The G. Campbell Morgan Archive

Acts 2:1-4
his paragraph contains the story of the formation of the Christian Church. It is so familiar that probably all could recite it. Therefore we need do no more than glance at its details by way of introduction, and then pass to the consideration of some, of the spiritual significances of this wonderful event.
he time was the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover. The persons assembled, described as “they,” were those named in the previous chapter- the eleven apostles, also Matthias, certain women, the virgin mother, and the brothers of Jesus. The actual place of their assembly is not named. Undoubtedly it was in the Temple. (Compare Luke 24:52, 53; Acts 1:14; Acts 2:1 ; Acts 2:46.) l Upon this company of units, united by a common love for and loyalty to the departed Jesus, there came the mystic mystery of the baptism of the Spirit. Two symbols were given one appealing to hearing , and the other to seeing. The symbol of sound-“a rushing mighty wind”; the symbol of sight-“tongues . . . of fire”; a plurality and a unity, the tongues were many, but the fire was One.
hese were but symbols, of no value save as signs for the mornent. It is necessary to observe that fact, because there is always a hunger in the carnal heart for signs. These signs were material; today we do not need them; they were needed at the commencement.
hat which is of supreme importance is the experience described in the words: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit was unseen and unheard. The wind was but Christ’s chosen symbol of that Spirit, and was not the Spirit; they did not hear ttIe coming of the Spirit; they heard the sound as of the “rushing mighty wind”; and thus, the symbol which their Lord had used when He said to Nicodemus, “The wind bloweth where it will; and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit,“ would remind them of His teaching; and emphasize the presence of the Spirit. The Spirit is not fire, and did not come in the fire they saw. That was the symbol granted; but never granted since, because unnecessary. The abiding fact was that of the Spirit filling these waiting souls.
hen a new day dawned in human history, a new departure was initiated in the economy of God. Taking the Bible as the history of God’s dealings with men, there had never been anything like- this before, though everything had looked toward it, waited for it, and hoped for it.
hen Peter preached his first great sermon in the power of the Pentecostal effusion, he interpreted its meaning by citing, the ancient prophecy of Joel. Through all the Old Testament Scripture; in the types, and shadows, and whisperings; in the gleams of light, the songs of hope, and the visions of coming things; this is the event toward which men were looking. When Peter began to interpret the things in the midst of which he and the disciples found themselves, he said: “This is that which hath been spoken through the prophet.” Up to this time there had been expectation without realization.
ot that the Spirit had been wholly absent from human affairs. The restoration of creation came by the ministry of the Spirit, brooding upon chaos, and producing cosmos. The Spirit is referred to over and over agti in the study of the Old Testament, as clothing men with Himself; clothing Himself with men; coming in power upon individuals for the ,doing of mighty deeds; coming with sweet gentleness in the inspiration of art, in order that, men might work cunningly in gold and silver and other things for the temple of God.
ut such a day as this had never dawned. This was the beginning of a new departure in the economy of God; not a new departure rendered necessary by the failure of the past, but a new departure rendered necessary by the accomplishments of the past. Everything in the economy of God had been preparatory to this. This never could have been until this ‘hour. But the hour had come; everything was accomplished; all the, preparatory work was over, and there broke upon human history a new dawning; there began a new economy in the enter rises of God.But such a day as this had never dawned. This was the beginning of a new departure in the economy of God; not a new departure rendered necessary by the failure of the past, but a new departure rendered necessary by the accomplishments of the past. Everything in the economy of God had been preparatory to this.
his never could have been until this ‘hour. But the hour had come; everything was accomplished; all the, preparatory work was over, and there broke upon human history a new dawning; there began a new economy in the enter rises of God.
n order to an understanding of all that is to follow in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to an understanding of all our own life and service, it is necessary .for us to consider : two matters; first, the new facts following Pentecost; and, secondly, the limitations of the Pentecostal age.
e will tabulate the new facts following Pentecost, and consider them under three headings: the new facts as to the Christ; the new facts as to the Church; the new facts as to the world.
n order to reconize the new ‘facts as to the Christ, we, must remind ourselves o the things prior- to Pentecost concerning Him These we may very briefly summarize as ,the facts of the Incarnation, and the Decease. We use that word “decease” as it is used in the Gospel stories. One would much prefer to use our form of the Greek word, the Exodus.
he Incarnation-the fact of His coming, the mystery of His birth, His being, and His presence in human historywas an accomplished fact before Pentecost. So also was the Exodus, which included the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension.
