Closing Glimpses
They seem to have been much impressed by his statement, and especially by his declaration, “For the hope of Israel I am bound with these chains.” This makes him one with themselves; instead of plotting against them, this man suffers on their side. They desire to hear a fuller explanation of his position; especially how he reconciles his continued hold of “the hope of Israel,” with his attachment to the sect which is everywhere spoken against. By mutual consent another day is fixed; and at the appointed time the same parties return with many others in their company.
A whole day was spent in the discussion. The conference would probably, for the most part, assume the form of conversation. Questions would be asked and answered; objections stated and removed. The Scriptures of the Old Testament constituted the acknowledged authority for the disputants on both sides alike. The venerated parchments lay on the table, and were from time to time spread out to correct and verify a quotation. The substance of all that Paul said at the prolonged conference is reported in one verse: “He expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the Law of Moses, and out of the Prophets, from morning till evening.” This is a remarkable epitome. It contains the whole case in a very small compass. It is somewhat like the condensed report of Philip’s sermon to the Ethiopian prince, “beginning from that same Scripture, he preached unto him Jesus.”
By comparing Scripture with Scripture, Paul expounded to these inquirers that the kingdom of the future, predicted by the prophets, is not limited to one nation, but co-extensive with the world; that if it be limited for a time, it is limited like a seed, only until the set time come for its indefinite multiplication and expansion. He showed them that the King, though universal Lord, yet suffers and dies, — gives his life a ransom; — that his kingdom is not of this world; that he is King of thoughts, not of armies; that he wins by love — by enduring. He showed them that in Jesus of Nazareth all the conditions of the expected Messiah were fulfilled: he employed the law to shut them up unto the gospel.
Some were won. The labourer obtained souls for his hire after that long day’s work. At night, and immediately before the company separated, Paul addressed a very solemn warning from the Prophecy of Isaiah to the unbelieving portion of the audience. He felt that this was the crisis of their fate, and yearned for their salvation. Throwing upon themselves the responsibility of rejecting Christ promised in their own Scriptures, and now pressed on their acceptance, he proclaimed that moving of the door which permitted the light to flow on the Gentiles, and at the same time left the Jews shut up in the darkness which they had chosen. After they had left the conference, it is intimated that these J ews “had great reasoning among themselves.” We may be permitted to hope that another section of these grave and sad children of Abraham, as the result of that reasoning, were shut up unto the faith.
This last testimony uttered by the apostle throws light on the structure and design of the Book of the Acts. The history is designed to exhibit the transition of the kingdom from Israel as a nation to the whole human family. When this transference has been completed, the historian’s work is done. Here, accordingly, the record abruptly closes. The final note, as in other melodies, is the key-note: Christ, rejected by Israel, to whom he came, is offered to the Gentiles. Henceforth all distinctions are levelled except one: the distinction between those who believe, and those who believe not, in the only begotten Son of God. There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, whether they be Jews or Greeks, bond or free. The kingdom consists of all, out of every nation and kindred and tongue, who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. One man is not rejected because he is a descendant of Canaan, and another is not accepted because he is of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh; but whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, the same shall be saved.
After these events Paul dwelt two years in his own hired house, receiving all comers, and preaching the gospel in all its fulness to every class, and with complete impunity. The foundations of the Church at Rome were during these two years laid deep and broad. Alas! huge piles of wood, hay, stubble, have been reared upon the true foundation there throughout the long usurpation of the Papacy. There must be much fierce burning ere all that rubbish be consumed, and the primitive Church come forth in apostolic purity and power. Let one read the Epistle to the Romans and the latest encyclical of the present Pontiff at the same sitting, and he will experience the sensation of passing from the green grass and blue sky and bright sunshine of a summer day among the mountains, into a dark cavern where the air cannot get in, and the smoke cannot get out. If a Roman citizen of this nineteenth century, who loyally accepts the Pope and his infallibility, should be led to read the Book of the Acts, and Paul’s Epistle to the Church of his forefathers, he would necessarily think these two books of sacred Scripture spurious, for they say nothing of the Virgin Mary or the saints, nothing of images and relics, nothing of penance and purgatory.
