he words, “the former treatise… as we have seen, take us back to the Gospel so full of exquisite beauty in its artistic setting forth of the matchless glory of the Person of Jesus Christ; the Gospel which pays little attention to chronology, but groups events so as to present the perfect Man, perfected through processes, and perfecting others by the mystery of His work. With that Gospel in our minds, we take up the new treatise by the same writer, and find that it is linked to this Gospel.
hat, then, is the Gospel of Luke? It is the story of the birth and being, of the childhood and confirmation, of the attesting and anointing of Jesus. It gives the account of the processes of teaching, and temptation, and transfiguration through which He passed. It records His descent to the valley, His going to the Cross, His resurrection, and His ascension. This surely is the story of all Jesus did and taught. No; according to Luke, it is the story of all He began to do and to teach.
he same writer now commences a second treatise, and the inference of this method of introduction is that he is about to write the story of the continuity of the doings and teachings of the same Person.
hen we gather in worship today, we do not do so in memory of a dead leader, but in the real presence of a living Lord. We do not merely think of One Who did and taught, in the dim distance of times of which we know very little. We are not following One of Whom we have read in the records. That is not the truth concerning Christianity. We gather about the living Christ, Whose touch has still its ancient power; the thrill of communion with Whom by the Spirit is the flame that inspires us to new endeavour; the inspiration of Whose love within our heart draws us to sacrificial service for men. The former treatise was concerning all that Jesus begun to do and to teach; and the new treatise is concerning the things He continues to do and to teach. It is not fmal. It is concerned with the things that Christ is still doing and teaching; and in the Apocalypse, the last Unveiling, we come to dreams and revelations, to signs and symbols and mysteries revealing the things He is yet to do.
e have seen the Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; as King and Servant, as Man and God; the face of the lion and of the ox, of the man and of the eagle; to borrow the ancient mystic symbolism of the East.
e see Him in the Acts proceeding to kingly empire by the royal race of men and women, who look upon their girding as His bond slaves as being a greater honour than any crowns that can be placed upon their brows. We see Him in the Acts proceeding through processes, toward the making of men and women conformed to the image of His manhood, and made partakers of the Divine nature.
ut the story is not completed. The last picture is that of an Apostle in prison, while others have been slain and others persecuted. The victory is not won; and we thank God therefore for the fact that there is another book; and in it the story of a great Throne, and in the midst of the Throne a Lamb as it had been slain, and round about the Throne four living creatures with the faces of the lion, and the ox, and the man, and the eagle; which story foretells His ultimate victory.
hen we come to the study of this book, therefore, we must understand that it is not merely a mechanical story of the journeying of Paul, or of the doings of Peter. It is intended to reveal to us the processes through which Christ proceeds in new power, consequent upon the things He began to do and teach, toward the ultimate and final victory, which we see symbolized in the mystic language of Revelation.
here is a soliloquy of Jesus contained in the Gospel of Luke, and in no other (Luke 12. 49, 50). In the midst of our Lord’s teaching of the crowd He seems suddenly to have paused, and in these two verses we have what must be described as a soliloquy.
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came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire if it is already kindled ? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it bc accomplished.” Mark the strange word here, the arresting word, “How am I struitened till it be accomplished.” This is Christ’s own word; it is something He said of Himself, in the midst of His strenuous life and ministry: I am constrained; I am imprisoned; I cannot yet do My mightiest work. What was His mightiest work? “I came to cast fire upon the earth.” So His herald had declared. John’s voice had rung out over the mountains and plains, saying: “1 indeed baptize you in water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.“l Christ uttered the same thought when He said: “I came to cast fire.“’ That was the purpose of His coming, but He said: I cannot cast it yet; I am straitened; I have a baptism to be baptized with; and I cannot realize the fulfillment of My mission save by the way of that baptism- the baptism of My Passion and My Cross. That is the whole story of the Gospel.
e come now to the Acts of the Apostles, and we find the same Christ, but no longer straitened. The baptism is accomplished, the whelming is over. He has passed into the infinite morning and the larger life, and He is about to scatter the fire. He could not cast that fire until His passion was accomplished. On that side of the Cross He was straitened; but on this side He is no longer straitened.
et us try and express this in the terms of the experience of the disciples.
esus said to His disciples: “It is expedient” and reverently let us change His word for the moment “It is better for you that I go away;” better that My hands should not rest upon your head again, John; better that you should not be able to lay your head upon this bosom of Mine, and feel the beating of My heart; “for if I go not away, the Comforter, the Paraclete, will not come."
he better thing, then, is the presence of the Christ, by the Spirit, in the heart and l&e of the disciples. Supposing, for the sake of argument, that He had stayed in the world, living an eternal life on the human level merely, and in the physical presence. How we should have been straitened! If He were in Judaea He could not be in England. If He were in London, and had gathered with His people in one place, He could not be in another. But now, in the great cathedral; in the church; in the chapel; in the Salvation Army citadel; in the cottage; with the two or three gathered together, everywhere is the Christ.
