Thus, first and last, from beginning unto everlasting, for all trials, temptations, times, and circumstances, the strength and victory of the believer is in trust in God, who so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, and commends His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. We, seeing that He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, are assured that with Him He will freely give us all things. Thus the cross of Christ is not only the cause, but the power, of our separation from the world, for we see in it the measure and power of the love of Him who met thus our need and us as sinners, and for His own love's sake brought us to Himself, that we might dwell with Him forever; therefore we praise Him forever, and wait upon His name.
In Acts 11 is seen the first deliberate opposition to the work of God from within the church; the spirit of evil, using the party of the circumcision for the purpose, who were believers, but not walking according to the Spirit. It is such instruments the devil delights to employ. They are sincere; what they do has a commendable appearance; they are utterly helpless for good, being cut off by self-will and unbelief from the only source of spiritual power, and therefore, but for the sovereign grace of God, would, like the herd of swine possessed by the demons, rush madly to destruction, with all that follow them. Hitherto the assembly had endured persecution from without, now it is opposition from within, but whether it be Saul persecuting outside in vehement rage, or the party of the circumcision within opposing the liberty of Christ, through slavish fear and timorous unbelief, it is the same flesh in each, and the same evil spirit working in it. On this first occasion, however, the intention of Satan is frustrated by the wise answer of Peter, and the ingenuousness of the believers; for he shows that all he did was by the positive command of the Lord and the guidance of the Spirit, that God had first acknowledged the Gentiles in giving them the Holy Ghost, and he could but allow them likewise: and when the brethren heard these things, faith revives, they refused to put forth their hand to do the bidding of the adversary (1 Sam. 22:11-1711Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests that were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king. 12And Saul said, Hear now, thou son of Ahitub. And he answered, Here I am, my lord. 13And Saul said unto him, Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread, and a sword, and hast inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as at this day? 14Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son in law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honorable in thine house? 15Did I then begin to inquire of God for him? be it far from me: let not the king impute any thing unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father: for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more. 16And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou, and all thy father's house. 17And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the Lord; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not show it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord. (1 Samuel 22:11‑17)), but held their peace, and glorified God (Acts 11:1818When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. (Acts 11:18)). On the second occasion, for a moment, as it were, the scene shifts from Jerusalem to Antioch, for so powerfully had the old leaven worked in the assembly at Jerusalem, that its influence spread as far as Antioch, and in a more corrupt form than before, for now it is not only that a Gentile is unclean, but that God cannot cleanse him unless he be made a Jew (Acts 15:11And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. (Acts 15:1)). But the flood of evil is met by those able by the Spirit to stem the tide, and is rolled back from whence it came, and once more Jerusalem is the place of strife. Here Peter and James take the work out of the hands of Barnabas and Paul, but are not so able for the conflict; for whereas on the former occasion Peter took God's side, now he simply refuses to take the enemy's, for, leaving the yoke upon the neck of the Jewish believer, he exhorts them only not to put it on the Gentile.
James does not even reach thus far, for, like Peter, not seeing the true distinct standing of the church, outside everything earthly, and seated in heavenly places in Christ, he does not even stand aside, and let God work unhindered, but must needs put a little obstacle in the path, no great burden, as it were a pebble only, but enough for some to stumble over. Necessary things, doubtless, but laid upon a neck not made to bear a yoke. Thus the thin end of the wedge of law is introduced, which, if driven home, would separate from grace, and the first blow struck at the distinctively priestly place of the Jewish remnant of faith added to the church as law administrators, not as law keepers, a first success, followed up with such energy by the great enemy of souls, that we find Paul alone standing in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free, Peter,, James, Barnabas, and the rest of the Jews playing a dissembling part, which, if persevered is, was equivalent to Betting aside the grace of God, and saying that Christ had died for nothing (Gal. 2:11- 2111But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 12For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. 13And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. 14But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? 15We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 17But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. 18For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Galatians 2:11‑21)). An evidence of how the poison had begun to work is seen in the chapter before us (Acts 15:3636And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. (Acts 15:36)), in the dissension which arose between Paul and Barnabas respecting Mark. From this point Peter, Barnabas, and Mark drop altogether out of the history of the church as given in the Acts. Paul and the Gentile disciples almost entirely occupy the theater of action, the spirit of legality and Judaism having, as it were, cut them off from service: for what at the first, by the gracious action of the Spirit of God, the assembly at Jerusalem refuse to listen to (Acts 11:33Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. (Acts 11:3)), but hold their peace, and glorify God (Acts 11:1818When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. (Acts 11:18)), they now give ear to (Acts 15:5, 7, 135But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. (Acts 15:5)
7And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. (Acts 15:7)
13And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: (Acts 15:13)); the result being that even the apostles are cut off from the truth (Gal. 2:11-2111But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 12For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. 13And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. 14But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? 15We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 17But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. 18For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Galatians 2:11‑21); 1 Sam. 22:1818And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. (1 Samuel 22:18)). The third and last occasion on which the evil crops up in the church is when Paul for the last time, recorded in Acts, arrives at Jerusalem, where, having related to James and all the elders the things which God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry, they, unheeding the leadings of the Spirit of God, tell Paul of the many myriads of the Jews who believe that they were all zealous of the law, and desire him to show that he also kept it.
