The New Lesson of the Power
The third great lesson of the Acts of the Apostles we found to be, that the secret of power in witnessing is the Holy Spirit of God; and about this, as the central lesson, all others cluster.
A remarkable inversion will be noticed, which cannot be without meaning. When Luke concludes the gospel narrative, he makes our Lord to say:
” Ye are witnesses of these things;
*’ And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you;
“But tarry ye until ye be endued with power from on high.”
Contrast this with Luke’s account of our Lord’s final message before His ascension:
‘’Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you;
“And ye shall iDe witnesses unto Me.”
Here the order of the former thought is exactly reversed. In the close of the gospel, it was first the work of witnessing, then the promise of power. In the beginning of the Acts, it is first the power, then the work of witness. The meaning of such inversion is not enigmatic. In the former message, the Lord followed the order natural to the commission of a trust; first, the thing to be done; then the secret of its well doing. But in the latter, the trust having been committed to disciples, the all-important thing is to fix the mind upon the only power which can assure the effective execution of the trust. And so with us. The command being once for all given, not to be repeated, the one matter in all subsequent time to engross attention, is, that we may be so filled with the Spirit of all power, whose infilling, if not outpouring, is forever new, that we may fulfil our Lord’s great commission.
Power is, in every sphere of work, the one all-important requisite. There are about man two great constituent elements: a body, fearfully and wonderfully made — the outward, visible, material and perishable part; and the spirit, still more fearfully and wonderfully constituted — inward, invisible, immaterial, immortal. In the original creation, ‘’ God made man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of lives, and man became a living soul.” What a divine tribute to the dignity, superiority, majesty of the spirit, as constituting the real man, of whom the body is but the house of habitation.
This truth is typical and suggestive. About all else that pertains to man there is, first, what is outward, and then, what is inward; what is visible, audible, palpable, and somewhat beside which evades all sense tests; somewhat that is transient, and somewhat that is permanent. Intelligent speech has its body — the spoken word; and its soul — the thought which only thought can catch and hold. The printed page is a body created by human machinery, but enshrining an invisible something, emanating from the author’s secret life. All man’s work has a body, or outward form of utterance, action, effort; but that which gives it value is the subtle spirit that pervades it.
In the ‘’spiritual” sphere, whose very name carries a lesson — this distinction is vital. The prayer of the lips is but an empty form, unless the Spirit of God intercedes through and prevails in it: the witnessing word becomes the powder of God to salvation and edification only when it is the body which He fills and thrills. What we call ‘’unction” is not merely a fragrant chrism as of ointment poured forth; but an imparting of an essentially new and divine force which brings and is, power. Hence, Pentecost was the condition of all true service, so essential that disciples were bidden to” wait for the promise of the Father,” to ‘’ tarry until endued with power from on high;” for until that power was given no force or true energy could be exerted.
It is often said that it is worth while to wait upon God for the Spirit’s infilling, because of the increase of power thus secured; but the Acts of the Apostles shows us a far deeper truth, that up to the point of this enduement with power, work is waste. We shall find, like the Greek philosopher who experimented upon a dead body, that we are trying to give to a lifeless form the erectness and energy of a living body; and, like him, be compelled to confess that it lacks ri evdov — soviet Jiing luithin.
When James writes,” The body without the spirit is dead,” he gives us one maxim of the wisdom that is from above. He turns our thought back to that primal mystery of man’s creation and the parallel mystery of his dissolution; with the spirit, there is a living body, a corpus; without the spirit, a dead body, a corpse — a mere mass of dead matter. It may still retain its fine and beautiful form and feature and exquisite organization; but it has no power. It cannot work, or walk, or stand erect; there is no light in the eye, no hearing in the ear, no response to touch, no thought in the brain — what was the temple of mind is the chamber of death.
But the inspired writer teaches a deeper truth, of which this is but a parable: “So faith without works is dead also” — a profession of faith is but a lifeless form, however fair, until the spirit of life vitalizes and energizes it, and makes possible the works of God. The Scripture maxim teaches a lesson broad enough to cover the whole world of man’s activity and duty. His creed, his character, his worship, his service, even his sacrifice — all are dead, unless and until, behind, beneath, within them all, the spirit of life is found. The form of sound words without the spirit of faith and love in Christ Jesus, is dead orthodoxy. The form of worship, however decorous and devout, is, without the spirit, dead formalism, ritualism — a censer, it may be of gold, set with gems, but empty of all incense. The form of godliness without the power of the spirit, becomes dead works, a self-righteous, soul-deceiving morality or external piety, as different from true godliness as a tomb is from a temple. Even godly service and self-sacrifice may in God’s eyes be a dead body, inspired by no spirit of loyalty to Christ or charity and sympathy toward men; empty of soul as the sound of a brass trumpet or the clangour of a silver cymbal, worse than emptiness — notJiing!
