The Message of the Church

“Then they that gladly received the Word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ teaching and in breaking of bread and in prayers. ’’ — Acts ii. 41, &c.

Looking back over the intervening valley of some thirty years, Luke described the infancy of the Church, which at the time in which he wrote was entering upon her death grapple with Paganism. The brightness and glory of her dawn had somewhat faded from the sky. Her simplicity, unity, and family life were not now preserved in their pristine integrity. Persecution had broken the regular formation of the early Church. Luke himself, the companion of St. Paul, had become familiar with scenes of imprisonment and suffering, and looking back over the range of thirty years, lingered on this portrayal of the first glad days when the Church of Christ emerged from the upper room, and took its place amid the forces which strove for the mastery of the world.

The Church was born on the morning of Resurrection. The materials of which she was composed had probably been prepared beforehand, but the Church itself dates from that hour when, like Eve, she was taken from the second Adam while he slept. Now for the first time she appeared before men as a regularly constituted organism, and was thenceforth to play a wonderful part in the history of the race, as the residence and implement of the Holy Spirit, and for bringing in that new Kingdom of righteousness — the new heavens and earth with which creation travails.

It is easy to discern the bright and beautiful freshness of that dawn. The dew was on the grass, the breath of morning air fanned every face, the carol of the birds of hope was in the trees; it was the dawn of a new society, with all the joy and gladness with which a new beginning, and especially a new religious beginning, stirs the heart of man.

Note that there were new teachers, new methods of worshiping God, a new constitution of society, new signs of power, and new joy and hope.

First, there were new teachers. “They

continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship.’’ Who were they? Might they be saluted as “Rabbi”? Had they any right to the deep and broad phylactery? Were they recognised amongst the priests and teachers of Jerusalem? Were they Levites or Scribes? Certainly not. They were unlettered men. Their brogue betrayed their provincial origin. There was not one of them who had ever attended the School of Gamaliel, or sat at the feet of the great Hebrew Professors.

Up till then they had been artisans, fishermen, simple and very ordinary people; some had forsaken their Master in the hour of trial, and none seemed to have capacity to understand the marvellous scope of His purpose; yet these men were suddenly uplifted to the position of teaching thousands of new-born converts who apparently gave the go-by to priests, teachers, and learned Rabbis, and sat and listened to the words of fire and wisdom which proceeded from these untutored lips.

It was a great wonder that such men should suddenly, in a single day, step out* of the ranks of ordinary life to become the teachers of the Church. Nothing can account for it except that qualities are bestowed upon them by the direct afflatus of the Holy Spirit, enabling them not only to address vast crowds of people, but to build up the believers who steadfastly attended their ministry.

Note what that teaching must have meant. First, that Jesus Christ had fulfilled the Old Testament predictions, and secondly, that He had left a variety of instructions and ordinances for the guidance of His people. We can imagine those three thousand souls, gathering in the Temple courts day by day because no other place could hold them, or it may be finding their way to some sequestered nook on Olivet, whilst Peter, John or James would explain the Old Testament Scripture in the light of the Saviour’s words. I think that that lost Gospel, which evidently underlies the three synoptic Gospels, possibly emerged then and was reiterated again and again to the people, as the Apostles told of all that Jesus had said and done.

Were men groping and feeling after God? They said that Christ had revealed Him. Were men longing to know God? They taught that He who had spoken in divers manners and ways by the prophets had now spoken in these last days in His Son. Did they want to know how their sins might be forgiven consistently with righteousness? They were now informed that God had set Him forth as the Propitiation for the sins of the world. All this and much more was poured forth in burning eloquence upon the crowds, as they gathered day by day, until a great basis of Christian doctrine was laid, upon which presently the Church was to arise.

