THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CHRISTIANITY (2)

THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CHRISTIANITY (2)

Acts 2: 22 - 36; Acts 4: 32 - 37; Acts 5: 1 - 20

AJG What is in mind in reading certain passages from the Acts is to seek to get impressions of Christianity as it was set up at the outset, involving the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the assembly. That is, one might say, the dominating feature of the dispensation, that God Himself is here in the Spirit, but it also involves, as we remarked yesterday afternoon, that the whole position is to be characterised by the fact that Man in the Person of Jesus is in heaven. And the intention is that what was seen in Jesus, the things which He began both to do and to teach, should be now seen in the assembly here. That can easily be understood, for God’s thought is that He would dwell among men, as it is said, an habitation of God in the Spirit; that is what the assembly is at the present time, and if God is to dwell among men, it must be in conditions that are congenial to Him, it must be in men of the kind that He approves. Hence we noticed yesterday afternoon that the first chapter of the Acts has many references to Jesus as having been “taken up into heaven,” four references to His “taking up” and four references to the Holy Spirit. And here in this opening address of Peter’s after the Spirit had come, the whole burden of his address is, “This Jesus.” “Jesus, the Nazaraean,” in verse 22, and then “This Jesus,” verse 32, “has God raised up,” and then again in verse 36, “God has made him, this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” So that Christianity was established in the light of a Man of whom God has approved, who has been cast out by the world and crucified, but raised from the dead and exalted by God. And then as it says in verse 33, “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this which ye behold and hear.” That is, the Spirit has not come independently of Christ, but as given to Christ in exaltation by the Father for men, and poured out by Him. In Psalm 68: 18, it says, “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts in Man, and even for the rebellious, for the dwelling there of Jah Elohim.” I thought perhaps we might dwell a little to start with on that great fact, and then in the other passages we have read, see how the testimony as established on earth met with opposition, as we might expect, it taking the form of threatening in chapter 4, and how that was met, and how opposition only served to bind the saints more closely together. And then how the enemy seeks subtly to counteract what is of God by the introduction of evil, and how fully that was met, chapter 5 serving to bring into prominence how the Spirit of God is spoken of - the Holy Spirit, God, and the Spirit of the Lord. And then further, how the result of all that is an increase of holiness among the people, and complete oneness of accord with regard to the dealing with evil, holiness among the people being built up, so that “Of the rest,” it says, “durst no man join them.” So we have in principle the great and high wall of the heavenly city in what is built up in the souls of the saints. And then finally, we have also the first mention, I think, in the Acts, of angelic service, and the word to the apostles, to go and stand and speak in the temple to the people, “all the words of this life,” emphasising that it is life that God intends should be in evidence as His great testimony. There is the word of life in the Lord in the days of His flesh, but now it is life in the saints that is to be the great testimony.

AAT Is it not the case that in the early history of the assembly, while the work of God was going on in the saints, and the assembly was being formed, yet they had to wait for Paul’s ministry to understand that was going on?

AJG Very largely, I think. Certainly they had to wait for Paul’s ministry before the heavenly side of the truth came out, only I think what is seen is that in the power of the Holy Spirit the thing was there vitally before the truth as to it really came out, which is usually God’s way. He usually brings in a thing vitally before He gives the truth to explain what it is He has brought in. So, for example, with Nicodemus. There is no doubt that he was born anew, he is distinguished from those whom the Lord would not trust Himself to because He knew what was in man, but it says, “But there was a man,” and he came to Jesus by night, and then the Lord speaks to him about new birth. There was no doubt that Nicodemus was already born anew, but he did not know it, and the Lord was really explaining to him what had come about in himself.

MSS Would the thought of life be stressed in this address of Peter’s? Earlier in the passage read yesterday the Lord presents Himself living.

