The Fullness and Boldness of the Spirit
SATAN’S activity is always increased when disciples bestir themselves anew. The fires of persecution began to kindle as soon as the fires of the Spirit began to burn. And so, in the next chapter of the Acts, we find the Apostles Peter and John in prison, and then before the court of the sanhedrim, called to account for a miracle of healing performed on a lifelong crip- Acts iv. 1-12. ple at the Beautiful gate. When the imperious question was asked, “By what power, or by what name,” this deed had been done, “Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost,’ made answer.
This is a second case in which this phrase occurs in this book, but it is now used obvi- Cf. Acts ii. 4. ously in connection with boldness of testimony, for we read in verse 13: ‘“When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they marveled.” It is plain that special emphasis is designedly laid upon the intrepidity of this witnessing to Christ.
In Peter’s case, especially, this boldness was marked, as his courage was in such contrast with his previous cowardice. He is the same disciple whose denial of the Master, thrice and with increasing emphasis, seems, in point of culpability and criminality, next only to the base betrayal of Judas, and cannot be dissociated from that damnable act. This man who shrank before a maid and said, “I know him not,” now boldly faces the formidable assembly of rulers that connived at the crucifixion of his Master, and calmly says: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” His boldness and courage are thus put in most vivid contrast to the shameful timidity and cowardly denial shown in the high priest’s palace. And all this change is traced to the Spirit of grace. More than this, the infilling of the Spirit compels an outflowing in testimony. Before this, Peter could not confess and dared not speak; now he cannot forbear and must give testimony. Like Jeremiah, God’s Word being “in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones,” he is “weary with forbearing, and cannot stay” his witness.
When, from the presence of the rulers, Peter and John return to their own company, and with their fellow-disciples engage in prayer, doldness is again made conspicuous by being the subject of entreaty: “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that w7th all boldness they may speak thy Word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were as- Acts iv. 29-31. sembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word of God with boldness.”
If it is not designed that the one impression of BOLDNESS IN WITNESS, as consequent upon the fullness of the Spirit, should be prominent here, this chapter in the Acts is out of place. This is the next in this series of progressive lessons on the Spirit’s power, and wonderful indeed is the mode of its teaching. Not only is the cowardly and timid denier of Christ turned into a courageous and brave defender, but the whole assembly is moved to pray for “all boldness,” and the answer comes at once in the very form and manner desired; and the boldness is traced distinctly to the infilling of the Spirit, as though the fullness within could not be restrained, but, like a stream bursting through all barriers, sweeping away all obstacles, must scoop out for itself a channel in speech.
In every age boldness, such as is born of the Spirit of God, is the first requisite of God’s witnesses; and it has been the conspicuous characteristic of all those who, like Elijah and John the Baptist, have been the religious reformers of society or special messengers of God’s power to his people. We do not appreciate the fact that, since the fall of man, truth and piety have never commanded the voice and vote of the majority. Our Lord, in that matchless Sermon on the Mount, teaches us that breadth and multitude always go together, and narrowness and fewness: ‘‘ Wide is Matt.vii.13,14. the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: decause strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
This teaching is explicit. There are and always have been two ways only: one is wide at the entrance and broad all the way through, and it always has the many; the other presents a narrow entrance and is narrow all the way through, and it always has the few. And it is further remarkable, as an historic fact, that, just so soon as any movement, though deginning with a spiritual impulse and even in a spirit of protest and reform, gets to be popular and numerically strong, its point of peril is reached, if, indeed, it be not already disastrously passed; and the way that once was costly to enter and hard to follow now becomes easy to enter and correspondingly pleasant to pursue. It is one of the paradoxes of history that the church, born in persecution and baptized in blood, no sooner grows to be numerous and strong than it begins to broaden out its doctrinal beliefs and to compromise with the secular spirit of the age; and there is more than one case in history where the same body of believers that once led the way in protest against heresy, afterward led the way in countenancing heresy; so that those who once separated from others for the sake of holy living need to be separated from by those who would live holy!
Boldness is therefore always requisite to a true witness for God, and it must be the boldness of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise how can there bea discernment of spirits hostile to God, a discrimination between truth and error, a penetration behind the veil of popularity to the real features of prevailing teaching and practice! The boldness of the Spirit is not the rash, impetuous complaint of the cynic, nor the destructive and indiscriminate image-breaking of the iconoclast and universal censor — it does not put a Talus in the church with an iron flail in his hand to demolish whatever exists, because it invites attack. When the Holy Spirit gives boldness it is first of all the boldness that comes of clearness of vision as to the real character of existing customs and opinions; and then it is manifest in a faithful but loving and tender remonstrance, cost what it may, though, like John the Baptist, one must give up his head for his fidelity.