But notwithstanding that Paul obeyed the desire of James and all the elders of the assembly at Jerusalem, yet, listening to the calumnious reports of the circumcision, the remnant of faith from among the Jews allow themselves to be led into the snare so artfully laid for them by the great enemy of souls, and from that time scripture records no instance of the conversion of a Jew, and history declares the fact that the gospel of God's grace has no more determined opposer than the Jew, that prejudice and unbelief have effectually cut him off from that which was ordained for his salvation, and refusing, in pride and hardness of heart, to bow to the lowly Nazarene who came, manifesting grace and truth, the perfect revelation of the mind, and nature, and being of God, and choosing rather the lofty things of flesh and sense, has been hardened and blinded in his unbelief, being left a monument of the terrible and righteous judgment of God, a mark for the finger of scorn, a hissing, and a reproach among all nations; while the younger son, who had been as a stranger, and afar off, starving amidst the unclean, is brought into the Father's house, where there is feasting and music, merriment and dancing.
Acts 16 shows us that the Lord's time has arrived for a further extension of the work of evangelization, and upon hitherto altogether untrodden ground, even among the intellectual and educated people of Greece. Barnabas and Mark would have proved hindrances, doubtless, from Jewish prejudices, to the work, stumble at the outset, and are shut out altogether from the work of God then proceeding. In their place the Spirit of God raises up two instruments fit for the work, prepared to follow fully wherever He should guide, though the path should take them outside the sympathies and cooperation of all, however dear: for this Paul and Silas were alone prepared in the condition of their souls, though quite unaware of the service to which the Holy Spirit was then calling them. How strongly this shows us the necessity of keeping our souls waiting upon the Lord, and instead of blindly running hither and thither, perhaps carried away by the ardor of natural affection to run after our relatives, or through prejudice withholding our hand from the appointed work, as Barnabas and Mark, seeing to it that our souls are in such a state of obedience, faith, and communion, watching the eye and hand of the Master, be that, like Paul and Silas, we may be ready to go forth unhesitatingly whenever He calls, confident that He will guide us according to His will.
The Lord now brings another hand to the work, fitted by natural circumstances for the line it was then taking—Timothy, whose mother was a believing Jewess? but his father a Greek. He goes forth with Paul and Silas, and following the guidance of the Spirit, which was contrary to their intention and natural inclination, they pass from Asia into Greece. Whatever may have been their fear in announcing the glad tidings among the Jews, as shown in the circumcision of Timothy, how great must have been their trembling in venturing upon this unknown track; but faith always goes with a surrendered life, so that nothing comes amiss—surrendered because its trust is in God who raises the dead.
Soon they reach Philippi, and there the Lord shows that they are in His way, and His hand is with them; so Lydia's hungry soul is opened, and filled with the bread of life: the slave, famishing under the power of the devil, is delivered into that for which she cried. The gaoler at death's door, starved in the ignorance of nature, is fed with Salvation by faith in Christ, though it took the shattering of every earthly barrier to do it. But system soon becomes aware of the presence of the heavenly Man in His body, the church, for having come to Thessalonica, Paul reasons in the synagogue three sabbaths, which results in the deliverance of a multitude of starving souls into a place of plenty. Here, for the first time, the adversary, Satan, working by the earthly system, brings a new weapon against the church, even the civil authorities, bringing political prejudices to bear: but God delivers His servants, and the Holy Spirit sends them away to Berea, from whence Paul is sent to Athens, and here for a time the work of God goes on altogether unhindered by the enemy.