AJG The thought of life is indeed stressed, that is, the moral features of life as seen in Jesus, so that we ought to have in our minds Psalm 16 which the Spirit of Christ indited to describe the features of moral excellence of the Lord Jesus as Man here, culminating with His facing death with perfect confidence in God and saying, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, nor wilt thou give thy gracious One to see corruption, thou wilt make known to me the path of life: thy countenance is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” Peter quotes the last four verses of that Psalm in order to point out that it is such an One as that whom God has exalted by His right hand.

AAT I think you wanted to call attention to this Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth.

AJG Well, the people in Jerusalem would know well what kind of man He was, and certainly the disciples of Christ would know well what kind of man He was. It is this Jesus, crucified by the world as the expression of their contempt of that kind of man, but exalted by God’s right hand as the evidence that He is the Man in whom He delights. But now the saints are a habitation of God in the Spirit. It must be formed after that Man. He is the pattern of the order of manhood to which God can commit Himself.

HEB You have in mind that the Spirit is the power for that formation?

AJG Yes, the Spirit has in mind to bring about that formation in the saints, because it is a question of providing a dwelling for God. That is apparently the first light in which the assembly is viewed, as the house of God; but what kind of habitation does God require? The Spirit came upon Jesus in bodily form as a dove and abode upon Him, but now it is God’s thought to have a habitation among men, and to have it there as a testimony among men.

HEB One feature of the Spirit’s activities is to call attention to this Jesus, you were saying.

AJG Yes, quite so. God gave Him the Holy Spirit in exaltation. It says, “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. He has poured out this which ye behold and hear.” So that the Spirit has come upon men from Jesus glorified.

BB This Jesus is because of the dispensation of grace?

AJG I think it is stressing the Man. It is a dispensation of grace of course, but I think it is stressing the Man, what kind of man He was. So Paul in going to Corinth, where the truth of the assembly locally was to be established, says he determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is he went there with the pattern in his mind and he was determined to lay a good foundation. That is he would bring in the Man Jesus Christ, then he brought in the cross as the power by which God sets aside every other man in the souls of believers.

AAT And the Nazaraean was emphasised?

AJG Yes, quite so. It is remarkable how the apostles in their early testimony were careful to emphasise that, that He was the Nazaraean and that He had been crucified, so that believers had to come into the position of identification with a crucified Man. They had to understand that they were committing themselves to a position of outward reproach.

WH It says, “A man borne witness to by God,” in the twenty-second verse. A Person out of death in resurrection power.

AJG He was borne witness to by God by works of power and wonders and signs, but then He is additionally borne witness to by the testimony of the Spirit through the apostles in the fact that God has raised Him from the dead. That was the expression by God of His approval of Jesus and His rejection of every other man. He raised Him from among the dead. It was a selective resurrection.

JJ In this way He is brought prominently before us?

AJG Quite so, at the very outset of Christianity.

CM Is this a factor of His personality?

AJG It points especially to the moral excellence of His manhood. Hence Psalm 16 is so important, and to appreciate the various features of moral excellence that that Psalm speaks of, because that really is the foundation of the assembly as regards the order of manhood of which it is to be composed.

HLH Is it not significant that in Psalm 16, in the early part of it, reference is made to the saints that are on the earth, the excellent of the earth. Does it not suggest that the features delineated in that Psalm in regard to Jesus are to be perpetuated in the saints?

AJG I think it would.

RAE Would the fact then that the Lord Jesus received the Spirit as Man and then pours it out be to impress us with the cardinal fact in Christianity that He is the administrator of everything?

AJG Yes, I would think so, and also that the Spirit comes in in order to bring about conformity to Him in those upon whom the Spirit has come. The Spirit’s testimony, as I think we remarked yesterday, is always faithful to Christ as the One whom God has approved - the Christ. There are many antichrists but there is only one Christ. And the Spirit is also faithful to the fact that He has reached His place of exaltation by way of death, involving the setting aside of every other man. The assembly is formed on that testimony, and therefore it is to enter into our souls as a kind of spiritual fibre.

AC If we are identified with this kind of Man it will necessitate suffering?

AJG Yes, quite so.

