun! Now if we may but touch the hem of thy garment, we shall be made whole! We dare not ask for visions that fill the sky, or for radiance that would smite us with momentary blindness, but we do ask that this day, if we may not touch the hem of the garment of the Man, we may at least touch the swaddling clothes of the Child. Amen.

Act 15:7-11

7. And when there had been much questioning [general conversational debate], Peter rose up [in the meeting], and said unto them, Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago [G. "in the old days" i.e., in the old days of this new dispensation, see Acts 10:11 . For a similar reckoning of time, see Gal 2:1 ] God made choice [from] among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

8. And God, which knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;

9. and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

10. Now, therefore, why tempt ye God [either to allow his witness to be thus despised, or to punish you his despisers], that ye should put a yoke [comp. its weight, Galatians 5:1 , with Christ's easy yoke, Mat 11:29 ] upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

11. But we believe that we [though we also are unable to bear the yoke of the law] shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in like manner as they [note the inversion of the terms "we as they," not they as we. Peter has turned the tables upon the Pharisees. Here only Peter uses Paul's common phrase, "the grace of the Lord Jesus," Gal 2:11-16 ].

Peter's Speech on Circumcision

LET us consider Peter's speech about the question of the circumcision of the Gentiles. We have considered the question itself apart from Peter; we have accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their journey from Antioch to Jerusalem; and in the latter city there has been much disputing. Now we read: "Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us,; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." Mark the time when Peter spoke. "And when there had been much disputing." That was the critical moment. Speeches acquire force and value from the time at which they are delivered. Wise men keep back as long as possible from delivering their judgment upon hotly-contested questions. Thus their wisdom goes for twice the value which it would be appraised at did they speak earlier in the discussion. Many a man who is not of first-rate ability acquires at least local and temporary influence by watching his time; he allows all the ready tongues to talk first, to relieve their feelings, to show their weak ability, and to secure what noise, mistakenly called applause, they can. Then when the assembly has fatigued itself, and would be only too thankful for a deliverance from the wordy entanglement and confusion, he rises, puts together, so far as he can patch them, the different opinions which have been expressed, finds the middle line, and invites the controversialists to join along that line of compromise. They hail him as a Daniel, though Daniel he is none! He came in at the right time. Had he joined the fray earlier, he would have been but one amongst many, but, observing how things were going, he came forward at the critical moment, and therefore came with double force, and with a sapience so much the more valued because the people who listened to it were longing for a liberator. This is the way in all great assemblies. The principal speakers will not deliver themselves between the hours; they need not be present to hear the little speeches that will be made, because they knew them all by heart long before one of them was spoken; they will return towards midnight, and then settle the whole controversy, because the people are waiting and willing to have it settled. Peter, then, is growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. There was a time when he would have been heard first. We have not been accustomed to see Peter waiting; we have been accustomed to see him rising instantaneously and putting things in order, as one who occupied a seat of unquestioned and unquestionable authority. Now that he has waited until there has been "much disputing," we begin to feel that Peter has grown in grace, and that perhaps he will make the noblest speech he ever did utter. Presently we shall see.

Peter kept to facts which were known to himself. Over some ground we walk very daintily, because we are not quite sure of it; at any moment a foot may go down so that it cannot be taken up again; but Peter walks upon solid rock. "Men and brethren, ye know," said he, "this is not a matter in discussion, nor is it a question of a speculative kind; I will ask you to walk with me over a road macadamized with facts." As Christian men, we might have gone farther upon our journey if we had not tried to cut it short by crossing bogs and swamps. The longest way about is often the shortest way home, according to the old proverb. And so it is in spiritual thinking and in moral education. When you go, step from rock to rock; and though your progress may not seem to be rapid, it will prove itself to be sure. How does Peter come to speak this new language? There are tones in this speech we have not detected before subtle tones, resonant tones. Where has Peter been? He has been in conference with Paul. Privately Paul has had interviews with them "which were of reputation" among the Apostles. There are private processes of education going on in every life and in every house. We feel that Peter has touched somebody. He seems higher in stature; there is a purer light in his eye; his very voice has new expression in it; and as for his talk, it is not the babble of his earlier discipleship, but a broad philosophy. How is this? He has touched the man to whom we owe doctrinal Christianity! He has been in company with the founder of the theological Church; he has known the energy of the mightiest man that ever considered the problems of Deity, Sin, and Redemption. He was an apt scholar. Peter was always impressible; you always knew where he had just been because of the tone of his voice. We feel here that he has been with a man greater than himself. Keep company with the wise if you would grow in wisdom. Always seek to be in the clientele of a man who has yet more to do in life, and who tells you from every mountain-top he climbs that he has not yet begun to ascend. There is no finality in God.

In this little speech you have a whole system of divinity. I know not that there is anything outside this deliverance if we may avail ourselves not of the letter only, but of the spirit, and of its million-fold inference and suggestion. Here you have the Trinity God, his Son, and the Holy Ghost. A greater Trinity than if it had been named in numbers. The Trinity must assert itself; it does not ask to be proved. Jesus Christ did not attempt to prove; he accepted the facts of life, of being, and of thought. Jesus Christ did not attempt to prove the necessity of prayer. He said, "When ye pray." Who attempts to show that we must, as a matter of obligation, breathe? The physiologist, the teacher of the laws of life, says just what Jesus Christ said "When ye breathe." So with this great doctrine of the Godhead. The Trinity comes upon us from apostolic eloquence at every gleaming point God his Son the Holy Ghost. And again, "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost," and so on. In apostolic speech there is a Trinity declared; there is no attempt to set up a Trinity that can be argued and proved.

