THE TEMPLE, THE ORACLES AND THE WITNESSES
[p. 159] THE TEMPLE, THE ORACLES AND THE WITNESSES
Luke 4: 16 - 22; Acts 2: 1 - 47.
A good many of us had the passage in the gospel of Luke under our attention this afternoon, in connection with another passage in the second chapter of the gospel of John. In the latter the Lord speaks of His body as the temple. The Lord passes by the idea of a material temple. The moment had well nigh come for God to declare that “the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands”. Then in Luke 4 we see Christ as the anointed Man, to preach the gospel to the poor. The one depends upon the other. Till the oracles of God were here in the truest sense there could not be the promulgation of what was God’s disposition toward man. In Luke 4 the Lord was making known that disposition. He was the covenant, that is, the expression of the terms on which God saw fit to be with man. He was preaching glad tidings to the poor, healing the broken hearted, preaching deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. That is what Christ was making known, and the making that known in the power of the Spirit depended on the oracles of God being here. That is, there was a point where God was, and where the mind of God was declared, and that point was Christ Himself. Christ was also the anointed Man to give movement to the truth.
My object is to point out the correspondence between what we read in Acts 2 and what took place in Luke 4, and then to dwell for a moment on the temple of God and the oracles, and the vessels that God employed to diffuse the truth; for the oracles would not otherwise have been available to men. There is another point, and that is the effect produced by the light on those who heard the truth. The effect was great at that time. It has often been said that in that day three thousand persons were converted [p. 160] by one sermon, now it takes three thousand sermons to convert one person. Things are very different now, but a great deal depended then on the reality of the temple being there. All those who composed the temple were in the sense of the Spirit’s presence. And the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, and were suitable instruments morally for the carrying out of God’s work, so that so large a number of people was converted, and we see the effect in them, an effect which we can appreciate, and which can find a correspondence in ourselves. That is, “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers”. Everybody would be prepared to admit that it was christianity of a very simple type. There was no organisation or ecclesiastical establishment, or anything of that kind at all, but the saints continuing in this simple way in the apostles’ doctrine; for they were not lawless; and in fellowship; they had a common bond; and at the same time in breaking of bread and prayers. Now one word I say first, that is, that the circumstances were entirely changed from what had been — though nothing was changed in principle. In Luke 4 Christ was Himself the anointed Man in humiliation — but in Acts 2 redemption had been accomplished, Christ was exalted, and the Holy Spirit given, and, therefore, the circumstances were greatly changed. And yet nothing was changed in principle. That is to say, in Acts 2 we still get the thought of the temple, and of the anointed vessel, with effects which were much greater than by the preaching of the Lord Himself. The Lord foresaw that. He had told the disciples that they would do greater works than He had done, and any thoughtful person can see the force of that, for the power of the Lord corresponded to His place. When He was with the Father, the works would be greater than when He was here in humiliation — and, therefore, greater works became manifest in connection with the testimony of the apostles than with the service of the Lord Himself. Christ is witnessed of in this chapter as [p. 161] exalted to the right hand of God, the starting point of all that which God had in mind to accomplish. Christ is the beginning of the creation of God, the real point of departure. It appears to me to be most important to apprehend Christ as “the beginning”. In Colossians it is said, “who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence”. Undoubtedly, had Adam continued as God made him he would have had a pre-eminence among men, for he was the beginning in a natural way, but the real moral beginning is Christ, and not only is He the beginning, but the first-born from among the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. The apostles, Peter and John, speaking to the people, told them that “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”.
The first point I touch upon is the temple, for such a testimony could not go out if the temple of God were not here. It appears to me that the preaching depended on the temple. In Israel they had but the type and shadow; hence, there was not the gospel going out. It was more a fiery law. God’s temple, although of God, was only in figure. Now we have got the reality of the temple, just as there was the reality of it in the presence of Christ Himself. The holy temple is composed of those who believe in Christ, and we get set forth in it the disposition of God toward man.
The Holy Spirit had descended where all were gathered together, not simply the apostles, in one place. The apostles did not exclusively receive the Spirit. It came upon the whole company, and the speaking with other tongues was general. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”. So that when the temple of God was really here God had a voice to every kind of people. There is a contrast to the confusion of tongues, after man proposed to build the tower of Babel. We find that overcome, in a sense, and that is [p. 162] one point connected especially with the presence of the Spirit.
