The Forecast and Foretaste of the Spirit
The new Pentecost at Cesarea, which next confronts us in the Acts of the Holy Ghost, has an apparent prophetic bearing, which impresses us more and more as we study it. In this tenth chapter of this book there is an unveiling of the Spirit and his work, so far in advance of all hitherto revealed or exhibited that we cannot but see in it at least a possible and probable forecast and foretaste of things to come.
This is the record of the first outpouring of the Spirit, outside of Judea and Samaria, and touching the “uttermost part of the earth,” for it came upon a representative Roman gathering.
The steps of preparation are significant. Philip had gone as far as Cesarea, preaching the Word — probably the pioneer evangelist at this city of Czsar. Saul, after his conversion, and escape from Damascus, and visit to Jerusalem, was brought down to Cesarea on his way to Tarsus. It would be unlike this converted persecutor not to have borne his testimony also to Christ and his salvation in this home of the Roman centurion.
Certain it is that the next step is now reached in Peter’s visit to Cesarea. And — what is the vital matter — it is all the work of the Spirit. As in the case of Philip and the eunuch, God’s angel, the human messenger, and the Holy Spirit, are seen acting in codperation, and the parallel is too close to have been accidental or incidental. The angel of the Lord “spake to Philip,” and now to Cornelius; the Spirit said unto Philip, ‘ Go near,” and now again to Peter, “Go withthem.”’ In fact, upon this basis of the double guidance of angel and Holy Spirit, these two narratives are built. They are like twin witnesses, each confirming the other, and both teaching one lesson.
Here again we observe the personality of the Spirit, guarded. We read of a “voice” that thrice spake; but further on a notable change takes place in the language used. It might easily have been the same, and the record might have read that “‘ while Peter thought on the vision, a voice said unto him”’; but the design Acts x. 13, 15. is manifestly to bring to the front and keep at the front the acts of the Holy Ghost, as a person, and so it is written:
“THE SPIRIT SAID UNTO HIM, Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and Acts x. 19, 20. get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: FOR I HAVE SENT THEM.”
No “angel” or “voice” or “vision” or “influence from above”’ uses such terms. A divine Being is speaking. And Peter at once goes to the men, prepared to heed their summons as the call of the Holy Spirit. Whether or not divine commissions are yet executed by vision, voice, or angel, that same Spirit abides with us forever, for he is not among the transient gifts of God.
The effect of this communication from the Spirit is seen in Peter’s whole course and attitude. Without delay he went to Cesarea as the commissioned messenger of the Holy Ghost. His authority was not original, but derived, and, when Cornelius met him with worshipful homage, he naturally said, “Stand up; I my- Acts x. 26. self also am a man.” How could he indulge, or even have, any sense of his own importance, with mind and memory charged with the recent manifestation of the Spirit’s presence and his own reception of a divine commission! He felt, like many another messenger of the Most High, that another Presence was in that place of assembly, in comparison with which he was insignificant.
Brief as the discourse was, Peter could not introduce it without referring to the Holy Spirit
Acts x.98. as constituting the anointing power which made Jesus himself so mighty in word and deed.
But the grand verse of this chapter is this:
“While Peter yet spake these words, THE HOLY GHOST FELL ON ALL THEM WHICH HEARD THE
Actsx.44. WORD.” And with this we should place, side by side, the corresponding verse in the next chapter: “AS I BEGAN TO SPEAK, THE
Acts xi.15, HOLY GHOST FELL ON THEM, AS
ON US AT THE BEGINNING.”