Second, there were new methods of tvorship. It is quite clear that they did not forsake the Temple, sacred with so many memories. Why should they? They believed all that the rest of the nation believed, with one thing more, which made all the difference, that Jesus Christ was the long-expected Messiah. And there is every evidence that for forty years, until Jerusalem fell, the Christian Church was more or less imbued with reverence and veneration for the ancient forms of worship. “They were daily in the Temple”; and it must have been a very remarkable sight to have beheld that great congregation of three thousand men and women wedged into the midst of the dense masses who were accustomed to assemble there. But in addition to that daily assemblage at the Temple service, they practised the rite of Baptism, which was so closely associated with the ministry of the Forerunner, though now invested with a new and beautiful significance; they practised also the breaking of bread, as at night they would gather in some common meeting-place, like the upper room, or perhaps from house to house, those who were rich and had spacious apartments welcoming the rest. There the wine was poured out, and the bread broken, and thus the Church observed each day the Lord’s Supper as it had come fresh from the hands of the Master. By observing it, they held fellowship with Him Who unseen presided at the feast, and yielded His Body and Blood for their hunger and thirst. In addition to the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, there are evidently traces of the establishment of special meetings for prayer. We are told, “They continued in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in breaking of bread, and in prayers so that our prayer meetings are in direct descent from that Pentecostal time, when, for the first time in the history of the Church, untutored, unlettered, and illiterate men and women were accustomed to break forth in prayer to the Risen Lord.

Third, there were new conceptions of a Religious Society. It was modelled on that of a family, of a home. And a very beautiful conception it was, which arose so naturally out of our Saviour’s own example, for you will remember that our Lord’s work was pre-eminently a social one. Directly he had left His mother’s home, He began to gather disciples around Him, and all through those three years by the seaside, in the boat, on the mountain, in the city, and amongst the villages, He was always one of a society. Jesus Christ founded the Christian Community or Society, which we know as the Church, and inaugurated it as a family. Disciples lived together, they were taught to consider and minister tenderly to each other, there would be all the give and take of a family; and it was in this contact with Himself and with each other that the first apostles were moulded. Towards the close of our Lord’s ministry, holy women were allowed to gather with them and to minister to their need. In the upper room the Church was cradled, and so, when three thousand souls were added it was only necessary to push back the family barriers to include them. But they were all brothers and sisters, and gathered in fellowship with their unseen Head.

We must notice the Church’s unity and community of goods.

(1) Her unity. The Church of Rome has always dreamt of a vast uniformity when all men shall worship in the same posture, hold the same creed, obey the dictates of one supreme head, the Pope; but it has been shown through the history of Europe and the world, that such uniformity can only be achieved at the sacrifice of life. When you attempt to press men into one bond and compact, or into the same mould, you kill the individuality of the living soul; and so when the Reformation burst upon Europe, the whole continent lay in a profound sleep of death, on which Luther broke with his clarion note of freedom. But that dream must pass. Uniformity was never Christ’s ideal, but the unity in which variety gives charm, and supplies the need and lack of each and all. Take the family — how interesting its variety — the boys and girls, the elder ones and the little children, and how each supplies what the other lacks, so that all its members stand together as a whole. Happy is the family-group which.is large enough to allow of that charming variety, which is pervaded and knit together by a common spirit of unity. That was Christ’s conception, the unity of the family with variety in its members. The Bible is one, though its authors and styles are so different; the body is one, though its members are so various; and the Church is one, though with an infinite variety of disposition and temperament; therefore there need be no foothold for jealousy or rivalry.

(2) There was a community of goods. The distribution of property was not compulsory, but each disciple did it voluntarily, and as the natural thing. There were the Apostles to be maintained, the wealthy and aged to be cared for, the women and children to be provided for; many of the disciples had come from all parts of the world, and before they returned home needed to spend some months under the Apostles’ teaching and direction; and therefore as a matter of free-will, because there must be no lack, the richer members, like Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, Mary, and others were glad to dispose of their property in order that they might minister with a loving hand to the needs of their fellow-disciples. But this voluntary community of goods was as far as possible removed from Communism, or from those advanced forms of Socialism which desire to secure equality by compulsion. There is all the difference in the world between a man saying “You shall be equalised down to me” and the man who is prepared, if he stands on a higher level, to lift others to ‘an equality with himself by his own free choice.

Fourth, there was a new sense of power. Just then the Roman Empire was begining to be paralysed. It seemed as though the supplies of virile energy proceeding from the human mind and soul were commencing to dry up, and at that very moment there burst upon the world a new conception of a power which lay beyond the reach of the human soul in the living God, and which was to be received day by day by faith. “Ye shall receive power,” said Christ, and they received so much that there was an overflowing exuberance. It seemed as though the early confessors and martyrs could not find sacrifices hard enough to show how much power they possessed. The Holy Spirit, who had been before an atmosphere, had now become a Person: He was no longer the God of the hills alone but of the valleys also; He was not only outside the believer, but in him as a spring that rose to everlasting life; He not only enabled the greatest saints to do their mightiest deeds, but came upon handmaidens and children, upon young and old, and empowered them, so that all life became renewed because of the energy and vigour which flowed from the Living Head.