And here is also Divine sovereignty. "God made choice." And again, "God gave them the Holy Ghost." And again, "God put no difference between us and them." It was thus with bold and generous emphasis the Apostles used the name of God, not apologetically, but as indicating sovereignty, dominion, authority, final because complete Will. And here not only have we the Trinity and Divine sovereignty, we have the whole scheme of Judaism "A yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." The last and completetest definition of Judaism; a yoke which could not be borne, but a yoke which was needful at the time. We must have, chafing before we can have rest. God must show us what the law really is in all its details and tyrannous demand, before we cry out for mercy, pity, and grace. And here we have salvation by grace. "But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." We need not systematize these points, and make a formal creed of them; they are better left as necessary parts of our thinking, to come into our speech by inspiration. We had better not cut out the branches in order to carve them into pillars and posts and standards. Do not cut down the tree! I can worship better under its shadow than I can kneel before its polished and carven wood.

Observe, then, how Peter surpasses himself in the breadth of his Christian philosophy. He must have in all his thinking as its vital point Divine action. He calls us back to first principles. He will not have GOD excluded from this reasoning. In fact, he says, "Men and brethren, this is a question that involves the Divine sovereignty, and the Divine mind in all its outgoing and influence; that being so, I start with this fact, that I went to the Gentiles; I went against my convictions certainly against my prejudice, and, more certainly still, against all my inclinations. I did not want to go I protested against going but the law of gravitation drew me; it was GOD that inspired and directed me." The reason why we have so many superficial theories of life is that men exclude Divine action. A philosopher proposes to you what he calls the theory of evolution, but in proposing it he says we take for granted nature and life! That is to say, he takes the whole thing for granted. It is not evolution that perplexes me, but creation; and I find no fuller answer simpler, deeper, grander than "God created the heavens and the earth"; an answer I cannot explain. And so in the evolution of circumstances, the development of spiritual and moral history, I cannot consent to begin at some point indicated by a creature as limited as myself. Here, as in the former case, I say, "My difficulty is not with evolution, but with creation; and to that difficulty I find no answer so commanding, so gracious, as, 'Men and brethren, ye know that a good while ago GOD.'" This is the echo of the first verse in the Bible. From the first verse in the Bible I cannot get away; all the chapters of the Bible are hewed out of the quarry of its first verse!

Then Peter gives us a doctrine which has become commonplace to us; as uttered from his mouth it was a miracle. These are the words that ought to astound us if we were inspired by the historical genius: "And put no difference between, or distinction between, us and them." We ourselves being the Gentiles received into the Great Abrahamic circle, do not feel the value of the inclusion as we ought to do; but the men who were inside that enclosure, and thought they completed, its circumference, when they saw a rent made in the circle of the covenant, and hordes of uncircumcised Gentiles coming in, were affrighted, appalled, and disgusted. What could you say to such men? Could you propose a theory of social evolution to them? They would have burned you with their angry glances! How will you approach excitement of the Jewish kind? Just as Peter approached it. He went right into the broken circle, and said, "Ye know that a good while ago GOD!" There are times when we must gather up our whole enthusiasm and reasoning and hope into the Divine name, and hurl it, like an infinite thunderbolt, against all the petty action and all the affronted conceit of a narrow-minded age. Think of a Jew acknowledging that God put no distinction between himself and a barbarian! You do not wonder that Peter should afterward write: "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." When he wrote that sentence he did not inscribe upon his paper a passing sentiment; he drew at full length the portrait of his own development. And what expressions the man uses! He says, "Purify their hearts by faith." That is a result of faith which some of us do not fully realize! Faith refines the heart; faith chains up the passions like so many dogs that may be excellent servants but bad masters; and says, "Walk behind; I lead." The man of great faith cannot be vulgar; he who has sublime faith has sublime refinement. I say not that he is dressed in purple and fine linen, and that he fares sumptuously every day; I say not that his hands are white, and that his appointments are technically correct. I speak of another kind of refinement inward, spiritual, always seeking expression worthy of its own dignity.

And then how broad again his philosophy becomes when he says, "Why tempt ye God?" This is not a little question of personality this urging of the law beyond its intended province and compass is a temptation of God. This is not obedience; it is temptation. This is not homage; it is temptation. This is not righteousness; it is temptation. Even Divine ordinances are not to be thrust beyond Divine boundaries. Let us take care lest our pretended homage be but a veiled blasphemy. Paul himself never made a grander speech. Peter in this eloquence is almost Paul. How singularly and wondrously God trains one man until he is almost another! So that when the other and greater man comes he does not bring with him a sense of violence; he rather comes in by a line so graduated that we are scarcely aware of the new sovereignty and the broader influence, because the other man was so nearly of the same spiritual calibre and force. It is in these directions I see the working of Divine providence. Men are always being sent to school to learn the next lesson. In one school we get through all our mistakes. What blunders we committed in that first little dame's school! The days were mistakes! Every lesson was a new miracle in blundering! Then we passed on, and became a little better; and we went to another school, and became almost noted for a species of wisdom. Now when we look back upon the whole process, we wonder that we were allowed to live one day in any civilized community! So we are, little by little, and day by day, educated, qualified, and refined; so that when this mortal shall put on immortality it shall be as in the twinkling of an eye. So long has been the preparation, so long the discipline, so complete the purifying and the enlargement, that when this corruptible shall put on incorruption it will seem as though we had but just awaked out of a sleep to see the Majesty Divine!