Witnesses
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” — Acts I. 8.
THE chosen band, diminished now by the fall of Judas, are clustering affectionately yet reverently round the risen Lord, as they ascend together the slope of Olivet, looking their last look upon their Master, and eagerly drinking in his last words. They knew, for he had told them, that his departure was expedient; but in their hearts they felt it sad. With a presentiment that the separation was at hand, they united all in one final question, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” In these circumstances a desire to pry into the future was natural; but in the estimate of the Master it was unwise. Accordingly, he firmly checks their disposition to speculate about the date of the Millennium; but he does not leave them dangling idle for want of an object, when the object which they endeavoured to grasp was placed conclusively beyond their reach. In removing the speculative inquiry from their mental vision, he placed a great practical work in their hands. This is the Lord’s method, and it manifests a Divine wisdom. As often as any of his disciples evinced an inclination to follow a curious speculation regarding other persons, he diverted the stream of their energies into some channel of practical duty for themselves. The normal example of this method is the reply to Peter’s inquisitiveness regarding the rumoured immortality of John: Question — “And what shall this man do V* Answer — “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.” Away from other people and other times the word of the Lord always called the disciples, and fixed them down to what concerned themselves and the present.
It is of great importance to observe that the Lord did not cut short their speculation into the secrets of the Divine purpose, and stop there: he gathered up the broken ends of their energy, and fastened them to an immediate work. If the planets should at any time stand still in their course, they would be drawn into the central fire and consumed. It is necessary to their well-being that they should be flung with all their force on a path of activity. Disciples of Christ, both in ancient and modern times, lie under a similar necessity. Unless they are thrown out in a course of vigorous action, they will be drawn into an orbit so narrow that action will be no longer possible.
The specific office to which the disciples are called is to be witnesses unto Christ; and yet for that office they were and are unfit, except in as far as the Lord imparts the power through the communication of the Holy Spirit. “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.” The power of witness-bearing depends on the Spirit, and the Spirit is the gift of Christ. Although those men were themselves saved, they were not fit to work any deliverance in the earth by their own wisdom or strength. Their demand for fire from heaven might have consumed their adversaries, but could not have converted them. On this method it would have been long ere they had filled God’s guest-chamber by a multitude gathered from the highways and hedges of the world. Wanting the Spirit, even the apostles were inclined to persecute; and, wanting the Spirit, the self-styled successors of the apostles have persecuted in all subsequent times.
The Spirit is like the air. The Lord breathed on his disciples, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” We could not live our present natural life without air. The sun in the heavens would not warm us if the atmosphere wrere not wrapped round the globe. The air is near, and the sun is distant. It is the sun’s heat that sustains life; but the sun’s heat could not be communicated to plants and animals without the intervention of the atmosphere. The earth is as completely dependent on air for its supply of water as for its supply of heat. The air obtains a supply from the ocean, and pours it on the dry land. Thus disciples in every age obtain grace from the Lord through the ministry of the Spirit.
But the specific function which a disciple is fitted, through the ministry of the Spirit, to discharge, is to be a witness unto Christ. Whom Christ saves from the world, he employs in the world. The captives taken from the enemy in this warfare are one by one incorporated into the army of the great King, and sent into the field to fight against their former master. Conspicuous and instructive, in this aspect, is the experience of Paul. When the Lord overcame and took captive that emissary of the Wicked One, the victory was the seed of other victories. The subdued enemy became a good and great soldier of J esus Christ. The captive, when smitten to the ground, and seized and disarmed, was not sent to prison; was not, except for a very short time, sent to the rear, but ordered to the front, where the battle between Christ’s kingdom and the god of this world was raging.
To every true Christian these two things may be said: first, you have need of Christ; and second, Christ has need of you. He saves you; you serve him. The simple fact that a Christian is on earth and not in heaven, is proof that there is something for him here to do; and if he is not doing it, the neglect shows either that he is not yet a Christian indeed, or that he is a Christian who grieves Christ. A broken limb hurts him who owns it more than if it were completely severed from his body. Thus the Lord is hurt by those who, being his members, do not witness for him.
The specific reason why the saved are left in the world awhile is, that they may be witnesses to their Lord. In heaven he does not need such witnessing. There, seeing is believing. The Lamb is the light of heaven, and there is no need of lesser lights to show his glory; but in this dark world Christ’s countenance shines through the spirit and life of his people. Here he has need of such witnesses.
He needs vessels to bear his name about among men; and for this purpose he chooses earthen vessels, that the power may be known to be his own. He does not send angels to publish his message; he does not employ the thunder to proclaim his name, or the lightning to write his character in the sky. The life of his own disciples is the epistle in which he desires to be read. The evidence with which he will convince the world is the walk of the people whom he has bought with his blood and renewed by his Spirit.
It is an honourable but difficult function. The task of a witness is often very arduous. The real strain comes in cross-examination. Every witness first emits his testimony, and is thereafter cross-examined on both its substance and its details. The evidence that a Christian gives directly, and in the first instance, consists in the whole course of his profession. He worships, he prays, he sits with fellow-disciples at the table of the Lord. By all this he testifies, and is well understood to testify, that when he was lost with the world in sin, Christ the Son of God by dying saved him. A great multitude in this land emit’ readily this evidence in chief; and in this department the majority acquit themselves well. With such a body of consistent testimony for Christianity — a body flowing ever on with the momentum of a river, one might expect that all the obstructions Lot unbelief would soon be broken down and swept away. Why, when there is so great a cloud of witnesses, is the heart of the world not won? Much is due to the hardness of that same world that receives the testimony; but something is due also to the fickleness of the disciples who give it. The evidence in chief is easily given, and is, on the whole, given well; but the cross-examination — alas, many of the witnesses break down there!