But there is another point, and that is the exclusion of flesh; the Spirit sat upon each of them like cloven tongues of fire, and it was the Holy Spirit. This indicates to my mind that there was the exclusion of every working of the mind of man in regard of divine things. Man was excluded by the presence of the Spirit, and God had a voice to every nation and tongue under heaven. In the presence of the Spirit, of course, we get the oracles of God. The apostles, on their part, carried out the commission which the Lord had given them at the end of the gospel of Mark. They were to preach glad tidings. “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved”. They brought conviction home to the people, but made known that, spite of all that had taken place, the mind of God in regard to them was remission of sins; and that being baptised they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. God had that mind toward Jerusalem, and in regard to the nations upon earth. Remission of sins was to be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Peter said, “the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call”. I think the testimony which came out then is proof of the presence of the temple. I doubt if you would get the testimony if there were not the temple, God was dwelling here by the Spirit, and the oracles were here, and so we get the testimony of God coming out in the apostles — and the disposition of God toward man was revealed. That holds good today. The truth is exactly what was preached in Acts 2. God is dwelling here by the Spirit. Jew and gentile are built together for an habitation of God, and consequent upon that the oracles of God are here. The truth of God is maintained in divine power, and the mind of God is exactly what it was in the second of Acts, that is, forgiveness of sins that men may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. One may speak of forgiveness of sins in two lights, on one side as God’s mind, and on the other, as in man’s apprehension. The two are different. It is extremely important it should be in our apprehension. But man’s apprehension is not commensurate with God’s mind. In God’s mind forgiveness of sins is toward all, and what is in God’s mind is the subject of faith. We believe that which is God’s mind, but to be good in us it must come into our apprehension, and our apprehension of everything is by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is not given consequent on your apprehension, but consequent on your faith in God’s testimony, that is, of what is in His mind. Then you get the apprehension, or perhaps I might better say the appropriation to yourself of that which is in God’s mind. That must be individually, by a witness, hence we have in Hebrews 10, “Whereof the Holy Spirit also is a witness”, When we have the witness, then whatever is spoken of has become good in us. Forgiveness becomes good in us in the form of a conscience purged from dead works to serve the living God,
I have wandered a little from what I intended. The point is that the temple of God was there, and consequent on that, there was made known to the most guilty of men, in the most guilty of cities, what was God’s disposition toward men. It was made known in Christ, for the preaching was in the name of the Lord Jesus. What do you think is the greatest witness of God’s goodness towards men naturally? The sun in heaven! In spite of all the wickedness of man the sun shines. It is a kind of covenant on the part of God toward man. So Christ exalted in the virtue of redemption is the great witness and pledge of God’s mind toward man down here. “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. The testimony hangs upon the temple of God being here. As God presented Himself to men in the Person of Christ, so God is dwelling here now in the Spirit.
I want now to touch upon the witnesses. I refer to one point, that is, the witnesses did not receive the Holy Spirit exclusively. The Holy Spirit came upon the entire [p. 164] company of disciples. But there were gifts given to certain men, to the eleven, for the testimony of God, that they might be agents of God for the diffusion and scattering of the light which was there. If you read the chapter attentively you will be struck by one thing, and that is how little the witnesses said about themselves, All they said was, “Whereof we all are witnesses”. They did not attempt to commend themselves. They had been witnesses of the death and resurrection of Christ, and so they could say, “whereof we all are witnesses”. I think the witnesses that God sees fit to employ in His work are remarkable. If you go back for a moment to the prophets, the earliest prophets, as far as I know, were Amos and Hosea. They were contemporary. Amos may have been a little the earlier of the two. Who was Amos? He was not a prophet or a prophet’s son. He was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruits. He was the man taken up of God to be a prophet in the midst of Israel. That was God’s way. God passed by all the hierarchy, the priests and the levites. I go to a more striking case, that of the Lord Himself. We see the whole religious order among the Jews existing, there were the scribes and the doctors of the law, the high priests and the rulers of the temple, all those dignitaries, and yet, where was the word of God? In Joseph’s son. God passed by them all, and the word of God was by the Spirit of God in Joseph’s son. When we come to Acts 2 we get the same thing again. The system was existing. There were the priests and the rulers and the captains of the temple. They were all passed by and the word of God was with the Galilaean fishermen. And when they began to set forth the testimony of God they made nothing of themselves. They did not attempt to distinguish themselves. And yet their word was so wonderful that it could not be gainsaid. Now to come to our own time. When the word of God was to be recovered after it had been, by the unfaithfulness of man, completely obscured, how was this done? There was the whole hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, did God use [p. 165] that? Was the word of God revived in the pope or the cardinals or the body of dignitaries of that church? Nothing of the kind. It was revived through the instrumentality of an obscure monk, who was deeply exercised in regard to divine things in his own soul. It is interesting to see the instruments that God deigns to employ to carry out His work. And it is as sure as possible that when man assumes to rule in divine things God will pass him by and will find other instruments to carry out His work. It was so in Israel, and so in the time of the Lord, and in the time of Luther, the work was carried on by simple instruments, and these instruments did nothing whatever to commend themselves. What commended them was the testimony they carried. They bore witness to what nobody could have known unless it had been revealed. Their witness was to the great truth that Christ was exalted to the right hand of God. They knew that by their own knowledge. They knew He had been crucified, and had risen again, but they reported His ascension by the witness of the Holy Spirit; no one knew of His being at the right hand of God but the Holy Spirit; the same holds good today. We talk lightly about it, but we know nothing of it save by the report of the Holy Spirit — but the Holy Spirit maintains the truth of it, and so it could be said, “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”. He is that on the ground of accomplished redemption, so that God’s mind may be favourable, as it is at the present time, in regard of all men. The apostle John says, “he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world”. It is a great point to understand that God has provided a mercy-seat, a point where His mind is favourable to all men — that mercy-seat is Christ exalted, and we know of Christ exalted by the witness of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. All preaching at the present day must of necessity be by the Spirit. Witness which is worth anything is of the Spirit. The Spirit alone witnesses to the place in which God has set Christ. Well,
[p. 166] the Spirit abides, and so one can talk about the place of Christ and witness that God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all”. We get the statement in words in the epistle to Timothy, but we have a living witness, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit abides. It is the greatest privilege to apprehend that in spite of all the defection of man the temple of God abides. The oracles are here, and hence there can be a testimony of what the disposition of God is as declared in Christ, the mercy-seat. The idea of a mercy-seat is of a point where God puts Himself in communication with man. The communications that God made to Moses were from the mercy-seat, and so God has put Himself in communication with man in Christ. All is declared in Christ. Christ is the great preacher of peace, and His preaching here is in the power of the Spirit, to make known to man what is in God’s mind toward man universally.