n the Gospel of John, our Lord Himself is reported as expressing the whole fact of His mission in these words: “I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: a ain, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.” “I came out frgom the Father, and am come into the world”: that is Incarnation. “Again I leave the world and go unto the Father” :’ that is a simple statement, thrilling with meaning, including in itself the mystery of His Cross, the victory of His Resurrection, and the glory of His Ascension; or briefly the Exodus. These things were all accomplished before Pentecost. The value of Incarnation is that of revelation; the value of the Exodus is that of redemption. He came to reveal; He came to redeem. He revealed by the Incarnation. He redeemed by the Exodus.
hat, then, is an exhibition? It is the gathering together in one place, the focussing, of certain things from the far distances, in order that men may see and understand, What is an exposition? It is expository work, a method of revealing, a method of showing, a method by which men are brought face to face with things they would not otherwise understand. Perhaps the best illustration is found by going, back to the first Exhibition of 1851, where the purpose, primarily, was not commercial as it now is; but that of the revelation, of truths concerning other peoples, in order to produce unity of heart in the world.
efore Pentecost there was Exposition. Jesus was Himself the great Expositor; the Exhibition of God to men; also of heaven, of truth, and of all spiritual verities. That is not to say that the world had seen, or that the disciples had seen. One would be prepared to say they had neither seen nor understood. But there was the Exhibition, the Exposition,. the Revelation in Christ of all essential truth.
e have seen exhibitions, and have never seen them. We have passed by the grounds, and have said to our friends: I saw the exhibition. But we never entered it. Or we have entered the gates, and have spent a few brief hours there; but we never saw it; we saw parts of it.
he Incarnation was revelation. Let us take another word instead of revelation-exhibition, We associate the word with spectacular displays. Then let us take yet another word. It is a word which is coming into use for the same purpose, borrowed from the French- exposition.
od gave an Exposition of Himself in human history by the way of the Incarnation, and men did not see it. This was before Pentecost.
o also with the Exodus- the going out, the return to the Father by the Cross, by the Resurrection, by the Ascension. These things were all accomplished before Pentecost. Thus before Pentecost the Christ had revealed and redeemed. The new things which came with Pentecost were those of the administration of redemption in the actual lives of men; and the multiplication of the revelation through the lives in which redemption was administered.
n the day of Pentecost, Christ by the coming of His Holy Spirit, was able to make over to trusting souls the actual value of His Cross, so that when the Spirit filled them, they were crucified with Him, because He Himself in them administered the value of His Cross. In that moment He was able to make over to them the virtue of His Resurrection, so that they began to live a life they could not live until the Spirit thus came to administer the power of His Resurrection. In that moment He won in them the victory of His Ascension, so that they began to love to use Paul’s radiant phrase ”the things above.”
hus Christ found by the coming of the Spirit the new and enlarged opportunity for which He had prepared by His own advent. This takes us back again to the opening hrase of the book : “The former treatise I made . . . concerning a that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” Now, by the Spirit, Christ, the Revealer and Redeemer, came to administer redemption in the actual experience of human souls, and so to multiply t!e revelation by the souls transformed into His own likeness.
t this point questions naturally arise. Were not these men born again before Pentecost? Was not Abraham born again? Were not the men of the old economy born again? The answer to that enquiry is, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Prophets, and the men of the old economy, were brought into true relationship with God upon the basis of their faith in Him. Their faith in Him received a reward, because of His faith in Himself, and in the coming of the Christ. These men in their essential spiritual life were renewed, were born again, if you will. There is no objection to the word itself. That they received Divine life there can be no doubt.
ut here upon the day of Pentecost, that which happened was not merely the renewal of the life of these men; it was the imparting to them of a new germ of life, a new principle of life, something they had never had before, that Abraham never had; there was given to them the life of Christ, the Incarnate One; so that there came to these men that which made them one with Him and with each other, and constituted their membership in the Church of the firstborn.
hus our first consideration merges into the second, and we may now speak of the new facts as to the Church. It is well that we remind ourselves that the word Church is in some senses an unfortunate one. The word Church is not true translation. It is a useful word, and one would not suggest that it be altered. But let us remember what it really means. This word Church which has passed into common speech, is a word the root meaning of which is simply the Lord’s. The Greek word Ecclesia means an assembly. The word Church is a beautiful word applied to the Assembly, but it is not translation, it has not caught the meaning of the word of which it is supposed to be a translation. The word so translated is used in three relationships in the New Testament. We read of “The assembly in the wilderness,” which is translated, “The Church in the wilderness.“’ We read of “The assembly of God,” which is translated, “The Church of God,“ and we read once of “The Assembly”’‘ in a heathen town, which is so translated.