VB Would you say in verse 36 that there is additional testimony to what God has done to Christ, made Him both Lord and Christ?

AJG Yes, the apostle brings in “Lord” first because subjection is required. It is the obedience of faith that is called for in the gospel. So that subjection is required before there can be any coming into the gain of what He is as “Christ.” Hence lordship is placed first.

AY You were stressing the point of the Man just now. Would you say it is the Spirit’s work now to bring out in the saints the features of that Man who was so pleasing to God, that these very features might mark the saints now?

AJG Yes, the things that Jesus began both to do and to teach, obviously implying that there was to be a continuance of them. We get a striking word is Isaiah 57, it says, “For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble...” and so on. That is the kind of person whom He whose name is Holy would dwell with.

AAT Another scripture saith, “Holy, ...undefiled, separated from sinners.”

AJG Such an High Priest, it says, becomes us. It shows how great the saints are, that such an High Priest is required by them.

CB And would you say that the opposition is against those features which appeared in the Lord Jesus Christ being continued in the saints?

AJG I would indeed say that. The initial testimony was that it was the One whom the world had crucified that God had exalted, and hence believers need not expect to find any acceptance in the world. If we find acceptance in the world, it is just a little challenge to us as to whether we are wholly faithful. Of course I know that there is a certain light in which believers are acceptable, as showing the features of God in goodness and compassion and so on, so that it says in chapter 5, “the people magnified them” (verse 13), so that there is a certain aspect in which saints come into favour with men simply because they do good. But on the other hand if they maintain the features of the Man whom the world has rejected, they will find themselves more in disfavour than in favour.

RS The gospel preached is in view of believers confessing the name of the Lord and coming into Christian fellowship, with an understanding that they are coming into that which stands in reproach so far as the world is concerned?

AJG Yes, but on the other hand the position of the assembly as the house of God is a very privileged one, because it is the pillar and base of the truth, as Paul says. The assembly, composed of saints indwelt by the Spirit, stands out prominently as a pillar, as a testimony to the truth of what God is.

SC So verse 36, would you say, is the present position in which the Lord stands now?

AJG Yes, it is. He is Lord and Christ.

HOE You were saying that the particular point of attack of the enemy is the taking on of the features of Christ in the saints... I was wondering whether Mary of Bethany was not an example of that in the twelfth of John? The enemy was near with his suggestion as to waste when she lavished her affection on Christ and made much of Him.

AJG Yes, she was really entirely in accord with God, for she distinguished Christ, and that is really what the title Christ means, that He is the One whom God has anointed, distinguished. And there is only one Christ, and that necessarily means the setting aside of every other, and that is what David’s brethren had to learn: that Eliab had to be rejected, and Abinadab and Shammah, and all the other four, the brethren of David, and then David is anointed. And they had to learn that, and when they had learnt this they could come in, for it says, “David was anointed in the midst of his brethren.” They had to be rejected, you might say, as men, but they could come in as his brethren once they accepted David.

HAL In Matthew 16, the Lord refers to His building, “I will build my assembly.” Is this now the answer to that?

AJG Yes, quite so. That has in mind that the assembly should stand here in the presence of the opposition. It says, “The gates of hades shall not prevail against it,” and the Rock on which He builds is just what is in the souls of the saints, that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

LBl Would you say then that the contrite and humble spirit in Isaiah 57, that you referred to, would remind us that we need to make room for the Holy Spirit?

AJG Well, I think the presence of the Holy Spirit requires it. The Holy Spirit is God Himself, and what becomes us, with God dwelling in us? Think of who God is, and what we are as His creatures, and yet He is pleased to take up His abode in the body of each believer, as well as in the assembly as a vessel, and what kind of spirit becomes us in the light of that?

LBl Would you say that the truth of what was referred to in Isaiah 57, the humble and contrite spirit, is essential that the Holy Spirit may preserve us for His service?