I have spoken of the temple of God as the first principle, and of the testimony as connected with that, also of the witnesses, the Galilaean fishermen, God passing by all the great among the Jews; now I want to say a word or two in regard to that which marked those that believed.
The first thing that came about was separation. You may depend upon it that in any order of things, in which man has come into authority instead of the Spirit of God, the first demand will be for separation. The Lord stood apart from all that existed when He was here, for man was in authority in the things of God, and so now, when man is in authority in the things of God, the first demand will be for separation. Baptism was at the outset the mark of separation. Believers come into a clean place, through baptism, like Noah left the ark for a purified earth.
Now as to the things in which they continued. The first was the apostles’ doctrine; when you come into a place according to God undoubtedly you will find a [p. 167] standard and test of faith. The apostles’ doctrine was the test of everything, and they could understand the doctrine. A great many people have an idea that you can only understand doctrine through ministers or clergy. It was not so at the beginning. These people understood the apostles’ doctrine, or they could not have continued in it. The apostles were no clergy nor priests. They were simple men sent out with the testimony of God in the power of the Spirit. They were witnesses, and their doctrine was understood. People sometimes make difficulty about the understanding of Scripture. They make it to be a question of opinion. They say, ‘You have your opinion and I have mine’, But I know very well in my own mind there is such a thing as understanding the apostles’ doctrine. The difficulties in understanding lie in people. Scripture is simple to simple people. “if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself”. You may depend upon it if man’s mind were divested of prejudices and self-sufficiency and that kind of thing, if his eye were single, he would not find any difficulty in regard to the Scriptures. That is the first thing.
Then there is fellowship, which is bound to be founded on doctrine. If people have not right doctrine you cannot get such a thing as fellowship. The idea of fellowship is partnership, and partnership necessitates a bond. In business you could not have a partnership without certain articles of partnership, and they are the bond of partnership. When you come to divine things the bond of fellowship must of necessity be doctrine, and if there be not correct doctrine, it vitiates fellowship. If you ask what is the true bond of fellowship, I say it is the Lord, and you must have true and right doctrine in regard of the Lord before you can have any true fellowship.
Then we get two other things added. “Breaking of bread”, the collective privilege of calling Christ to mind, and could there be anything more important than that? We have the breaking of bread still. The Lord was known [p. 168] to the disciples in the breaking of bread, and so too in regard to us. The Lord makes Himself manifest to us in the breaking of bread. And we have another thing, and that is prayers. In that they expressed their dependence on God. They were not sufficient for themselves, they were not self-contained, of necessity they were a people dependent on God. I bring these things forward because they give us pretty much the character of early christianity. No ecclesiastical system or church dignitaries. We too have doctrine. We have now the Scriptures, and can be as much apart from ecclesiastical order and organisation as they were. Fellowship abides, because the Spirit of God is still here, and true fellowship is the fellowship of the Spirit of God. It is the fellowship of the Lord, because the Lord is our common confession. It is a good thing to keep within the region of the Spirit, then you will get the true idea of fellowship. If we were in heaven we would not exactly want fellowship, heaven is a scene in which fellowship hardly applies. It is in a world of contrariety, where are heathen and Jews and false and evil professors, that we need to be bound together in the fellowship of the Spirit. The value of fellowship is mutual support. In a business partners are support to one another. We have too the breaking of bread. We do not want clergy, or ministers, or gift for that. The breaking of bread is that in which Christ is called to mind, and we have that privilege. And we do not want gift for prayer. Prayer is not a gift. It is the expression of dependence on God, and we are not debarred from that. Thus we can continue in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers.
If we are simple, our whole body full of light, we shall find no great difficulty in following what was followed by those who were converted by the testimony of God at the beginning. You might say in that day they had all things common. That is true, but I doubt if there is spiritual power for it at the present time.