The Love and Leading of the Spirit
In these Acts of the Holy Ghost we now meet quite a new and marvelous revelation of the modes of his activity. We trace his twofold operation: first working upon the multitude, and secondly upon the zzdividual. The former lays but a new emphasis upon what was previously exemplified; but the latter is an entirely new revealing of his secret mystery of working.
When the first persecution — of which Stephen’s death by stoning was the awful signal — drove believers out of Jerusalem and scattered them abroad, Philip went down to Samaria and bore witness to Christ, and so the first missionary work in the regions beyond Judea was begun by the apostolic church, following the order of our Lord’s farewell message: “Ye shall Actsi.s. be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in
all Judea, and in Samaria.”
Philip’s preaching was singularly blessed. His full position as in fact the pioneer evangelist has never been appreciated. All Samaria seems to have been his field of labor; and after his interview with the eunuch of Ethiopia he “was found
Acts viii. go. at Azotus, and passing through he preached in all the cities, till he came to Cesarea,” where, as we have seen, he probably laid the basis upon which Peter built when he visited the palace of the Czesars in that city of the centurion. And he not only preached over this wide circuit, but he wrought miracles, healing the lame and palsied and many possessed with demons. Tidings reached Jerusalem of the wonder-working of God in Samaria, and Peter and John were sent down to visit the new converts; and as they prayed and laid hands on them a Samaritan Pentecost followed, like unto that first outpouring in the sacred city. This is significant as marking a distinct stage in the development of this history of the acts of the Holy Ghost; for it is the first time that he came in power upon any believers, outside of Jerusalem and Judea.
The Holy Spirit here droke for the first time the caste lines and limits of exclusion. The Jews, despising the Samaritans as a hybrid race, a mongrel stock, which mixed the true faith with their heathen idolatries, had with them “no dealings.” To show a lost traveler his way, or point a thirsty pilgrim to a water-spring, was more than the ordinary Jew would do for one of Samaria. Yet God used persecution to insure contact; through contact the Spirit wrought conversion, and so humbled the aristocratic Jew by showing himself as ready to gather out a people for his name from these despised outcasts as from the elect nation itself that made them outcasts — yes, and equally ready to pour out his fullness at Ahab’s capital as at David’s metropolis.
After Peter and John had returned to Jerusalem we have on record a new lesson on the administration of the Holy Spirit, most instructive and inspiring. We have seen him, from the day of Pentecost on, moving on multitudes; we now trace his motions in the zadzvidual, and see him in his individual dealing and leading — observing how he guides ome believer and leads one tnquirer.
Hitherto we have had no distinct glimpse of such individualism; but, in this eighth chapter, we find constant traces of the Spirit’s love for one soul, and of his watchful care over one disciple. An angel bids Philip go toward the south, unto the way that leads from Jerusalem toward Gaza. This was not like the closely populated district where he had been laboring, but a desert road, But there is a solitary inquirer traveling that way, and the Holy Spirit sends the evangelist on a long and apparently useless journey simply to meet and guide that one soul. The eunuch of Ethiopia, treasurer of Candace the queen, is returning homeward, and searching the prophecy of Isaiah about the Messiah, of whom, no doubt, he had heard at Jerusalem.
And thus, for the first time in the Acts of the Holy Ghost, we see the Spirit no longer moving upon the multitude, but condescending to become the personal guide of one believer, and through him of one inquirer: “THE SPIRIT SAID UNTO PHILIP, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.” The evangelist, like his Lord, is led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, not, indeed, to be tempted, but to guide a seeking soul to salvation. The Spirit holds direct communication with this deacon and preacher, and speaks to him, bidding him to goand teach this man the way of life.
This lesson is too precious to be lightly passed over. Here is the Creator Spirit seen moving, not upon the abyss of waters, to develop life in a new world, but moving upon two human hearts: on one that he may search the Scriptures so as to find their testimony concerning the Christ; on the other that he may guide and help such a seeker with the light of his own experience. Thus the Holy Spirit is seen in his individual “acts” — his love for the individual soul. He deigns to ad two men into contact. Christ “loved the world,” “loved the church,” but not less “loved me, and gave himself for me”; so the Spirit loves and leads the individual soul, expending all the divine energy of his power and wisdom upon one inquirer and one teacher. He has been doing just such individual work ever since, and will continue such work till the end of the age.
