Adequate testimony then to the call of divine grace is the true ground of reception: and the peculiar antecedents of Saul brought it out in high relief. There are very different circumstances now where the world in these lands calls itself Christian. But the principle abides, though profession in an easy-going estate, where corruptions (moral, ecclesiastical, and doctrinal) abound, is as far as possible from calling on the name of the Lord in the face of opposed nature and persecution private or public. It is of the deepest moment that all for each soul should turn on that Name, the only passport which ought to be demanded as thus directly magnifying Him, the best of all safeguards against the world, the flesh, and the devil; for His name is the death-knell of all evil, whatever its varying form. To that Name the highest of earth must bow and be indebted for recognition where every tongue confesses Him Lord to the glory of God the Father; but the same Name introduces the most down-trodden slave into the fullness of grace now with living hope of heavenly and everlasting glory. And though His name solemnly summons every one that names it, to stand aloof from unrighteousness, against none here and at once does it threaten such scathing judgment as when men (no matter what their fame, credit, or pretensions) bring not the doctrine of Christ.
But the assembly, profoundly engaged to care for the common interests of that Name, looks for trustworthy testimony as to each soul that names it. This gives the fullest scope to faith and love in the saints already within, who, seeking the glory of the Lord in those that confess Him, are according to their measure reliable witnesses, whether for receiving a Saul of Tarsus, or for rejecting a Simon Magus. For if all have communion as saints in what is done, and are free, yea bound, to satisfy themselves, the evidence on which they judge practically rests with such as, enjoying the confidence of all, have love enough to ascertain the truth. The church acts on witnesses it believes. So it is shown in the striking instance before us, that we might be guided aright in our own duty, even where the outward features are as unlike as possible. But, the church being a divine institution, and not a mere voluntary society even of saints, there is a holy and wise principle which governs, or at least it ought, and will if done rightly, bringing out the Lord's glory, as in Saul's case. Active love, animated by a single eye to Christ, will see clearly and judge aright.
“And he was with them going in and going out at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord; and he was speaking and discussing with the Hellenists; but they had in hand to kill him. And when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off unto Tarsus” (ver. 2830).
Liberty was thus enjoyed whether for fellowship or for testimony. It is indeed essential to Christianity and in contrast with the law which genders bondage. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;” or as He Himself testified, “I am the door; by Me if any one enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out, and shall find pasture.” Salvation, liberty, and food are assured by His grace: and so Saul was proving at this time even in Jerusalem. What could be sweeter than to taste it for his soul, where tradition had so lately blinded his eyes, and zeal for the law led him to persecute the way of divine grace unto death, binding and delivering into prison both men and women?
But there was more than this, bold utterance in the name of the Lord, which well becomes the object of grace. If “this day is a day of good tidings,” and assuredly it is beyond all that ever dawned, how hold our peace? Not so did the four leprous men, when famine pressed the city of Samaria, and they found the deserted camp of the Syrians fall of every good thing for those that were otherwise perishing with hunger. And who in Jerusalem more than Saul, its late emissary of bonds or death for all that called on the name of the Lord, could with godly assurance proclaim His name by faith in it to strengthen the weak and release the captives, to give life to the dead and liberty to the oppressed, or (as he said in a later day) to open their eyes, that they might tarn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, receiving remission of sins and inheritance among those that are sanctified by faith in Christ? For free and bold testimony in His name is the fruit of His grace, no less than liberty for one's own soul; and in this order too. We need to be set free from every hindrance and weight and doubt and question, we need the liberty wherewith Christ sets free, before the mouth can open boldly to make known His grace and glory to others. It is not to angels that God subjected the habitable earth to come but to Christ who will give His saints to reign with Him. It is not to angels that He gives the gospel commission but to His servants who were once children of wrath even as others. How soon even Christians forgot His ways and returned to the yoke of bondage, and to fleshly successional order, the rudiments of the world, which played their fatal parts in crucifying the Lord, now to find themselves, if God be believed, set aside and condemned to death in His cross!