Note here, that for the first time in the history of the church the apostles stand their ground. Up to the end of Acts 14 those who witnessed for Christ kept up one continued flight from city to city; this was evidently not because they were afraid to die, but because the Jewish system from which they fled was still outwardly the owned thing of God, and under responsibility to Him, and also because the Spirit of Christ would not bring the Jews, as a nation and system, into such mortal conflict with Himself in His church, as to cut them off entirely from the gospel, by raising an insuperable barrier of prejudice. Passing to Acts 16:1-81Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek: 2Which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. 3Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek. 4And as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. 5And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily. 6Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, 7After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. 8And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. (Acts 16:1‑8), Paul, the acting member of the body, is still seen using every endeavor to avoid a collision with the Jewish system, and is warned by the Spirit of Jesus not to preach the word in Asia or Bithynia, doubtless because of the excited state of the Jews there (Acts 21:2727And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, (Acts 21:27)), but at Troas his aid is solicited for the Lord's people shut up among the heathen Greeks of Macedonia; and now the witnesses of Christ go out, not to fly from, but to fight against, the world rulers of this present darkness: so that, though the magistrates rend off their clothes, beat them with many stripes, thrust them into an inner prison, and make their feet fast in the stocks, yet, by their spiritual weapons of faith, and prayer, and praise, the earth quakes, the foundations of the prison shake, all the doors are opened, and the bonds of all loosed; the keeper, who was the real prisoner, is set at liberty, and the apostles march in triumph out of prison, and out of the city, while their opposers, as it were, sue for mercy at their feet.
At Thessalonica the apostles come again into contact with the earthly professing thing, for the unbelieving Jews, stirred up to jealousy, treacherously seek to destroy them by means of the heathen rulers and magistrates: but no sooner does the religious foe appear upon the scene, than Paul and Silas immediately flee to another city (Berea), being sent away by the church. At Berea the same events take place. At length Paul comes to Athens and Corinth, cities of Achaia, where for a season the work of God proceeds without opposition. At Athens it deals prominently with Gentiles, declaring facts from God, and their consequent responsibility as His creatures: but when at Corinth the Lord by Paul seeks to bring the Jews into submission, and the acknowledgment of his claims, they only oppose themselves, and speak injuriously, their right to any further consideration is declared forfeited, though grace lingers over them, and leaves them not, so long as they are left. This step of judicially giving up the Jew, and going forth to the Gentile, was not taken without much anguish on the part of Paul, as we may judge from 1 Cor. 2:33And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. (1 Corinthians 2:3); doubtless it was in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, but he had the sympathies and presence and comfort of his Lord amidst it all, for even as the sufferings of the Christ abounded towards them, so through the Christ did encouragement also abound. The church now stands forth in all its distinct character and separateness from every earthly thing—Jew or Gentile, religious or political.
Paul felt the momentous importance of the occasion, and much would he need to be comforted by the Lord's visit to him in a vision of the night, saying, “I am with thee;.... I have much people in this city;” thus showing that so long as He had a work for Paul to do, none could injure him, or frustrate His own purpose: and so has it been throughout the whole history of the church, and will be, until it be taken out of the way—an earthen vessel, but the power of God; afflicted, but not straitened; no apparent issue, but the way not entirely shut up; persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed: her confidence through it all being the same as her Lord's, that there are twelve hours in the day, and if walking in the light of His will, none can injure or stumble her. The Lord, in this vision to Paul, reveals Himself in two aspects—as the exalted One, able to succor and deliver in every time of need, and as Jesus, the rejected One, in His people, still despised and persecuted. His people in Him in the glory, and He in His people under reproach. But after the word of God had been taught among them a year and six months, the deadly enmity of the Jews is aroused by the power of God displayed in the church, plainly perceiving that, if suffered to continue, they must surely be supplanted, and brought to naught, consequently, with one consent they rise against Paul, actuated, it would seem, by a fleshly zeal for the law, and perceiving him to be depositary of that which was about to supersede it.
On this occasion all the plans and powers of the adversary are brought to a focus in order to crush the truth; never had the peril been so imminent, and since the death of Stephen, the church, in him to whom the truth regarding it was committed, had never been so nearly gripped by its deadliest foe. Peter had been imprisoned by Herod from motives of policy; Paul had been stoned at Lystra, through the blind fury of the heathen multitude, but on this occasion the Jew and the church of God stand face to face, and demand that justice, occupying the judgment seat between them, shall decide which of the two is teaching the lawful way to worship God. But Gallio will not take cognizance of the case, and thus standing immovable between them, allows the church to escape; and the Greeks, stirred by a sense of the malevolence of the Jews, beat the ruler of the synagogue before the judgment seat. Thus mere human justice, though inert and oblivious, convicts the Jews of murderous malice, and though, as a rule, a convenient tool wielded by Satan at his will, is here used of God to confound all his plans, and display His own power and glory, and fulfill His will.