he word assembly in every instance refers to a select and gathered-out company, having certain qualifications, and being committed to certain work. The men who constituted the town assembly in a Greek city were all free men. To them was committed the welfare of others. They constituted a governing body, consisting of free men. That was the Greek use of the word.
he Hebrew use of the word had reference to the .Hebrew nation as the peculiar people of God. Christ thus took hold of a word in common use when He said: “My Ecclesia.” The Hebrew understood it; it meant one thing to him. The Greek understood it; it tieant another thing to him. Gather the principles out of the Hebrew and Greek uses of the word, and combine them, and we find exactly what Christ meant when He said My Assembly. He referred to His called-out ones, who, fulfilling certain qualifications, are committed to certain work. In that sense the Christian Assembly did not exist prior to Pentecost. Pentecost created the Assembly.
ow let us glance at the previous conditions as we see them in the story of the Passover Feast (Luke 22:1-34), because there we see the same men as we now see at the Pentecostal Feast.
hey were disciples; that is, they were loyal to Him as Master and Teacher. They were comrades; that is, they were willing to stand by Him as far as they were able, as He Himself said, through all. the process of His trial. They were servants; that is, they were willing to run on His errands and deliver His message. All these things were they before Pentecost.
hen what was new as the result of the coming of the Spirit? Comprehensively, by that whelming of the Spirit, these men, disciples, friends, servants-_utside the actuality of His life though loving and loyal-were made actually, though mystically, one with Him in the very fact of His own life. They were made sharers of the life of the Christ. They had never been that before. They were sentimentally one with Him, and that word is not used in an objectionable sense. They were emotionally one with Him, agreeing with His ideals, consecrating themselves to Him, yet separate from Him, as all men had been separate from all teachers, and are still, except in this one case. Buddha, rare and wonderful soul, was never able to communicate his actual life to his disciples. Confircios, great and remarkable ethical teacher, was never able to communicate dynamic to the men who learned his ethic. Neither has any other teacher been able to do this in the history of the world. Prior to Pentecost the disciples were disciples, standing away, yet very near-I would not undervalue the nearness of those days-but they were not one with Him.
hen the Spirit came, His actual life passed into their lives, and from that moment they were able to say what Paul himself expressed so graphically in the familiar language of the Galatian letter: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh. I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,. Who loved me, and gave Himself up for. me.“
hat did it do for them? Did it change the old relationships? By no means; it fulfilled them. They were still disciples, but they had a new vision. Not a new vision coming upon them from the outside, but a new vision coming from the actual shining in them of His life, so that they began to see as He sees. That is the mystery, the marvel, and the majesty, of Christianity. It is when I see something, not which Christ interprets to me as from without many men see from without, and are reverent-but when through these poor dim eyes of mine the light of His own vision illuminates all that is without, then I know what Pentecost means. In half an hour after Pentecost they knew more about Jesus Christ than they had ever known before. Peter, the impetuous man to the end for the Spirit never alters a man’s natural temperament-became the Apostle who proclaimed the Cross in Jerusalem, and gloried in it, because Christ looked through his eyes, and spoke with his tongue. That is the great mystery.
id these men cease to be the friends of Jesus? Surely not. They were still His comrades, not comrades standing by His side merely, but comrades by identity of life. He was in them. He suffered, and their suffering was His suffering. He rejoiced, and their rejoicing was His joy. He fought, and their fighting was His fighting. That was the great change.
ere they no longer His servants? Surely His servants, but no longer sent from Him, but the very instruments of His own going. Their hands became His hands to touch men tenderly; their feet His feet to run on swift errands of God’s love; their eyes His eyes, to flame with His tenderness; themselves part of Himself.
his is mysticism. Christianity is mysticism. But if it be mysticism, it is fact. It is not scientific, it is not honest, to deny the mysticism, until you can otherwise account for the fact. Take the men, the fact of themselves, the changed outlook, the changed behaviour, the moral regeneration, the moral passion, the uplifting fervour, and account for it in any other way.
s to the world. In the past there had been, as John beautifully puts it, the unapprehended Light – the light never extinguished, always shining somewhere, and in measure in every man. In the Incarnation, the Light had come into the world. But now after Pentecost there was a new conviction for the world. “He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment.“l The Spirit of truth came to create the Assembly; and the world’s conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, is to be accomplished by the Spirit, through the Church. Thus there came to the world this new conviction. The quality of the conviction was new; the weight of the conviction was new; the result of the conviction was new.