e came again and was not straitened, was not limited. The geographical limitations were ended, and the spiritual presence began. Paul, that man who saw so clearly into the heart of the Christian fact, wrote and we now begin to understand the meaning of his exulting writing “Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more." In this book of the Acts, then, we see Christ with all human sympathy, and Divine power, everywhere present by the Spirit, beginning to live and work, not in Judea only, but also in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth. He is seen, being completed in His Body, the Church; and His Church is seen, becoming the instrument through which the Spirit of His life moves forward in salvation and to empire.
e might therefore call this book which we are studying, not the Acts of the Apostles, but “The book of the continued doing and teaching of the living Christ by the Holy Spirit through His Body which is the Church.”
he study of the Acts of the Apostles will have a two fold effect upon us it will fill us with hope; it will fill us with shame. We shall see in it how the Body of the Christ was indeed the instrument of His victory. Yet we shall see Him straitened in the imperfection of the Body which is His Church.
efore this risen glorified One passed out of human sight, to return in spiritual power at Pentecost, He stood in the midst of a group of disciples, and He said to them: Ye shall be My witnesses My evidences, My credentials, My arguments in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.
et now, nearly two thousand years after, we have not reached the uttermost part of the earth. We need cast no reflection on past centuries; but if we catch the vision of this Christ, and feel the tenderness of His yearning heart, and are brought by the study of this book under the compulsion of His great demand, before the generation passes, the whole earth will have heard the witness.
here is failure all through this book, but there is yet gracious victory here also. As we read it, we shall find a revelation of purpose and power; and we shall find the indication of the perils that confront us as the members of His Body.
he words, “the former treatise… as we have seen, take us back to the Gospel so full of exquisite beauty in its artistic setting forth of the matchless glory of the Person of Jesus Christ; the Gospel which pays little attention to chronology, but groups events so as to present the perfect Man, perfected through processes, and perfecting others by the mystery of His work. With that Gospel in our minds, we take up the new treatise by the same writer, and find that it is linked to this Gospel.
hat, then, is the Gospel of Luke? It is the story of the birth and being, of the childhood and confirmation, of the attesting and anointing of Jesus. It gives the account of the processes of teaching, and temptation, and transfiguration through which He passed. It records His descent to the valley, His going to the Cross, His resurrection, and His ascension. This surely is the story of all Jesus did and taught. No; according to Luke, it is the story of all He began to do and to teach.
ut the story is not completed. The last picture is that of an Apostle in prison, while others have been slain and others persecuted. The victory is not won; and we thank God therefore for the fact that there is another book; and in it the story of a great Throne, and in the midst of the Throne a Lamb as it had been slain, and round about the Throne four living creatures with the faces of the lion, and the ox, and the man, and the eagle; which story foretells His ultimate victory.
came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire if it is already kindled ? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it bc accomplished.” Mark the strange word here, the arresting word, “How am I struitened till it be accomplished.” This is Christ’s own word; it is something He said of Himself, in the midst of His strenuous life and ministry: I am constrained; I am imprisoned; I cannot yet do My mightiest work. What was His mightiest work? “I came to cast fire upon the earth.” So His herald had declared. John’s voice had rung out over the mountains and plains, saying: “1 indeed baptize you in water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.“l Christ uttered the same thought when He said: “I came to cast fire.“’ That was the purpose of His coming, but He said: I cannot cast it yet; I am straitened; I have a baptism to be baptized with; and I cannot realize the fulfillment of My mission save by the way of that baptism- the baptism of My Passion and My Cross. That is the whole story of the Gospel.
et us try and express this in the terms of the experience of the disciples.
esus said to His disciples: “It is expedient” and reverently let us change His word for the moment “It is better for you that I go away;” better that My hands should not rest upon your head again, John; better that you should not be able to lay your head upon this bosom of Mine, and feel the beating of My heart; “for if I go not away, the Comforter, the Paraclete, will not come."
e came again and was not straitened, was not limited. The geographical limitations were ended, and the spiritual presence began. Paul, that man who saw so clearly into the heart of the Christian fact, wrote and we now begin to understand the meaning of his exulting writing “Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more." In this book of the Acts, then, we see Christ with all human sympathy, and Divine power, everywhere present by the Spirit, beginning to live and work, not in Judea only, but also in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth. He is seen, being completed in His Body, the Church; and His Church is seen, becoming the instrument through which the Spirit of His life moves forward in salvation and to empire.
et now, nearly two thousand years after, we have not reached the uttermost part of the earth. We need cast no reflection on past centuries; but if we catch the vision of this Christ, and feel the tenderness of His yearning heart, and are brought by the study of this book under the compulsion of His great demand, before the generation passes, the whole earth will have heard the witness.