But Saul, as he lets us know, when called by grace to have God's Son revealed in him that he might preach Him among the Gentiles, immediately conferred not with flesh and blood, but went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Even when he did go up to Jerusalem, it was “to see (or visit) Peter,” not to take holy orders, any more than to go through a theological curriculum, for “he abode with him fifteen days,” seeing none other of the apostles save James the Lord's brother. And on this he speaks with impressive urgency, as a matter of the deepest moment for God's glory that the truth of his independent mission should be established forever and beyond question, bound up as it is with the gospel revealed by him in a fullness and height beyond all others. In Jerusalem too we see his full liberty and his bold testimony to the Lord's name. All was ordered that the truth of the gospel might continue with the Gentiles; but with the Jews also he maintains the same principle and conduct. Alas! it was ill appreciated. For on the one hand, the Gentiles have not continued in God's goodness but throughout Christendom have turned back like a dog to its own vomit; judaizing so egregiously as to give people the impression that the gospel is a sort of half-improved, half-mitigated, law, instead of being the perfect expression of God's grace in justifying ungodly sinners by the faith of Christ in virtue of His death and resurrection. On the other hand, when he turned to the Hellenists, or Greek-speaking Jews, with the loving zeal of one of themselves to impart the truth which had set himself free, seeking not theirs but them, they betrayed how little those are subject to God's law who despise and refuse His gospel, for they went about to kill him They were but Abraham's seed, not his children (John 8): if they had been his children, they would have done the works of Abraham. They had really the devil for their father, a murderer and a liar from the beginning; and his works they did.
It is needless to dwell on the error whether of old MS. or of ancient version, which makes the apostle speak and dispute at this early day with the “Greeks” in Jerusalem. In fact it was with the same class which furnished “the seven” who had been set over the daily ministration; of whom Stephen and Philip had been so highly honored also in the word. Saul was drawn out the more toward them, as being himself a Hellenist, and one who had not only consented to Stephen's death, but had been the prime and most energetic leader in the persecution that followed. Now he himself is exposed to their deadly hatred; “and when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off to Tarsus.” It seems clear that this was not C. Philippi, but rather the seat of the Roman governor, whence he readily went by sea. Nor is Gal. 1:21 any real difficulty; for it only intimates that he then came to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, which was easy by ship; and the following verse intimates that he was still unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ.
“The assembly then, throughout the whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria, had peace, being edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, was multiplied” (ver. 31).
There seems no good ground to make this verse the concluding sentence of the paragraph, as the state of the church throughout these districts is not meant to be connected with Saul one way or another, It is rather, while attending to their past trial, an introduction to the account of Peter's visit which immediately succeeds, and it can thereon well stand by itself.
NOTE.
A reformer who seemingly never saw the unity of the assembly in a city &c. (the uniform fact observable in God's word, and the habitual practice of all saints who really in faith hold the assembly to be one) has availed himself of the better reading in this verse to defend what is indefensible. What ground does he take then? Scouting any such unity of action in a city, he upholds the independent action of a single meeting, when avowedly acting for itself, and expressly not pretending to bind others at the time. The statement is as far from fact as the deduction from the critical reading is illegitimate and valueless. For it was perfectly open for any meeting if it had a positive duty, and absence of previous bias which must destroy confidence, to propose what it, after careful examination before God, judged to be due to truth and righteousness among all the saints gathered to the Lord's name in the city. Had this been done in godly order about a matter of fundamental moment and their special duty, it would have fairly and holily tested all in unity and left those who were assured that the course proposed was of God to decide together as one, such as could not in conscience join in it going without and being declared so after loving remonstrance. But those meeting at Nymphas (Col. 4:15) were not entitled, if we bow to the word, to bind all the gathered saints in Laodicea. The assembly of Laodiceans, (ver. 16) must join in the decision of the Lord to give it validity everywhere. It is to the assembly in a place that He attaches His promise. It the matter in question were in no way of deep and urgent importance, to press it when it was known that very many godly men differed could only spring from the desire for division; for seasonable and satisfactory measure short of this could readily have been taken, had the honest wish prevailed to heal rather than divide. Had there been a momentous question demanding its solution in proper sphere and after a scriptural fashion, “without partiality and without hypocrisy,” why avoid or abandon the due proposal to all? Be it known that as a fact all were then together, and there was no break up whatever, till afterward through the attempt, to force on all, similar independency, or the acceptance of what was only a single meeting's decision for itself in a city where were many others. If will and haste and influence had not misguided, there was nothing to hinder the only order ever allowed to be divine, united action among all the saints in a city gathered to Christ's name. Beyond controversy united action in the city was being carried out at that very moment about every other assembly matter, why was it not dune about that on which hung issues so serious for the Lord's name, so heart-breaking for all the gathered saints on earth? Let those who believe that order to be of God, and would have a good conscience, search and see why them only they departed from it. The defense of the departure from truth and even common consistency comes naturally, but from one who abjures the unity, which nevertheless governs what in his present position he must own and does walk with now as before. One is thankful to add that such special pleading does not satisfy but repel and pain intelligent brethren, even those whose practical independency it seeks to support. Our reformer sees that on these principles they are involved in “invincible contradiction.” I admire more those who condemn themselves rather than give up the truth; yet, how can they go on as they are? Nor is this all. For notoriously they did try over and over what was already tried and decided elsewhere. And it is quite true that there is “no unity within.” Never was there grosser confusion, never mere shameless trampling on divine principle. For both a single meeting decided for itself only; and many of the others tried the case over again, both in town and in country. For those who did so, for all going with it, was it not the destruction of practical unity? Unquestionably in my judgment.