AJG I am sure it is. I think we have only to think of it for a moment to realise that if God Himself takes up His abode in us that is the kind of spirit that becomes us. But in addition to that it has been set out in Jesus, that is what makes the truth so powerful, that One of the Godhead should become Man and set out in manhood the kind of Man that God could take pleasure in and dwell with.

AY You were speaking just now of the assembly and hades’ gates, would that involve conflict, but the Holy Spirit is the power to carry the matter through right on to the end for God’s pleasure?

AJG Yes, quite so. There is no creature, I suppose, so powerful or so able, in a wicked sense, than Satan, but God Himself has taken up the conflict by coming in in the Holy Spirit, and then the Lord is on high too, so that there is a double range, you might say, of divine power against Satan, the Lord on high and the Spirit here.

HAL You referred to Nicodemus coming to the Lord. Would you say that He would not commit Himself to men, but God Himself has committed Himself to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit?

AJG Quite so. But that is because we have committed ourselves to Christ. The Spirit is not going to attach anything to the flesh. I think it is important to keep that in mind, the Lord is stressing this thought of the Holy Spirit and all that He is to us, but He has not come in to make anything of us or to attach to the flesh in any sense. God gives us the Holy Spirit because we have committed ourselves to Christ.

RS So that we are not even taught that we are born anew until we have received Christ.

AJG No, quite so.

RS The thing would be there, but to get everything clear it is of necessity that we come to Christ.

AJG Exactly, and they that have the Spirit, are made to feel that anything that we have or are as believers, is entirely the result of the work of God. God has had to begin entirely anew.

SC Would you say that verse 32, speaking of the apostles, comes down to our day through them? “Whereof all we are witnesses.”

AJG Well, we may and should be witnesses, but that verse is particularly apostolic. The apostles had a distinctive place in the testimony, according to what the Lord said at the end of chapter 15 of the gospel of John, “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father. He shall bear witness concerning me; and ye too bear witness, because ye are with me from the beginning.”

DLE Do we view the gift of the Holy Spirit as a blessing not understood by the world?

AJG It certainly is that, the Lord said of the Comforter, “Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him nor know him.” There is no affinity at all between the world and the Spirit, so that every believer really is a mystery and is intended to be so. There is the element of mystery belonging to Christianity which lies in the fact of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and every believer really is mysterious.

AAT You mean to the world?

AJG Yes, quite so.

DLE I was thinking of the poor woman that Elisha told to pour out the oil.

AJG That incident is brought in to show us how we are to avail ourselves of the Spirit, first as enabling us to fulfil every righteous obligation, and then as having that by which we may live. “Live thou and thy sons on the rest.”

LAC Would you say a word further as to what you mentioned earlier as to Christ having received the promise of the Father, and then having Himself poured it out. It seems to be of the greatest importance to understand the reason for the Spirit to have been given in that way.

AJG I think it is connected with Psalm 68 because it is evidently an allusion to that. God’s thought was to dwell with men; it says in verse 18 of Psalm 68, “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts in man, and even for the rebellious, for the dwelling there of Jah Elohim.” It was “in man,” or “as man,” that is, in connection with mankind; so that it was God’s thought to dwell with men, but it is men of Christ’s order that He is going to dwell with.

So that He raises from the dead the Man whom He approved and then gives Him the Holy Spirit to be shed forth upon men.

EB That is why it says, “God hath made him both Lord and Christ “? It is necessary for us to come under His lordship?

AJG Yes, indeed.

LAC Does that also throw great light on the relative positions which divine Persons have taken up?

AJG I think it does. It stresses the relatively subordinate places which the Lord and the Spirit have taken, that the Lord has come in as Man and has been set in that place of administration, and then the Spirit is received by Him from the Father and sent forth by Him. So that there is no independent action of the Persons of the Godhead.

SW Now if the blessed Lord as the exalted Man is given the Spirit, would you help us then as to the kind of service He renders as the ascended Man?

AJG As the ascended Man in contrast to the exalted Man, you mean? I do not know that there is much in that. The view of Christ as the exalted Man is that God has exalted Him, it is what God has done. The ascended Man rather stresses His own victory and His right to go up far above all heavens.