Nor does this eighth chapter close until we have one more glimpse of this individual dealing. For when the eunuch, believing, had received baptism at the hands of the evangelist, it is added:
“THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD CAUGHT AWAY
PHILIP.”
The obvious impression is that of a supernatural “rapture.” The errand of the Spirit was accom-Acts viii. 39, 40. plished, and he removed the messenger, and he was found at Azotus, miles distant. Not only did the Holy Spirit condescend to bring these two men together, but, so soon as the special service to which Philip was called was fulfilled, he caught him up and bore him away to another quarter. We are reminded of that journey taken
Matt. xv.21. by Christ from the Galilean lake to those same coasts of Cesarea, taken, apparently, for the sole purpose of imparting blessing to that needy woman of Canaan whose daughter was grievously vexed with a demon; for, on the entire journey to and fro, no other miracle of Christ is recorded, no other act done.
The narrative of Saul’s conversion follows. Here the Lord Jesus in his proper person appears very conspicuous, as in the gospel narratives, but as in 0 other place in this book of the Acts of the Holy Ghost. For the time we lose sight of the Spirit, as though the Lord himself had returned, and the Paraclete were no longer so needful to the disciple. It is the Lord Jesus himself who appears in a vision both to Saul and to Ananias. There is a special reason. Christ is now cadling a new apostle, and the call must be direct and personal; for one, and the fundamental, qualification of an apostle was that he had “seen the Lord” after he was risen, and could witness, from personal knowledge,.to his resurrection. But be it noticed that, before the narrative concludes, the Holy Spirit again comes to the front; for we are told that all this vision of the Lord Jesus in the way, and the mission on which Ananias was sent, were in order that this newly converted persecutor might “be filled with the Holy Ghost.” Acts ix. 17. Even Christ, though he may appear in person to call this new apostle and give him his commission, leaves the work of his regeneration and qualification to be carried on and completed by the Spirit. And it is significantly added that “immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been grts ix. 18; scales.” The vision of Christ and“™* baptism unto Christ sufficed not to make a disciple and apostle, without the Spirit’s baptism, anointing, and teaching. There was need of his illumination, that all scales might be removed and the spiritual vision be clarified. And, from this time forth, like his Master before him, Saul was to be led of the Spirit. In the power of the Spirit he was to keep in union and communion with the risen Redeemer, and bear witness to his resurrection; to undertake those first mission tours; to gather converts and organize them into churches; to write inspired epistles, and in his own holy living furnish a still more striking epistle of God.
If this chapter seems in its opening verses to bring the risen Christ into more prominence than the Paraclete, we shall find further on a reference to the Spirit so unique and comprehensive that it might have furnished the name for this whole discussion, and may well stand for the motto of
Acts ix.3r. the entire book we are studying. We give the most approved reading as well as the common version:
“Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.”
“Then had the church rest,... being built up; and, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the paraclesis of the Holy Spirit, was multiplied.”
The important phrase which, in either reading, is the central feature in this description of the church’s true growth and its conditions, is that which we have italicized: “In the Comfort,” or “Paraclesis, of the Holy Spirit.” It contains that word mapaxAyatc, which, like that mysterious name Tapaxkytoc, to which it exactly corresponds, is untranslatable. It really includes all the work of the Paraclete, whether in the church or the world: his demonstration of the truth even to sinners, his illumination of the mind and heart of saints, his regeneration and sanctification of the whole man, his edification of the body of Christ — in a word, his entire administration of the whole church life and church work. All this is embraced in this word “paraclesis,”’ rendered “comfort,” as its fellow-word is rendered “comforter’’; but how inadequately in either case, since but a small part of the acts of the Holy Ghost can be represented by what we mean by “comfort,” though it be true that, when that word was first used by the translators of King James’s version, centuries ago, it meant far more than now!
Upon this verse and this phrase we have the less need now to tarry because the whole of this humble treatise which we are now writing is in fact devoted to its explication and application. But is it not already but too evident that the church of our day has little or no conception of the pricelessness of blessing involved in this paraclesis of the Spirit? What if once more this lesson could be learned? What “rest” would the church have from internal dissension and division, from heresy and schism! What edification, “being built up” on the most holy faith! What holy “walking in the fear of the Lord,” what rapid multiplication, and what world-wide evangelization! There is not an evil now cursing or threatening our church life which this “‘ comfort of the Holy Ghost” would not remedy and perhaps remove.