The Calling and Sending of the Spirit
The birth-hour of early missions to the Gentiles, considered as an organized effort, was Acts xiii.x-5. reached when from Antioch Barnabas and Saul took their departure.
This thirteenth chapter of the Acts must be set side by side with Matthew ix. 37, 38. There we have the precept and principle - “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would thrust forth laborers into his harvest.” Here we have the practice and example: a praying church and the divine calling out and sending forth of the workers. No doubt this church, so largely gathered from the Gentiles, would be more likely to be peculiarly drawn out in sympathetic intercession for the Gentiles. And here we see the way in which the Lord supplies workers when the church offers believing prayers:
“THE HOLY GHOST SAID, SEPARATE ME
BARNABAS AND SAUL FOR THE WORK WHERE-UNTO I HAVE CALLED THEM....SO THEY,
BEING SENT FORTH BY THE HOLY GHOST,
DEPARTED.”
How could the personality and activity of the Holy Spirit in the affairs of the church be more plainly, grandly taught and shown! Only a person speaks, calls, calls by name, sends forth. The Spirit designates the very men he has chosen, and sends them forth.
In fact, there is a new exhibition of the Spirit’s authority in this crisis of affairs: “So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost.” The Holy Spirit has his “‘ afostles,” for the word “apostle,” or “‘ missionary,’ means one who is sent forth — one word being from the Greek, the other from the Latin. Hitherto the term “apostle” has had a specific meaning and been limited to the men chosen by Christ personally or in Christ’s name. But, turning to the next chapter, we read, ‘‘ Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, Acts xiv. 14. heard,” etc. The Spirit of God gives apostolic authority and sends forth whom he will as an apostle of the Holy Ghost.
The important thought, however, is that there are certain men, Barnabas and Saul, whom he has. chosen, and would have separated unto himself. Behind all the action of the Antiochan church, behold the acts of the Holy Ghost — a designation, a vocation, a separation, a commission, a dismission — all of him and expressly attributed to him.*
Those who were thus called of the Spirit and sent forth by him would, of course, be accompanied by signs of his presence and power. Saul no sooner begins his new ministry at Paphos than he gives proof of being filled with the Spirit; for Acts xiii.g-12. he works a judicial miracle upon Elymas the sorcerer, in the infliction of blindness — a typical miracle; for this sorcerer not only closed his own eyes to the truth, but, like a blind leader of the blind, would have turned away Sergius Paulus from the truth, that both might fall into the ditch. And so Saul, henceforth known as Paul (the “Little’’), who is to grow less in his own eyes, that the Spirit may be magnified — Saul-Paul is led of the Spirit to smite with judicial blindness him who chose both to walk in darkness and to lead others into it.
* Cf. New Acts of the Apostles (by the writer), part ii., chap. i.
As this chapter closes we are told that “the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost”; the divine Person is still kept before us, and even fullness of joy is seen to be one of the results of the acts of the Holy Ghost.
The witness of the Spirit is now again exhibited and declared, with more emphasis and par- ticularity than before. In the fourteenth chapter and third verse we have another example of the indirect references to the Spirit’s working with which this book abounds: “The Lord gave testimony unto the Word of his grace.” How? By the acts of the Holy Ghost. Christ had promised that, as the disciples bore witness to him, they should find Another bearing witness with them and to them — a greater testimony confirming and sealing their own. And all through these Acts of the Holy Ghost we may trace this double witness going forward; in fact, as we have seen already, there was a threefold witness — to them, with them, through them. Here his testimony is referred to in relation to its confirmation of them and their work. While they witnessed to a risen Christ, the Spirit also gave his testimony to them and to their word, by signs and wonders wrought in the power of the Spirit, and by working that greatest of all miracles, a regenerate heart. Such results of preaching are at once a demonstration and an attestation.
That the Holy Spirit’s joint testimony with that of disciples is referred to in the verse now under consideration will appear to any reader who takes pains to put side by side three memorable passages of the inspired Word :*
JOHN xv. 26, 27.
The Spirit of
truth. shall
bear witness of me:
and ye also shall
bear witness.”
MARK XVI. 20.
“And they went
forth, and preached
everywhere, the
Lord working with,
and confirming the
Word with signs following.”
HEBREWS II. 4.
*“God also bearing them witness,
both with signs and
wonders, and with
divers miracles, and
gifts of the Holy
Ghost.”
The peculiar expression in the twenty-sixth verse
of this chapter, as to their sailing “to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled,” like
Acts xv. 40, a similar phrase in the next chapter, may be another indirect reference to Holy Ghost
guidance. What does this mean, if not that these
* Cf. also Acts xv. 8: ‘God... bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost,” etc, disciples, who had been specially set apart for mission work, had been given over, committed, intrusted, to the presence, guidance, power of the Holy Spirit? As this book is full of his holy administration, it is also full of that voluntary submission and surrender to his will which is the corresponding factor in all true co-work and co-wit-. ness: enduement and endowment on the one hand, intrustment and commitment on the other; these are the secrets of power in service. The Holy Spirit can administer only so far as we commit ourselves and others to his blessed rule and control; and all those who are thus by the church intrusted, and do intrust themselves, to his divine “guidance and governance,” will have afterward, like Paul and Barnabas, much to rehearse in the ears of the church as to what God has done with them. God the Holy Ghost acts 4... sy. oo through human instruments, and can *““**”™ do great things, both in opening doors of faith to unbelievers, and in confirming the work of faith in believers, if he finds instruments wholly intrusted to his keeping and using.