EB I was wondering if “these words” in chapter 2: 22, could be viewed in any way as connected with “the words of this life” in chapter 5.

AJG In chapter 2 Peter is calling attention to Jesus as approved of God among them by wonders and signs, as they themselves knew, crucified by men, but raised by God, but when we come to chapter 5, there is the angel who tells the apostles to refer to “this life”; the testimony begins by drawing attention to “this Jesus”; but now there is something that corresponds with Jesus in the saints that could be called “this life.” The word of life was set out in Jesus according to the first epistle of John. But now “this life” which it speaks of is what is continued in the saints, and can be called attention to.

RS Is it the same thing as, “which thing is true in him and in you”?

AJG I was thinking of that, so the life now is seen in the saints.

MC It is said of Peter that he could say, “Look on us.”

AJG Exactly. They were two outstanding men that could be called attention to, but then the testimony had spread and taken form the more by the time we come to chapter 5, so that they are not told then to call attention to themselves, but to call attention to “this life,” which I take it is what could be seen among any of the believers in Jerusalem.

HLH This address of Peter’s was intended to give light as to what really had taken place in the presence of the Holy Spirit there, it says, “That which ye now see and hear.” Something was existing and he referred to scriptures in order to give light as to it.

AJG Exactly.

HLH And so he does not only quote Psalm 16, but interprets it, as it were.

AJG Yes.

EMe In verse 37, it says, “and having heard this they were pricked in heart.” Does that show that the testimony was effective?

AJG It does indeed. But then as the book proceeds we find that there is of course opposition and in chapter 4, Peter and John are apprehended. We get in the early chapters of the Acts the verification of what the Lord said to them earlier that when they were brought before different persons or authorities that they were not to think beforehand what they would say, for the Spirit Himself would speak. So in verse 8 of chapter 4, it says, “Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them,” and we get what is similar continually, but verse 21 says that they were threatened, “they, having further threatened them, let them go,” and then, “having been let go,” verse 23, “they came to their own company,” and the company “lifted up their voice with one accord to God.” That is, the apostles resorted to their own company.

EB Is it right to say that wherever the testimony is effective there will be opposition, but it will not hinder the work of God from going on?

AJG No, exactly, the opposition, if we are with God in it, only furthers the work of God. There is nothing so assuring as that, a sense that God has the whole matter, not only of good but of evil, under His control, and will turn evil to account for further good.

HEB Is that not evidenced in the case of Saul of Tarsus? The Lord said to him from glory, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” And was it not the features in the saints which Paul was persecuting? And then He turned evil into good, Paul was struck down and became a vessel of the testimony.

AJG Exactly. It is an important matter that we are now touching on in chapter 4 as to what threatens the testimony, and all the saints taking it up in prayer, because there is much developing in the world that is threatening: not yet come out in open violence perhaps, except in a few instances, but there is much developing that is threatening and it is not only to be taken up by those who are threatened, but the whole company is to take it up with God.

AAT Are you referring to the threatening from what is outside or what is inside?

AJG Oh, from outside. Satan will also work from the inside, if he can, if anyone of us gives him a loop-hole, but it is the Trade Union movement for one thing, and other things of that nature, that one has specially in mind. There is what is very threatening in certain parts of the world, and as recognising the threat the saints should take it up in prayer with God.

RS Is there not also in it that the Lord fortifies the saints in view of what is coming. He can look ahead and even fortify us, and tell us to be quiet, that the Spirit will speak at the time when the hour comes?

AJG Quite so.

EB So we see the need to keep in touch with the current ministry, that the Lord may be able to disclose His mind to us in relation to what is coming?

AJG Yes, and to keep our ears open as to anything that is happening that affects the testimony. So that the apostles having been threatened and being let go, they went immediately to their own company, and they merge with the company, and then the whole company takes it up in prayer.