At Corinth the Lord brings another kind of instrument to the work, not the bold proclaimed of the truth, the public preacher of the glad tidings, as Paul, nor the spiritual gifts and worker of miracles, as Peter or Stephen, but the quiet, homely, ministry of Christ in the household of Aquila and Priscilla brought out by the power of God from Rome, in order that Paul might find a place of rest amid the turmoil of the tumultuous scene around him; and not alone for this, but also that they might carry on the work of God, while Paul, urged by his ardent desire for the honor of Christ and the salvation of his brethren, was wandering in the wilderness of Judah—Caesarea, Jerusalem, Antioch, Galatia, and Phrygia. His desire in Christ is prophetically expressed in Psa. 63. He thirsted and longed to see the power and glory of God manifested amidst the Jewish nation, who were as a dry and weary land without water, as it was in the church, the sanctuary; and though he should not see this, yet, because he counted the loving kindness of God better than life, his lips, his hand, his soul, his mouth, should praise, and bless, and be satisfied. While Paul is thus engaged, system, in its most dangerous form, is brought into contact with the church—first, in the case of the Jewish synagogue at Ephesus, who receive the word with all readiness of mind, but do not permit it to have its due weight and authority over their hearts and conscience, for they still remained where they were and as they were. Their conduct seemed fair and plausible; but if in this condition they had been permitted to have fellowship with the church, a principle would have been allowed bringing in ruin: therefore Paul, acting in the Spirit, did not remain, but bids them farewell, leaving the word to work; the second occasion is in the case of Apollos, who is an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures, instructed in the way of the Lord, speaking and teaching exactly the things concerning Jesus, but knowing only the baptism of John, therefore, as to his own conscience, but an upholder of system after all. Not knowing Christ as Head, but a follower of Saul, Aquila and Priscilla, being in the way of the Lord, take him to them, and unfold the way of God more exactly, thereby defeating the schemes of the enemy, who would have brought Apollos into the ministry of the word in his uninstructed state, thus introducing an element of confusion and schism into the church.
When Paul returns again to Ephesus, he discovers a third source of danger to the church in the disciples, twelve in number, received apparently in fellowship[?], but who had been baptized only into John's baptism. He immediately rectifies the error by causing them to be baptized to the name of the Lord Jesus, and to receive the Holy Ghost. In each of the three cases above noticed, however near to the ground of truth they might have appeared to men, and however plausibly they might have claimed fellowship with the church on their own footing, yet in fact they were on ground altogether apart from the truth, and were the choicest supporters of system, though covered up, and gone to sleep. But so easily and completely were they brought under the power of the word, that men would have thought every Jew might have been converted in the same way—that the church had the whole Jewish system in its power, and doubtless, in a measure, it might, by outwardly conforming itself to Jewish usages, and permitting an intellectual acknowledgment of the truth to be sufficient warranty for fellowship, have occupied the place of the Jewish system, but God's time had not arrived to cut off the earthly man, and the heavenly One had to keep the fugitive's place on earth; therefore the church, by an unlawful act, and one which it could scarcely take without some prickings of conscience, shows what it could have done had it chosen. For instance, before preaching the word in the synagogue at Ephesus, Paul shaves his head, having taken a vow, and the Jews, seeing this sign of obedience to the law, unlawful for Paul as member of the body of Christ, receive the word readily, though apparently with unexercised consciences, the prejudices of system in them being lulled to sleep.
So also in the case of Apollos, having received the baptism of John, his mind was disabused of all prejudice, and receives the revelation of the way of God immediately it is communicated to him. The twelve disciples who had been baptized into John’s baptism are likewise effectually cut off from all part in the Jewish system, and brought into the full privileges and powers of the church of God. And now that the covering of the nakedness of the earthly thing, even the man of faith, is cut off from it, its deformity is plainly seen, and this in direct contrast with the beauty and glory manifested in the church. For while the unbelieving Jews can only speak evil of the way by the mouth of Paul, all, both Jews and Greeks, who inhabited Asia heard the word of the Lord; and when by the hands of Paul great miracles were wrought, diseases healed, and wicked spirits sent out, the Jews, endeavoring to do the same, and they sons of the high priest, are leaped upon by the wicked spirits, mastered, prevailed against, and compelled to flee out of that house naked and wounded; and, lastly, while the books of charms are burned, to the value of fifty thousand pieces of silver, the word of the Lord with might increased and prevailed. [To some statements exception might be justly taken; but I leave them for others to judge. Ed.]