Is there no reason that this most vital truth be taught at the very opening of the Acts of the Apostles? What more important lesson than this which touches all effective service, — this base-block of all missions: that only when God’s Spirit possesses and controls, can we work or witness with power! Until then, the best we can do is but a body without soul, a form of service without the force which gives it power and assures to it success. That lesson God thought so needful, that in this great book of primitive missions it is the first taught, and taught with tongues of fire!
Witnessing to Christ is therefore the Spirit of God using a human voice. Let the Spirit be lacking, and there may be wisdom of words, but not the wisdom of God; the power of oratory, but not the power of God; the demonstration of argument and the logic of the schools, but not the demonstration of the Holy Spirit, the all-convincing logic of his lightning flash, such as convinced Saul before the Damascus gate. When the Spirit was outpoured and disciples were all filled with power from on high, the most unlettered tongue could silence gainsayers, and with its new fire burn its way through obstacles as flames fanned by m.ighty winds sweep through forests.
The study of the universe discloses to us a mysterious quality, as in man. The whole creation of God as a whole, consists of a body and a spirit — matter and force. Matter is inert and motionless — powerless to effect results, whether for good or evil, until force lays hold on it. There is nothing to be feared in all God’s universe but force. What are the huge mountain without gravitation, the blackest masses of storm-cloud without electricity, the gigantic sun without light and heat, the earthquake’s awful violence without chemical affinity, the shock of colliding orbs in space without momentum? And as only force is fearful, only force is forceful. If we seek power we must go not to matter, that in itself has not even power to lie still; but to that by which matter is held, moved, swayed, ruled, and which is the nearest to what in man we call spirit.
No more wonderful fact confronts us in our actual experience of contact with this universe of God than the power He has given to man of commanding and controlling these eternal forces. They all move in obedience to certain conditions or in certain channels or modes of activity, which we call “laws;” and, therefore, intelligent beings can discover the secret of wielding them. If man, in ignorance of these laws or in daring disobedience to them, transgresses, disregards or opposes them, these forces are destructive beyond description. Gravitation dashes him to pieces, heat blasts him or consumes him, even light tortures and blinds him; chemical affinity and repulsion are his enemy and bring instant and awful ruin to him and his finest work; all nature becomes his deadly foe, and unites all her gigantic and resistless forces to overwhelm him with swift destruction.
On the other hand, let man but obey the law of
THE FORCE, AND THE FORCE OBEYS HIM! He obeyS
the laws of light and it becomes his servant, the deft artist that with unerring hand draws for him, with the ^nbeam as its pencil, the face of a friend or the scenery of nature, delineating with the skill of perfection every line and lineament, the delicate tracery of every leaf or blade of grass. Man observes the laws of heat, and it becomes the refiner and purifier of his precious metals, melting, moulding the most stubborn material into any desired form. He calls on gravity, and it comes as a master mechanic with a Titanic hammer to beat the rocks to powder, and as his smith to work night and day at the forge. Man learns to control chemical attraction and repulsion, and effects marvellous combinations which make the universe his laboratory; or nitrogen, the lazy giant, comes with explosives to open the very bowels of the earth and reveal all mineral riches. Heat turns water into one of the greatest motive powers known, and drags his chariots over land and his vessels over the seas as though thirty thousand horses were yoked to them. Man obeys the laws of magnetism and it becomes his pilot over trackless wastes of waters; or he calls the very lightning to serve as motor, messenger, illuminator.
Let us follow the analogy to a higher plane. God says, Concerning the work of My hands command ye Me! “Stupendous mystery! The Spirit of God has His chosen channels and methods; and this Supreme Force of the universe offers Himself to serve man for the ends of the Work of God. Is it not still true, and may it not with reverence be said, “Obey the law of the divine force and the force obeys you? “When God’s Spirit controls the man, in a sublime sense the man controls the Spirit; that is, he wields spiritual power. This paradox, like many others, is a truth. “God hath given the Holy Ghost to all that obey Him,”* and he who has the Spirit of God, wields the power of God. Let any humble disciple submit wholly to the Spirit’s sovereign control, and He becomes to that disciple all and more than all that nature’s forces become to humanity when guided by scientific intelligence, — his artist to delineate for him
Acts, V. 32.
things divine and celestial, his refiner and purifier to purge away the dross from character and mould him into a chosen vessel, his giant helper to subdue all foes before him, his pilot over life’s unknown sea, his motive power in holy enterprise, his messenger between earth and heaven, and his illuminator in the darkness of midnight and mystery. The Spirit of God bows low and condescends to offer to be the servant of those who serve God, to shape character after a divine pattern, and make our works the works of God. And therefore it is that our Saviour bade His disciples zvait, tarr3dng until endued, for up to that point power was not theirs.
Of this first lesson of the Acts the whole book is the illustration which constantly repeats and enforces the lesson by examples of power from on high. Pentecost was the outpouring of the Spirit from on high; the Apostolic age traces the flowing and widening and branching out of His streams. These chapters are channels revealing His power, new examples and proofs of what the Spirit can and will do, when He actually dwells in, works in and works through disciples.