CB I was thinking of the power of speaking in connection with the setting out of the testimony. Is that confined to the apostles, or is it to be continued in us, as formed by the Spirit?

AJG It is intended that we should all be able to speak. We have the Spirit for that purpose; all may not be gifted, but all can speak. Surely we ought to be able to say something that we know and that we have.

CB I was thinking of Acts 14, it says they so spake that a multitude believed.

AJG Well, exactly, it only shows that we need to cultivate dependence on the Spirit so that our speaking may be in the Spirit.

HP “They lifted up their voice with one accord to God.” They were dependent on God.

AJG Quite so, and it has often been pointed out that what they ask for is that the Lord should just look upon their threatenings (chapter 4: 29), “and give to thy bondmen with all boldness to speak thy word, in that thou stretchest out thy hand to heal, and that signs and wonders take place through the name of thy holy servant Jesus.” So that their prayer is not to be relieved, or to be preserved even, but just that the Lord might look upon the threatenings and then give power that the testimony might continue in the grace that belongs to it.

RS You notice the difference between the prayer here and many of the prayers in the Psalms, where they were praying to God earnestly that the enemies might be destroyed, but Christianity having come in, the Spirit being here, prayer takes on a different feature, like the feature of the Man that was here, does it not?

AJG Exactly. That is a very important thing to bear in mind, for there is a great danger sometimes as the violence of men or their unreasonableness increases, that our spirits should become wrongly affected by it, but until the Lord comes the dispensation is one of pure grace towards men and we are to be kept in accord with that by the Spirit.

CBl Is that the reason why the apostle says “persevere in prayer”?

AJG Yes, quite so.

HLH The effective answer here to the threatening was the fact that they had a tangible evidence of what was going on, in the man that was healed. Do you not think that that would encourage us, that while there may be threatenings yet we can draw attention to something that is the work of God.

AJG Exactly, and that is a very important matter in the gospel preaching. You have the saints who are a support to it, and you can call upon them,

so to speak, to attest to the reality of what you are speaking about.

SC Is it not well for us to notice the spirit of the apostles when they were threatened?

AJG Exactly. “Peter and John answering said to them, if it be righteous before God to listen to you rather than to God, judge ye; for as for us we cannot refrain from speaking of the things which we have seen and heard.”

HLH Having taken that stand before those who were threatening, they now turn to God and ask for power that they may be granted boldness to speak in that name. They were threatened severely no longer to speak “in this name.”

AJG Quite so.

RAE Is the manner in which they address God here very encouraging for us in the presence of these threatenings?

AJG I think it is. We are very inclined to be afraid of men, but if we were more before God we should be less afraid of men. “Lord, thou art the God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them” - so what is man against that?

AJG Well then, from verse 32 onwards shows that the effect of threatening is just to bind the saints together more than ever. Verses 32 and 33 are very similar to the end of chapter 2, but it seems if anything to emphasise it, “The heart and soul of the multitude of those that had believed were one, and not one said that anything of what he possessed was his own, but all things were common to them: and with great power did the apostles give witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” So the testimony was to the fact of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but there was a very marked binding together of the saints as a result of their all taking up together this threat to the testimony.

WSW Would you say that verse 31 would be God’s answer to the prayer? “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness.”

AJG There is nothing like the consciousness of the presence of the Spirit to strengthen and encourage the saints. It gives a sense that God is with us.

LAC Would the protection of the saints be connected with the service of angels, and the Spirit’s service be the furtherance of the testimony in the features that you have been referring to?

AJG I think the Spirit’s service is on spiritual lines, that is in bringing forward the truth and strengthening the saints in the testimony, encouraging their hearts and binding them together in love and so on. But if it is necessary for actual intervention in a material way, I think that is given to angels to do, but they are, of course, under divine command. On the other hand it is well to bear in mind, I think, that the divine intention is not that we should be spared suffering, I mean the testimony is to go through on the principle of suffering. The Lord really is the chief sufferer. He is “The Lamb,” and according to Revelation that is a “little lamb,” that is to say, it stresses the outward weakness of the position and the suffering connected with it. But then the Lamb is now glorified, and we are to become the Lamb’s wife, and hence we must not expect that the Lord will keep us out of suffering.