This intrustment and commitment of ourselves to the Spirit corresponds to that aspect of saving faith which is properly called trust. As Prebendary Webb-Peploe well says, “Faith is receiving, trust is committing’: one gets, the other gives; one takes the gift of eternal life from God on the basis of his Word, the other gives back the life he has given, to be kept and used by him. This latter aspect of intrustment is well expressed by the term “yield’’ — “Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your Romans vi. 13. members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” Paul writes to Timothy, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded a Timothy i.zz. that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.” Here are the four degrees or stages of faith: belief, persuasion, commitment, knowledge or assurance.
So in our relation to the Spirit there is a double aspect: first we receive him as Christ’s ascension gift, then we intrust or commit ourselves to his indwelling, inworking, outworking. The former act is the opening of the heart and whole being to his blessed incoming, the latter is the giving up to his possession and power, service and control, of the whole being he indwells, that he may find every member of the body, every faculty of the mind, every affection of the heart, obedient to his behests and ready to do his bidding; so that the will, itself the natural sovereign of our being — like “a man under authority,” the centurion, Matt. viii. 9. having soldiers under command — may be only the servant of the Spirit of God, saying to all subordinate powers of body and mind, “Do this,” while issuing all such commands only in the Spirit’s name; acknowledging the zmperium back of itself, and all its own authority as derived.
The supreme lesson to be learned by all disciples is this cheerful and grateful and whole-hearted self-yielding to the Spirit. All his power is at the disposal of every believer who is first at his disposal. Obedience to him means command over others: in proportion as we are subject to him, even the demons are subject unto us in his name; He cannot transfer his power or give his glory to another; but this is not a transfer of either his power or his glory, save as the electrical battery transfers its mighty current to the medium of transmission. You become electric or magnetic if you have connection with the generators of these mysterious forces; and in proportion as the connection is complete, and you are a good “conductor,” all the power resident in the battery is transmitted through you.
“They, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed;”’ that is, they, being sent forth, went forth at once, implicitly surrendering themselves to his guidance. A supernatural gospel is meant to accomplish supernatural results, and needs a supernatural power behind it and its messengers. We who are the heralds of Christ need to feel that we are not only dealing with divine things, but with a divine Person; and that only as we obey him and submit to his control and guidance can we have power.
The Rev. Dr. Skinner, of New York, used to say that nothing contributes to a mighty ministry like a “sense of the powers of the world to come.” It is possible to have a very learned and accomplished ministry and a most complete machinery of church life and all external prosperity, and yet be destitute of the power of the Spirit of God; * possible to have additions to the church and no conversions to the Lord; to make an easy way into the church, and yet block the true way to Christ by the idols of ecclesiasticism. There is much talk nowadays of consecration, which means mere
human vesolve, and has no conception of the Spirit
taking possession, changing the whole inner temper and life, shedding abroad the love of God, and filling the temple with his glory. It is possible to have abundant labor, and yet all in the energy of the flesh, not of the Spirit How blessed when a man is sent forth by the Spirit and departs — goes forth at his bidding, and can say, with the holy humility of Micah, “I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord”! Micah iii. 8
When Barnabas and Paul had completed this first mission tour they returned to Antioch, and “when they were come, and had gath- Acts xiv. 27. ered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.” Then, on their way to Jerusalem, “they passed Acts xv.3. through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.” Likewise at Jerusalem “they declared all things that God had done with them,” “declaring what miracles and Acts xv. 4,12. wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.”
Men sent forth by the Holy Ghost and going forth at his bidding will always have much to tell, but not about themselves and their great achievements. If the story told by Barnabas and Paul was wonderful, not more remarkable was it than their own humility. See how guardedly they keep themselves out of sight: “All that God had done with them;” “how he had opened the door of faith;” ‘ what miracles and wonders God had wrought by them.”
Nothing is so humbling from first to last as this gospel. We receive eternal life as a gift from God, wholly dissociated from all good works of our own; and when we have the gift, he who gave it must nourish and maintain it moment by moment. We receive the Holy Spirit, and he gives — or rather becomes in us — power; and even this power will cease to be exerted the moment we become self-reliant or self-confident. This is the lesson, not of this chapter alone, but of every chapter in this book. The only hope of the believer or of the church for power in praying or preaching, living for God or laboring with God, is found in the perpetual indwelling and inworking of the Spirit. If he is loved, worshiped, adored as God; if his presence and presidency are recognized and cherished; if all is done in subordination to his authority and for his glory; if all achieved is humbly attributed to his working, he will continue to hold in the church his seat, and make it the true body of Christ where every member moves in obedience to 1ts divine Head.