Combining these two testimonies to one and the same event, we get this comprehensive statement: “While Peter yet spake, and as he began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word, being poured out as on the disciples at the beginning ’’ — from which we learn three or four lessons:
1. Peter’s discourse was broken off in its incompleteness.
2. The Holy Spirit fell on Gentile hearers as before on Jewish.
3. The outpouring was, for the first time, on all that heard;
4. And, also for the first time, it was previous to baptism.
At all four points these lessons are in advance of any hitherto learned. Peter’s address was apparently arrested in the midst of its delivery. We may imagine how his mind would naturally have been occupied on the journey from Joppa to Cesarea. The gospel was now to be first formally proclaimed to the Romans in the very palace of the Czsars, and to “Czsar’s household”’; and he, the typical Jew, was to open to them the “door of faith.” With such notice of his errand served beforehand, and knowing the important commission he was to discharge, Peter would have been more or less than human had he not in the interval between the vision and the sermon been meditating on the message he was to deliver. The address betrays this forethought, and suggests a careful ordering of thought whose presentation was only begun when further utterance was made so strangely unnecessary. Yet enough had been said for the Spirit to make saving use of tt — Christ being held up as the anointed, crucified, risen Saviour, witnessed to by prophets, testified to by believers; and the essence of the whole gospel having been compressed and expressed in one brief sentence: “Through his name whosoever Acts x.43. believethinhim shall receive remission of sins.” That was enough — the Spirit could now work his saving change in the hearts of the hearers; and at once, while Peter yet spake the words of salvation, the Spirit of God, as with a divine impatience, set aside both messenger and message, and that whole audience received not only the new birth, but the new baptism, simultaneously. Again, here was a new Pentecost, similar to that at Jerusalem, and accompanied by similar signs, even to the gift of tongues. The six brethren who came with Peter from Joppa, with astonishment beheld an unprecedented thing: xo distinction made between the circumcision and the unctrcumcision, even in that most precious gift of the
Spirit! Hitherto all such bestowments of grace had been upon the circumcised and the baptized; but now upon those who had known neither of these separating rites. The Holy Spirit thus broke through all caste lines, all old restraints of ritual, and even the sacramental limits so conspicuous in the church of the New Testament. We can imagine something of the startling emphasis of Peter’s question: ‘‘ Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, Acts x. 47. which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?” Think of it! — a Jew constrained to confess that God’s Spirit had been actually poured out in all his fullness on Gentiles — in advance of circumcision and baptism!
And yet again, we notice that the Spirit fell on all that heard the Word. It would seem that these hearers, however prepared, were not previously converted; for the angel, when he bade Cornelius send for Peter, said, ‘‘Heshalltellthee Acts x.6. what thou oughtest to do;” or, as more fully expressed by Peter, “words, whereby Acts xi. 14. thou and all thy house shall be saved.’”’ The outpouring at Jerusalem had been upon baptized believers only, and through their witness the Spirit reached out to the unsaved. He became the anointing power to Jelievers first, and through them the convicting and converting power to uzbelievers; and this seems to be the law of his activity through this whole dispensation.
What, then, can be the significance of this exceptional outpouring on unbaptized and unbelieving hearers, if it be not a type — a forecast and foretaste of things to come? Peter did not declare, of the pentecostal outpouring at Jerusalem, that it fulfilled the prophecy of Joel which explained its nature; for Joel predicted an outpouring “‘wpou all fiesh’’ — a latter rain more copiously abundant, which should come down in converting power upon all that hear. If this be, as we believe, the true key both to the prophecy and the history, we have a grand explanation of the mystery of these two pentecostal scenes: the former is the key to the acts of the Holy Ghost in this dispensation, or age of witness and outgathering, when he comes only upon his chosen witness-bearers; the latter is the key to the coming age, when his operations shall be so widened that he shall descend upon ‘all flesh,”’ and “‘all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
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This impression is strengthened by the language of Peter, who emphasizes the fact, saying: “God gave them the like gift as he Acts xi. 17, 18. did unto us, who believed,” as though this outpouring was on those who had not hitherto believed; as also is made emphatic by the fact that in such bestowment of the Spirit God had “also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”’
In the eleventh chapter of the Acts we have Peter, after his return to Jerusalem, rehearsing the housetop vision, with the subsequent steps that led him to Cornelius’s palace, without essential addition or modification. Though there is little that is new, repetition gives emphasis to the personal guidance of the Spirit, which is the grand truth here taught, leading us also to expect plain indications of duty whenever we are truly surrendered to the Lord for service.