Is it not a strange, not to say disgraceful thing, in a time of crisis like the present, to find laborers in France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and America, yea, in Great Britain, asserting this notion of the competency of one meeting in a city to decide for all, so as to destroy common action as a constant duty there? Yet all the while these brethren abide in fellowship with what they in heart reject as a mere tradition, while the more trusted chiefs and the mass of saints accept it as of God. It would seem more upright for such innovators to retire, neither demoralizing their own consciences nor destroying united testimony in the truth which recent circumstances have shown to be so important. They are in this really at one with Loose-Brethrenism, their natural home. To denounce what they are actually walking with is not to the honor of the Lord, of their brethren, or of themselves. And why was it put to, yea, forced on, the assemblies as the general rule all over the land, and here and there over the earth? No doubt it was “a false step” in total opposition to all our usual practice and all that Scripture attests. Every unbiased man of spiritual or even honest judgment must allow that the beat and exigency of forming a party can alone account for this and other errors, especially the demand that “individuals” even should accept what is thus really made a test. It is in vain to say that the foundation of the church was in danger. It was the pettiest sectarianism, as ever, more jealous of its own will and honor than of Christ's glory. Even Popery would scarcely descend so low as to scatter confusion everywhere for a local breach where the doctrine of Christ was not concerned but at most discipline. Every cue acquainted with facts and adhering to unity, as we have all professed and practiced, must allow that a decision avowedly of a single meeting, and not even proposed for the acceptance of the rest of the gathered saints in the same city, is ecclesiastically false; and that the word and Spirit of God call for its rejection, not its acceptance.
But the critical reading entirely falls in with other scriptural truths. Had it been “the assembly in [ἐν] Judea and Galilee and Samaria,” there would be some appearance of a dilemma; and the adversaries of unity might urge that consistency demands a central meeting for the saints therein to have joint action. But as it is, there is no shadow of a plea for a result so absurd. The right reading does not touch and therefore cannot weaken all the saints in a city taking common action as God's assembly in that place. The assembly throughout [κατὰ] the whole of Judaea &c. definitely by the preposition points to a wholly different fact which has nothing to do with the assembly in a city and its responsible unity. We are simply told here of the peace and progress of the church all over these districts. No scholar ought to confound phraseology so palpably distinct; no believer intelligent in the word could mistake the different truths conveyed, or dare to employ one to neutralize another. “The church” is often introduced in the most general form without any preposition either to restrict or generalize; what would be thought of the argument from an unrestricted phrase that consistency would demand a central meeting for all the gathered saints on earth? It is not really sounder logic so to reason from the verse in question. Nobody believes that Scripture calls for united action beyond (at the most) the limits of a city. It attaches strictly to the assembly in a place: the mere English reader if he adhere to scripture, even if ignorant of one word of Greek, ought to have been preserved from this strange confusion, and real fighting against the truth, as well as obvious antagonism to the prevalent order of his own party. For the Authorized and Revised Versions agree in giving “throughout,” as the true force of the preposition here peculiarly employed; and so all exact translations. But even if any were so loose as to say “in,” no man of sound mind and adequate learning could attach the least importance to it as bearing on working local unity, which is implied in the preposition iv as used in this connection.
It has elsewhere been simply shown that the effort to limit “gathered together into one place” into four walls or a circular building is mere inattention to scriptural usage, which perfectly admits of all the gathered saints meeting here and there in a city: the sole foundation for the unbelieving slur that in that case the assembly never assembles, and practically never exists.