The Exhortation That Barnabas Gave
u And exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.” — Acts xi. 23.
BARNABAS was happy, but not satisfied. The taste which he obtained of God’s goodness to the Christians of Antioch whetted, rather than satiated his appetite. When a miser, who is already rich, suddenly obtains a great accession to his wealth, the effect of the increase is to stimulate his desire for more. The evangelist did not let the Christians of Antioch alone because he saw they were truly converted.
Perhaps if lie had observed nothing but a grovelling earthliness or a hollow hypocrisy in the infant Church there, he might have held his peace. His experience might have been like Ezekiel’s: “Thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house” (Ezek. iii. 26). It is comparatively easy to administer reproof to those who are willing to receive it. Hence “to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.”
This is a useful and needful example. There is much fickleness even in true Christians: there is much deceitfulness even in a renewed heart. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” We should not assume, either for ourselves or others, that after conversion the time for warning and exhortation has passed.
God knows our weak points better than we ourselves. His promises of help may serve to show us where we are liable to fall. One of those rich and precious promises that were addressed to Israel through the prophets is, “I will heal their backslidings.” We learn what disease is wasting us from the physician’s offer to cure it. Alas, this malady is still epidemic in the Church! How difficult it is to hold fast even the attainments that we may have reached! That same Saul whom Barnabas brought from Tarsus to be his coadjutor in Antioch, at a later date, and after he had attained a larger experience, placed on record a very full and specific warning against backsliding: “Wherefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip” (Heb. ii. 1). The allusion in the original points to leakage from a vessel. In such a case the water slips gradually and secretly away, and is all absorbed in the earth. Thus some who seemed charged to the full with grace, have gradually lost the spiritual mind. How shall a wooden vessel be kept water-tight, so that the precious supply of the household may not ooze through its joints into the ground? By keeping it always full of water. It is by a similar method that grace may be preserved in the heart of a Christian. Keep the vessel full, and the vessel will not leak. Comparatively few make shipwreck of the faith through a deliberate change of opinion in the direction of infidelity. Many more are ruined, ere they are well aware, by a secret backsliding in heart and life.
He” exhorted them all f and therein he acted wisely. If the word of truth is rightly divided, every member of the Church will get his share of reproof as well as encouragement. In the Christian brotherhood there is no privileged class. If any one thinks that his age, or attainments, or office should exempt him from listening to a warning word, that very thing shows that he needs a warning more than his neighbours.
The substance of the exhortation was that they should cleave to the Lord. Those who ministered in the Church at that time went straight to the root of the matter. There is no dallying here about sacramental grace, and the true Church, and a rightly consecrated priesthood. One thing in those days possessed the preacher’s heart and burst from his lips when he addressed the assembled Christians, — “Cleave unto the Lord.” In this “primitive Christianity,” everything is made to depend on personal union to a personal Saviour. The exhortation in its nature refers not to the commencement, but to the continuance of faith. Those who have not yet returned, like the prodigal, to the Father’s bosom, can neither understand nor comply with it. Only those who have embraced Christ can continue cleaving to him. If you bid a man hold fast who has not yet gotten hold, your words will be unintelligible to him. It is as if you should advise a man to lean on the air: if he try to comply, his hands go through, and find no support, But a dove finds that same air a sufficient support for her body’s weight. Faith is the wing that spreads, and leans on the Omnipresent Spirit. As a bird without wings, is a human soul that has never learned to trust in God. There is that around and underneath us which would sustain our weight, but the unbelieving feel nothing firm, and fall helpless. The exhortation to cleave unto the Lord is appropriate to disciples who have already come to him, and tasted his mercy.
There is mystery in this exhortation. This cleaving is an unseen thing. But it need not on that account seem strange. We meet with equal mysteries in nature. I have seen a heavy piece of solid iron hanging on another, not welded, not linked, not glued to the spot; and yet it cleaved with such tenacity as to bear not only its own weight, but mine, too, if I choose to seize it and hang upon it. A wire charged with an electric current is in contact with its mass, and hence its adhesion. Cut that wire through, or remove it by a hair’s-breadth, and the piece of iron drops dead to the ground like any other unsupported weight. A stream of life from the Lord, in contact with a human spirit, keeps that spirit cleaving to the Lord so firmly that no power on earth or hell can wrench the two asunder. From Christ the mysterious life- stream flows; through the being of a disciple it spreads, and to the Lord it returns again. In that circle the feeblest Christian is held safely; but if the circle were broken, the dependent spirit would instantly drop off.
The phraseology of the evangelist designates the “heart” as the point of contact in this cleaving. Here the Scripture coincides with the laws of nature. All moral attractions hold by the heart. The connecting link is love. We love Him because he first loved us. They who propose to keep a human being close to God in a conscientious obedience, by brandishing the terrors of the judgment in his face, misunderstand the essential principles of the case. They turn the wrong pole of the magnet to the steel, and thereby repel, instead of attracting it. You may as well expect a stone to rise from the ground spontaneously and float in the air, as expect that a human being will cleave to the Lord whom he dreads. I cannot keep close to Christ until I learn to love him, and I cannot learn to love him until I see that he offers his love to me. When he holds me by my heart, he holds me fast, and holds me for ever.
But there must be “purpose” or predetermination as well as love, in order to attain a trustworthy, permanent attachment. Random impulses will not suffice. There must be method even in the affections. It is not wise, it is not safe, to leave our highest interests at the mercy of varying mental states. Frame a plan, and execute it. Without forethought and plan and stern resolution, we do not expect to be successful in any effort. If half the skill and energy and perseverance expended in the community in the acquisition of wealth were applied to the gain of godliness, we should soon have great treasures laid up at God’s right hand.
Barnabas, commissioned by the Church, and full of the Holy Ghost, must have known what was a seasonable word for young Christians; and his exhortation to the believers in Antioch was, Cleave to the Lord. Bleeding heart of Christian to bleeding heart of Christ, both glued into one, — the severed branch inserted into the wounded Vine for life — for life in the Lord.