The language uniformly used of the Spirit’s baptism in all these instances suggests affuszon or effusion, and seems to have been typified by the anointing with oil. The exact words are noticeable: first the quotation from Joel: “I will pour out of my Spirit;” then Peter’s own Acts ii. 33. words: “He hath shed forth this,” then, in this later narrative: “The Holy Ghost fed] on them.... Then remembered I the word of the Lord, Acts xi.15,16.... Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.” If such language carries to a common and candid mind any impression, it is that, when the Spirit is poured out, shed forth, or falls upon men, ¢haz is his baptism. And those who hold immersion to be the only legitimate water baptism must concede that the baptism of the Spirit is described in the Scriptures in the terms of affusion or pouring.
In these Acts of the Holy Ghost much is properly traceable to his working which is not actually tracedto him. Thus, also, in the Book of Esther, God’s hand is seen where his name is not found. Seemingly there is a “lot cast into the lap”’; really “the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.”
The great number of believers at Antioch was due to the ministry of the Spirit. It is said, “The
Acts xi.2x. Land of the Lord was with them;” and this marked expression may be the equivalent here of the Spirit’s power, as it appears to be, when used
Luke i.66. of the forerunner of Christ, who from birth was peculiarly filled with the Holy Ghost. Grand metaphor indeed to express the active operation of the Spirit! THE HAND OF THE LoRD.
The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, and a sword needs a hand to grasp, hold, and wield it;
the truth of God is a hammer, and needs a hand to give effectiveness to its blows. If vessels are to be molded and fitted for service, a hand must do the shaping and filling and carrying. Surely wherever the gospel is triumphant it is the Holy Spirit who is the hand of the Lord, breaking hard hearts with his hammer, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit with his sword,
molding vessels unto honor for the Master’s use upon his potter’s wheel.
In the brief portrait of Barnabas, goodness and faith are but the handmaids of a central quality and characteristic: he was “full of the Holy Ghost.” And because of this “much people was added unto the Lord.” Here again we meet that curious and unique word “added,” hots xi 24, or the phrase, “added to the Lord.” it-41,475v. 14.
Again we catch a glimpse of the Spirit, and this time in a new phase — acting upon a disciple prophetically, as when, by the Acts xi. 28. Spirit, Agabus prophesied of the coming dearth.
But more important still is that twelfth chapter, which, without any direct mention of the Spirit, exhibits his working in bringing about what our Matt. xviii.xo. Lord calls the symphony of prayer. Peter is in prison awaiting execution, and ceaseless prayer is made for him by the church. The prayer prevails; and the angel of the Lord by night opens the doors, and loosens the fetters of the apostle, and makes the iron gate to open of its own accord. We have here an example of the acts of the Holy Ghost in uniting believers in supplication. Only he can, in the soul of the individual believer, awaken the “unutterable groanings” after God and holiness; and only he can bring praying believers into sympathy and symphony in united prayer. That promise of power as dependent on agreement must not be applied to mere voluntary and arbitrary agreement of disciples with one another; it implies, first of all, higher unity w7tk and i the Spirit. Symphony, which is the result of musical accord and concord, is neither arbitrary nor accidental; it obeys the law of the chord and is awakened by ie intelligent hand which touches only such keys as are in harmony. It is therefore only when believing, praying souls are led by the Spirit into true accord, that the Lord’s promise applies; then, although they may be strangers to one another, they may be led into such fellowship through the Spirit as to pray at the same time for the same object. The church is like some grand instrument on whose keys the divine Artist lays his hand, and so makes united prayers to sound, like chords of music, in God’s ear. And how far great results are traceable to the often unconscious unity of praying souls will be divulged only on that day when the books are opened.