“While Paul was a prisoner at Rome, Nero was emperor there. Not only was he a cruel and unjust ruler, but his very name has become a proverb for vice in all its vilest forms and extremest measures. The whole power of the civilised world was wielded by that incarnation of wickedness. Yet although this monster shed the blood of both his own wife and his own mother, it was not in his power to pervert all the acts of his administration. Even he, when under the influence of good counsellors, sometimes pronounced and executed right decisions. Some restraint was providentially laid upon the tyrant. Contemporary history gives no account of Paul’s trial. On the first occasion he seems to have been acquitted. He who had delivered David from the lion and the bear, was able to deliver him out of the hand of the Philistine; he who had delivered the missionary from the hands of Felix and Festus, could deliver him from Nero’s cruelty, and shield his life until his work was done.
Prom the later Epistles some incidents of the apostle’s subsequent history may be gathered. These, when woven together, seem to intimate that, after having been tried and acquitted at Rome, he visited Ephesus, and thence returned to the capital; that he travelled to the east yet again, and on his return penetrated into Spain; and that at last he was arrested at Rome, and put to death about the end of Nero’s reign.
His residence at the capital seems to have been the most active and useful period of Paul’s life, although it did not fall within the scope of the historian to comprehend it in his narrative. Many of his best friends were for longer or shorter periods at his side — Luke, his fellow-traveller, for example; and Timothy, his son in the faith.
Two men, who were for a time his coadjutors in Rome, stand contrasted with each other so as to read a very searching lesson for disciples in all times. Demas and Mark are both recognised as fellow- workers (Philem. 24; Col. iv. 1 4).
These two men might almost have sat for the picture of the sons whom the father commanded to work in his vineyard. The one said, I go, sir, and went not; the other said, I will not, but afterwards repented and went. The sad apostle’s later testimony regarding Demas is, “He hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Tim. iv. 10). Whereas, although Mark at an early date had incurred his displeasure for preferring his own ease to the necessity of the work, a glad reconciliation was subsequently effected; and the aged missionary, when almost within sight of his crown, and at the very time when he had occasion to record the defection of Demas, sent to Timothy the message: — “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Tim. iv. 11).
The case of the slave Onesimus, which occurred at Rome during this period, can be restored from fragmentary notices, and is full of instruction. This man had been owned by Philemon, a citizen of Colosse. He robbed his master and ran away. The outlaw found his way to Rome, like most of his kind; for in the crowded dens of the capital the best cover could be found by those who endeavoured to elude the pursuit of law. The hordes of the wretched and the criminal who at that time, we cannot say resided, but existed homeless, in the great city, cannot well be described or conceived. Modern experience, bad though it be, affords no parallel, at least in Christianised countries. The general prevalence of slavery dislocates and corrupts society to an extent of which we in our favoured circumstances have no adequate conception. Onesimus, plunged into this mass of misery and crime, was lost as a microscopic atom of iron is lost among a heap of dust; but as such an atom so lost may be found by plunging a magnet into the same heap, so was Onesimus rescued. He heard Paul preaching Christ, and was won. How the missionary and the outlaw came in contact, we cannot tell. Perhaps the missionary found his way sometimes into those quarters of the city where the baser sort do congregate. Perhaps the man, intelligent though outcast, became weary of the vile society into which his misfortunes and his faults had cast him; and he may have ventured under cloud of night, trembling lest the officers should track his steps, to the place where Paul was expected to preach. But in some manner, to us unknown, He who procured a meeting between Philip and the Ethiopian in the desert, procured a meeting between the apostle of the Gentiles and the runaway slave in the metropolis of the world. The poor shivering outcast heard of the Man that “receiveth sinners” — heard, and believed, and lived.
Paul found in this man, when he was made new, a special aptitude for missionary work, and determined to employ him. But Onesimus is not yet free to begin. He is willing to lay himself now on the altar as a living sacrifice; but he must pause — he must leave his gift before the altar, and go first and be reconciled to his brother Philemon. Under Paul’s instructions he returned to his former master and gave himself up, confident all the while that Philemon, himself ransomed by the same Lord that had redeemed his slave, would not any more exact his legal rights. The episode of Onesimus and Philemon, with its combined godliness and manliness, its devotion to God and noble charity between man and man, shines amid the atheism and vice of heathen Rome like a lightning flash in the noon of night. “Again, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”
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