here came also a new constraint by the Church; the constraint of His love shed abroad in the heart of the Assembly, and ultimately in the hearts of men outside, luring them; the constraint of the Church’s light shining in the dark places, revealing sin, and indicating the way to holiness; the constraint of the Church’s life poured out in sacrifice. The Church has won Christ’s victories by sacrifice, and in no other way. It is never until she is wounded that she wins. It is by weariness and death and suffering that she has co-operation with Christ. Wherever, in the distant places of the Mission field, in slum or suburb, the body of the Christ suffers, the life of the Christ is communicated to the world. By this way of Pentecost there came the dawning of a new day for the world: a day of new conviction and constraint.
hat then are the limits of the Pentecostal age? First of all as to Christ Himself. His resources are limitless. While He was still in the world He said: “How am I straitened.“l He can say so no longer. In Himself there is the ultimate and final and perfect revelation, and to borrow that exquisite phrase of the Old Testament, there is also “plenteous redemption.” His resources are limitless for the doing of His work.
ut Christ is limited in His Body which is the Church. If the Assembly in those early days had been absolutely perfect in its loyalty, He was still limited. He cannot win the ultimate victory but through the perfecting of His Body. He was limited, therefore, through all those ages in His Body, the Church, for which in some senses no blame is to be attached to her, nor to any; it is part of a Divine process.
n other senses, great blame is to be attached to her. He cannot reach China save through her. He cannot accomplish the purpose of His Word in Africa save through His Body. It is an appalling truth, a mystery one cannot pretend to understand, but it is God’s method. Not by angels can He preach the reconciling Word, but through His Body, the Church; and the whole process of God to final victory is halted, in some respects necessarily and properly and rightly; in many respects unnecessarily, improperly and wrongly through His Body, the Church.
hat thought naturally merges into the next-the limitations of the Pentecostal age as to the Church. Here again, we must begin as we began before-the Church’s resources are limitless.
ut the Church is limited, first, in the necessity for growth. The Church is not even until this age a perfect instrument, because. She has not grown to the measure of the stature of her fulness in Christ. That is a proper limitation. In the hurried fretfulness of our brief life we would fain hurry these things; but in calmer moments, when we rise into the consciousness of the eternity of God, we know that it is vulgarity that hurries, and so does poor work. The processes of God are necessarily slow to human thinking; but they move with absolute certainty to the ultimate goal.
he Church is limited in the Pentecostal age when she grieves the Holy Spirit, when she uenches the Spirit. These are two significant words, “Grieve”-qhaving to do with the matter of the Church’s life; “Quench’‘-having to do with the matter of the Church’s service. How often has the Church grieved the Spirit, quenched the Spirit, and so limited herself! This is the appalling thing, the thing that brings heartbreak!
s to the world, what shall we say concerning limitation? Again we begin where we have begun in each casethe world has limitless resources in Christ. There is nothing the world needs that is not found in Him. Everything needed, of social well being and political emancipation; everything that makes for the uplifting of the race is in Christ. Limitless resources are in the world’s Redeemer.
ut the world is limited in the Church’s failure. That is not the world’s fault. If there be blood-guiltiness, it is upon the Church. But finally the world is limited in its own resistance. That is the third word in the Bible marking the forms in which the work of the Spirit may he hindered. “Resist,” is a word not spoken to the Church, but to those outside. Men can resist.
here has been no lessening of the resources. It is such a commonplace thing to say, and we all agree; but does the Church really believe it? Have we not some kind of subconscious heresy in our minds that Pentecost is assed, and that Pentecostal power has weakened in the process oYthe centuries? It is not so. The resources are as limitless now as they were in the dawning of that great day. The question for our hearts should be: Is Christ limited in us? If only by the necessity of our feebleness and our growth, we need have no anxiety, because God’s processes Always seem slow. But if He is limited because we grieve or quench the Spirit, then it is necessary that judgment should begin at the House of God, We must repent, renounce, return.We need waste no time in talking about a revival in the world until there is a revival in the Church. It is when, within this mystic Assembly of the Christ, He is unlimited, allowed full sway by the indwelling Spirit, that the light will flame upon the darkness without, and the great victory will come.
s the world limited in us? If so, it is because the Christ is limited in us. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” Are we? And if not, why not? Let us leave the questions, as such, for our individual heart-searching.