Either or both of two persons may, according to circumstances, conduct the cross-examination — the judge or the adversary. It is ordinarily done by the adversary, but the judge permits the adversary to cross-examine, and occasionally puts a question himself. The life of a disciple is one long stance in the witness-box, under cross-examination by a severe adversary, who goes as far on every side as the
i law allows him. You are set down in the market-place — wherever the buying and selling is conducted. You have
1 lately worshipped in the house of prayer, and devoutly commemorated the death of the Lord. Those who meet you in the market know this. What then? They may be themselves unreconciled, unrenewed; they are probably not easy — not satisfied with themselves — in neglecting the salvation of God. The presence of Christians fresh from their solemnities renews their misgivings regarding their own position. It is not needful to repeat in the market-place the same testimony that was given at the communion table. A Christian, when he enters the market-place, should do business there — should not forthwith begin to preach, but to buy and sell, and get gain. It is the cross-examination that takes place on this sphere. It is not now, What do you believe? but, Is your life, both in great things and in small, consistent with the profession which you have made? The crossexaminer generally begins on some distant and apparently indifferent theme; but the questions are so linked to the main subject that if, in answering them, anything escapes from the witness which clashes with his original evidence, his good confession is thereby undermined and destroyed. Overreaching in trade, unfairness in a bargain, unkindness to dependants, untruth and evil-speaking, expose the Chris- 8 tian profession to scorn, and shear it of its power. The adversary goeth about, especially at unsuspected turns of the j. Christian life-course, seeking whom he may devour.
The sphere of the witness-bearing, hitherto confined to jE Israel, is about to be enlarged. In the first instance, the L twelve were not fit for a wider missionary field. They were L called in, and were not yet ready to be sent out — that is, to j be apostles. They must undergo a preparatory training at [ the feet of Jesus, and at length be baptized with the Holy y Ghost. Then the embargo will be taken off: when they have served their apprenticeship in a home-mission under the Master’s own eye, they will be intrusted with a com- I [ mission to the ends of the earth. As soon as they have obtained the crowning qualification in the gift of the Spirit, he will loose them and let them go. Forth, then, from Jerusalem the word of God will run through Judsea and Samaria, nor halt in its progress till it strike the ends of the earth.
In that age it spread fast and far; but it was soon afterwards arrested. For many ages it made little progress. The Church became corrupt at its centre, and its extremities were paralysed: the root lost its own life, and therefore the branches could not spread to overshadow the land. More has been done during the present century to spread the word of the kingdom, than for many ages before. For the immediate past the Christian community should thank God; and for the future, though the horizon which bounds the view seems greatly troubled, they should, notwithstanding, take courage.
Whatever of comfort or reproof lay in that word for the earliest disciples, belongs also to ourselves. The clause in their commission, “beginning at J erusalem,” applies in its spirit to our mission- work. The charity that will convert
I the world, is a charity that begins at home — begins at home, but does not end there. If it do not begin at home, it will not convert the world. If it essay to reach the heathen by leaping over many ranks of unslain enemies to Christ in our own hearts, and many ranks of unreproved blasphemers of his name on our own streets, it will never reach its distant
i 1 mark among the heathen, or it will reach the mark with a
U force already spent, lacking power to penetrate the armour
f ’ in which idolatry is encased.
vj The Gospel in a true disciple is like a fire: it burns; it jt ‘• causes vivid joy; but it will not permit indolence. It must a- j be out: but, like light and heat, it cannot reach the distant
! B circumference without passing through the intermediate space, and kindling all that it touches on its way. The Colonies, the Continent of Africa, the peoples of India, and the Chinese, are the legitimate objects of missionary enterprise; but we cannot succeed in melting these icy regions at a distance, if our own home remain frozen like the poles. The laws of nature forbid it. Unless our love be of such a kind as greatly to disturb a godless neighbourhood at home, it will not set” on fire a distant continent. We cannot overleap the vice and misery and irreligion of our own city, and pitch our missionaries with power by a ship to India.
Besides the more hidden spiritual law, there is an obvious material fact that will in these circumstances prevent success. While a great mass of our home community remain unchristian, specimens of our population, cast up in foreign lands like drift-wood on the ocean shores, will counteract effectually the efforts of the missionaries. When settlers or seamen from this country, partakers of our name and our civilisation, partakers too of our Christian profession, appear among the heathen, and act as the heathen do, the way of the Gospel is obstructed; the work stands still, or goes backward. A ship heaves in sight in a bay on the coast of Africa, where Christian missionaries have long laboured among the rude natives. The ship hoists British colours, and the men speak our language, and claim kindred with the missionaries. When they open the hatches of their ship, it is found that the cargo consists of rum for barter with the natives. It is found on trial that, besides the mischief which rum is fitted in its own nature to inflict on an uncivilised tribe, the article is so grossly adulterated that it produces a wide-spread sickness, and endangers life. The discovered cheat reacts, in the minds of simple savages, against the missionaries and their message.
It would be a great mistake to abstain from foreign work till the home field be completely brought under culture: this counsel is sometimes given to missionaries by men who are not Christians at all. We must not fall into that trap. Some at home harden their hearts against the Gospel, and some abroad are predisposed to receive it. We must hasten to go out to the uttermost parts of the earth with our message; but we must let the men who are beside us feel the glow of our zeal as it passes by. The command of the Lord is still the rule for his people, — Beginning at Jerusalem, but not ending till we reach the uttermost part of the earth.
These words, constituting the disciples his witnesses in the world, were his last words; for when he had spoken them he was taken up. This command, therefore, every Christian should regard with especial veneration and tenderness. At his departure he left his Church in the world, — left it a legacy to the world, that it might in all times be a living epistle of himself. Promoted to such an honour, and charged with such a function, what manner of persons ought we to be!