No one attribute is more needful to-day for
Christ’s witnesses than Holy Spirit boldness due to Holy Spirit fullness. There is in progress, in the world and in the church, a philosophy of evolution that not only denies the Scripture teaching of creation and the fall, but would make Jesus Christ simply the best product, so far, of evolutional development; which would reduce. the Bible to a mere collection of books, growing in value and virtue as the race made such progress possible, and in turn to be superseded as new conditions raise man to a level where a higher standard of teaching is both possible and needful! Of course in such a philosophy there is no room for regeneration or resurrection or anything supernatural. And yet such doctrine is rapidly winding its way into our colleges, theological seminaries, churches, and pulpits; and how many are there who have the clearness of vision to see and the boldness of speech to testify!
We have a profound conviction that, were the Holy Spirit to-day outpoured, or inpoured, in such manner as to fill modern disciples as the apostles were once filled, there would be an instant discovery and disclosure of the destructive tendencies of much so-called “higher criticism”’; a revelation of the drift of modern doctrinal teaching toward the breadth of the way of death, and of modern practice toward the manners of the many who worship the god of this world; a new sense of awful peril that would multiply Elijahs on every mountain-top, Johns in every Herod’s palace, and Peters in every church court, to utter a mighty remonstrance against current evils glossed over with popularity and respectability.
Take one form of holy boldness — the courageous indifference to human opinion on the part of him who studies only to show himself approved unto God. How many even of God’s ministers, when German mysticism, rationalism, and neology come into Christian churches, pulpits, and courts, in the university gown, dare not contend against it, for fear of being spoken of as “ignorant and
Acts iv.13. unlearned”; and yet that was one of the conditions of apostolic boldness! Men are too anxious to be ranked with scholars; and so when error, however deadly, wears the glittering serpent-skin of scholarship, it insinuates itself into the very chair of the teacher, and the pulpit of the preacher, and no one seems to dare to smite it with a bold blow! And yet it is but needful to glance back over the centuries of history to see that the men who stand out most conspicuously heroic and noble are those who have faced ridicule, hatred, and death itself, for the sake of a candid and courageous remonstrance and protest against prevailing errors in doctrine and practice.
In this connection a remarkable and novel exhibition of the Spirit’s presence was witnessed, for “when they had prayed,
THE PLACE WAS SHAKEN WHERE THEY
WERE ASSEMBLED TOGETHER.”
The presence of the Holy Spirit was so wonderfully manifested that even dead walls felt the power of the Spirit of life — matter responded to spirit. In all human history there had been nothing like this, save when the house was so filled with glory that the priests could not 1 Kings viii. 1. minister before the Lord, or “the posts Isaiah vi. 4. of the door moved at the voice of him that cried.”
What a suggestion of the Holy Spirit’s operations! He did not dwell in those walls, yet they were moved at his presence. Pillars and posts, blocks of stone and blocks of wood, may be moved when they cannot be molded. And here is a possible hint as to the meaning of such words as those Hebrews vi.4,5.in the epistle to the Hebrews. It is not said that those who had thus been “partakers of the Holy Ghost’? had ever been regenerated; those who were referred to as falling away beyond renewal unto repentance may never have been born from above. They may have been partakers of the Holy Ghost only as, or somewhat as, those walls, dead, inert matter as they were, were shaken — sharing in the manifestation of the power of the Spirit whom in no sense they either received or recognized. Felix trembled as Paul reasoned, and Agrippa was almost persuaded when Paul argued from prophecy; but neither of them appears ever to have become a disciple; they were like the house, that was shaken but unchanged in character. In every congregation of disciples many are also found who pass through scenes of
”
“revival” deeply stirred, profoundly moved, sometimes shaken to the very foundations of their being; but who nevertheless feel the Spirit’s
power and presence only as the dead walls, pillars, and posts, that are shaken for the instant, but not changed in nature; moved, not molded; or as Stephen’s stoners, “not able to Acts vi.x0. resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake,” yet did resist to their own ruin.
But, as this display of the Spirit’s power is introduced in connection with the prayer for boldness in witnessing, it was undoubtedly meant to inspire courageous confidence that God was with them, few as they were and feeble as they were; and that he who could thus shake the very walls would sway all hard hearts and cruel foes; and, if he pleased, open prison doors, as he subsequently did, and smite with death, as he smote Herod. They asked that they might be emboldened by signs of healing power; the Spirit gave other signs not asked, in shaking walls, that could know no healing power.
One grand motive in praying for divine interposition is that our boldness in testimony may be increased. When God withdraws his hand of power, how our mouths are proportionately closed! We cannot speak boldly if he does not work mightily, for his mighty working is the confirming of our witness. We are therefore authorized to ask in faith for God’s accompanying power to attend our preaching, that we may be bold to bear witness, because of Another who beareth witness to us and sealeth our message as his own. Well may it make one courageously and confidently outspoken when God is manifestly behind both the man and his message with confirming power. Nor should we ever rest without such confirming co-witness.