CM Paul told Timothy to take his share in suffering.

AJG Quite so.

WH If any man would live godly in Christ Jesus he must suffer?

AJG Yes, suffer persecution.

VB You referred earlier in your outline to the great and high wall in connection with this. Would you say something more about that?

AJG I was referring to chapter 5. In verse 13, we read, “Of the rest durst no man join them.” That is, there was such holiness characterising the saints, that no one who had not the Holy Spirit dared attempt to join them. So that the wall, the true separation that should mark saints, was not a code of regulations, it was simply what was built up in the souls of the saints.

AAT Speaking of threatening again. Is it not so, that while the threatening may come from the outside, all that we do is to appeal to God to behold the threatening. We do not adjust the difficulties, we keep our hands off, but we can call God’s attention to it.

AJG Yes, I think so. That the Lord might give wisdom or direction as to a course that might be taken, but what they do here is to ask the Lord to behold it, as though that is all that is necessary. As it says, In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. You put the matter before Him, and the peace of God keeps your minds and hearts by Christ Jesus.

LBl Would what we have in Daniel come in here, they say to the king, “We have no need to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, ...but if not... we will not serve thy gods.”

AJG Quite so. They were just going to move forward, maintaining the truth.

LBl Would you say the high wall would prevent any who are unreal from desiring to break bread with us. The high wall should be kept up?

AJG Exactly.

AY Would you say that this is the great power,

the power of prayer, by which things are carried through, in which we are able to express our dependence upon God, and God comes in for us in order that His things may be carried through and sustained?

AJG Yes, the testimony is the great thing, the assembly is the pillar and base of the truth. The truth has been called in question ever since the serpent said to the woman, Hath God said? And then he says, Ye shall not surely die. That is, the devil’s suggestion was that God was not truthful. He was not to be relied upon, and He was withholding from man something that was good for him, and there has thus been a challenge to the truth from the very start. And that is what God is meeting, and that is what we are here for, as the pillar and base of the truth, that God should be set forth in His holiness and His love, and in righteousness practically, whatever God is in His nature and attributes is to be set forth in the assembly.

CB The wall of the city in Revelation has moral foundations.

AJG Exactly, and we see that being formed in the saints in the early chapters of the Acts.

RS So it was the work of the twelve? Paul came in later.

AJG Paul came in later in connection with the gates, I suppose. Every gate was of one pearl, but the wall of the city is connected with the names of the twelve.

WSW Would the words “great and high suggest that it would be great enough to preserve everything that was for God, and high enough to exclude everything that was evil.

AJG Yes, quite so.

MSS The appreciation of holiness would be developed in chapter 4? It refers twice to “Thy holy servant Jesus.”

AJG That is very striking, and so the effort to intimidate by threatening, having failed, Satan changes his tactics in chapter 5, and seeks to introduce corruption through the brethren, for I suppose Ananias and Sapphira were true saints, although they allowed themselves to come under the influence of evil, and to commit this terrible sin.

RS It is to be noticed with them that it was this matter of truth and lie?

AJG Yes, exactly. And evidently what prompted it is what we have in the last two verses of chapter 4, that there was one who was outstandingly devoted and who was such a comfort that the apostles named him the son of consolation, so that he acquired a reputation, rightly, and Ananias and Sapphira think that they would get a reputation but without the full measure of sacrifice. That is they would get a reputation for devotedness and they would only give a part of the price, retaining part for themselves.

WH Barnabas here was like what you have in verse 32, putting his heart and soul in the matter. Not so with Ananias and Sapphira.

AJG Quite so.

HEB Is that a feature of imitation described by the Lord in the parable in the gospels, when the blade appeared and it bore fruit, and then the tares appeared also?