This after all is the greatest gift of Christ. “It pleased the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell.” When He ascended up on high, leading captivity captive, and entered the Father’s presence, He asked no boon for Himself, but that the Holy Spirit who had been one with Him from all eternity should now dwell in His risen and ascended body in all the fulness of Deity. Did He not say, “I will pray the Father for you”? and did not Peter in his Pentecostal sermon tell us that He had received of the Father the promise of the Spirit which He shed forth? We must believe therefore that in the Divine-human nature of Christ, ascended to the right hand of power, the Holy Spirit dwells, that He may be communicated to all those who are in living union with Christ as the sap flows from the roots to the furthest branches, and as the blood is driven from the heart to the extremities of the body. There is a reservoir of power in the Son of God on which the whole Church has a right to lay claim, and if there is nothing between a man’s soul and the Living Christ, moment by moment there comes the sensible inflow of Divine energy which nourishes the incorruptible seed of the Christ -germ, sown in every regenerate nature. In the power of that life we no longer strive against our sins and failures as a Stoic might, but receive a direct impartation of the Divine nature which lifts us above their tyranny. It was with this sense of power that the Church broke upon the world. The moan of the soul, “What I would, I do not,” became transformed into the rapturous outburst, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.”

Fifth, there was a new joy and gladness. Dean Stanley records the deep impression that was made on him by the verse, “They did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,” and from those words he deduces the fact of the primitive Christian joy. Theirs was the gladness of young life as we meet it in our nurseries or the pasture-lands. It was the gladness which comes from singleness of heart; they were animated by a transparent simplicity and sincerity of motive. It is the single eye which is full of light; it is the heart with the undivided purpose which is truly happy. It is because we are divided over so many interests that we are so distracted with care. They lived by the day. “Continuing daily.” Instead of worrying about what the future might bring, they lived in the present tense, always the secret of happiness. There was the communication of a new hope. They heard the music of the angels, as John heard it in the Apocalypse, ringing beneath the war and strife of the world. That is a beautiful story of the boy who heard the music of the bells, saying, “Turn again.” Beneath all the noise of London he could detect the minstrels of hope predicting that if he turned again he would ascend to the magistracy of the great city. And the early Church heard the music of the bells of heaven, as they rang out that all were going to turn again, that God was going to bring about the restitution of all things, and that the world was finally to return to the golden age, the summer of existence. There was the joy of constant fresh accessions. “The Lord added to them day by day those who were being saved.” “My brother has come, my sister is coming, my old father and mother have come, my work-people are being saved.” The body of three thousand was always swelling; new voices saying, “He has saved me;” new faces lit up and wreathed in smiles and tears; new lives transformed. Oh, cannot you imagine those daily additions, the throng in the midst of the Temple courts growing and growing as new converts gathered? Those of us who have gone through revival times; those who have seen fathers weeping over their prodigal children; those who have seen mothers, the Monicas who have prayed and wept for their Augustines, can tell something of the unearthly, heavenly joy with which those happy faces shone.

What an exquisite citation Dr. Kendel Harris made recently from his own translation of the Apology of Aristides, as a picture of primitive Christian life. “If any righteous person of their number passes away from the world, they rejoice and give thanks to God, and they follow his body as if he were moving from one place to another; and when a child is born to any of them they praise God, and again if it chances to die in its infancy they praise God mightily as for one who has passed from the world without sins; and if again they see that one of their number has died in his iniquity and in his sins, over this one they weep bitterly and sigh as over one who is about to go to punishment.” Well may he add, “How contagious must their happiness have been when it dared to make laws to death, and refused to let him cast a gloom over the Christian’s burial.” In Christianity a man not only escapes from the horrible pit, but sings a new song on its margin, and no exiles that ever returned from the land of captivity could say more truthfully, “Our mouth is filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing.” Oh beautiful infancy! Oh golden age! Oh radiant dawn! Oh morning without clouds! Oh bright and beautiful inauguration of the new age! Would that it had been perpetuated always! May we live to see it come again! May we see a good deal of the present misunderstanding removed, and pray that in our day the one Church of God may come back to the family life, and again typify to mankind the glorious Bride of the Son of Man.