AJG I would not say that, because the tares are the sons of the wicked one, the tares are definitely evil people, they are not believers at all. I do not think there is any ground for supposing that Ananias and Sapphira were not believers, although they committed this dreadful sin and were cut off.

MC Would you say too that what characterises the first man was seen in them?

AJG Yes, that is a warning to us all not to open our hearts to Satan in the slightest degree.

Peter says to Ananias, Why has Satan filled thy heart? He must have opened his heart to Satan. And so it says of Judas in John 13, “The devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him.” And then later on Satan himself enters into him. So it shows how important it is to keep our hearts more than anything that is guarded, for out of it are the issues of life.

RS It shows that in those beginnings there had been earlier trifling?

AJG Quite so. And collusion, too, between Ananias and his wife.

AAT I suppose you would emphasise that the attack at this moment is on the assembly?

AJG Yes, it is indeed.

AAT The assembly had just been established, and the enemy had no place in it, but here the attack came right in from the inside.

AJG I think if we bear in mind that the assembly is the pillar and base of the truth, that God’s name is connected with the assembly, so that His reputation publicly, if one may use that expression, is bound up with it, we can see the need for watchfulness, for Satan is always opposed to whatever God is doing; he will always be near, prowling round, so to speak, to see if there is some brother or sister through whom he can get in. Therefore the need for keeping our hearts more than anything that is guarded, and not allowing the beginning of some evil principle or suggestion, not allowing it to have place in our minds.

AAT It is strange that at the beginning of Israel’s history Achan was guilty, and in such a way that immediate action was taken.

AJG Exactly, I believe this is in a way, the counterpart to Achan’s sin, this sin of Ananias and Sapphira, because Achan coveted among other things the goodly Babylonish garment, and that is exactly what Ananias and Sapphira were coveting, they wanted a reputation among the saints, for devotedness and yet it was just what the first man wanted to adorn himself with, so that it was really Babylonish; it was man obtaining glory in the things of God, a most subtle thing, and any who serve have particularly to watch against that.

AY Would you say it is a very serious weapon that Satan is using today, the weapon of imitation? And we have to be thoroughly guarded against it.

AJG Yes, indeed. And hence the great comfort to us that the Holy Spirit Himself has come in to take up His abode in us, and the great need on our part to be sensitive as to His presence, because that is a great preservative.

LAC Would it not be very sobering to bear continually in mind that Satan has before him to use even the smallest failure to develop it into a distinct affront to the Spirit of God here?

AJG It would indeed, and hence we all have to be watchful and the great thing is to have short reckonings and not allow things to go on. The scripture says “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” so that, at any rate, by eventide you have time to review things and not carry over anything unjudged that has not been according to God, but it is not safe to allow it as long as that.

RS So that even if the element of ambition crept in on us and we were practically recognising the Spirit, He would surely make us sensitive of it, so as to judge ourselves and be recovered to the path without being publicly known?

AJG Exactly. The scripture says that if we judge ourselves then were we not judged, and Mr. Raven used to say that the Lord will never expose us if we judge ourselves. It is only because we fail to judge ourselves that He finds it necessary perhaps to expose us.

AAT But why does it say here, lie to the Holy Spirit?

AJG God was there, dwelling in His house in the Spirit. Before Him a lie is not necessarily something actually said in words, but our actions may be a lie. So it says in Ephesians, Putting away falsehood, speak everyone truth with his neighbour; so we refuse everything that is false in character. Ananias sold his possession and put aside part of the price, his wife also being privy to it; and having brought a certain part, laid it at the feet of the apostles. What he said we do not know, but evidently he conveyed the impression that they had brought the whole price, that they were surrendering the whole thing for the testimony’s sake. And so Peter says, “Why has Satan filled thy heart that thou shouldest lie to the Holy Spirit.” He is stressing the fact that the Holy Spirit is in the matter. Then later Sapphira deliberately lies in word, she says, “Yes, for so much.” And Peter says, “ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord.” We are reminded of what Paul says later, in writing to the Corinthians, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”