'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began
both to do and teach. 2. Until the day in which He was taken up.'--ACTS
i. 1, 2.
'And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received
all that came in unto him, 31. Preaching the kingdom of God, and
teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all
confidence, no man forbidding him.'--ACTS xxviii. 30, 31.
So begins and so ends this Book. I connect the commencement and the
close, because I think that the juxtaposition throws great light upon
the purpose of the writer, and suggests some very important lessons.
The reference to 'the former treatise' (which is, of course, the Gospel
according to Luke) implies that this Book is to be regarded as its
sequel, and the terms of the reference show the writer's own conception
of what he was going to do in his second volume. 'The former treatise
have I made ... of all that Jesus _began_ both to do and teach until
the day in which He was taken up.' Is not the natural inference that
the latter treatise will tell us what Jesus _continued_ 'to do and
teach' _after_ He was taken up? I think so. And thus the writer sets
forth at once, for those that have eyes to see, what he means to do,
and what he thinks his book is going to be about.
So, then, the name 'The Acts of the Apostles,' which is not coeval with
the book itself, is somewhat of a misnomer. Most of the Apostles are
never heard of in it. There are, at the most, only three or four of
them concerning whom anything in the book is recorded. But our first
text supplies a deeper reason for regarding that title as inadequate,
and even misleading. For, if the theme of the story be what Christ did,
then the book is, not the 'Acts of the _Apostles_,' but the 'Acts of
_Jesus Christ_' through His servants. He, and He alone, is the Actor;
and the men who appear in it are but instruments in His hands, He alone
being the mover of the pawns on the board.
That conception of the purpose of the book seems to me to have light
cast upon it by, and to explain, the singular abruptness of its
conclusion, which must strike every reader. No doubt it is quite
possible that the reason why the book ends in such a singular fashion,
planting Paul in Rome, and leaving him there, may be that the date of
its composition was that imprisonment of Paul in the Imperial City, in
a part of which, at all events, we know that Luke was his companion.
But, whilst that consideration may explain the point at which the book
stops, it does not explain the way in which it stops. The historian
lays down his pen, possibly because he had brought his narrative up to
date. But a word of conclusion explaining that it was so would have
been very natural, and its absence must have had some reason. It is
also possible that the arrival of the Apostle in the Imperial City, and
his unhindered liberty of preaching there, in the very centre of power,
the focus of intellectual life, and the hot-bed of corruption for the
known world, may have seemed to the writer an epoch which rounded off
his story. But I think that the reason for the abruptness of the
record's close is to be found in the continuity of the work of which it
tells a part. It is the unfinished record of an incomplete work. The
theme is the work of Christ through the ages, of which each successive
depository of His energies can do but a small portion, and must leave
that portion unfinished; the book does not so much end as stop. It is a
fragment, because the work of which it tells is not yet a whole.
If, then, we put these two things--the beginning and the ending of the
Acts--together, I think we get some thoughts about what Christ began to
do and teach on earth; what He continues to do and teach in heaven; and
how small and fragmentary a share in that work each individual servant
of His has. Let us look at these points briefly.
I. First, then, we have here the suggestion of what Christ began to do
and teach on earth.
Now, at first sight, the words of our text seem to be in strange and
startling contradiction to the solemn cry which rang out of the
darkness upon Calvary. Jesus said, 'It is finished!' and 'gave up the
ghost.' Luke says He 'began to do and teach.' Is there any
contradiction between the two? Certainly not. It is one thing to lay a
foundation; it is another thing to build a house. And the work of
laying the foundation must be finished before the work of building the
structure upon it can be begun. It is one thing to create a force; it
is another thing to apply it. It is one thing to compound a medicine;
it is another thing to administer it. It is one thing to unveil a
truth; it is another to unfold its successive applications, and to work
it into a belief and practice in the world. The former is the work of
Christ which was finished on earth; the latter is the work which is
continuous throughout the ages.
'He began to do and teach,' not in the sense that any should come after
Him and do, as the disciples of most great discoverers and thinkers
have had to do: namely, systematise, rectify, and complete the first
glimpses of truth which the master had given. 'He began to do and
teach,' not in the sense that after He had 'passed into the heavens'
any new truth or force can for evermore be imparted to humanity in
regard of the subjects which He taught and the energies which He
brought. But whilst thus His work is complete, His earthly work is also
initial. And we must remember that whatever distinction my text may
mean to draw between the work of Christ in the past and that in the
present and the future, it does not mean to imply that when He
'ascended up on high' He had not completed the task for which He came,
or that the world had to wait for anything more, either from Him or
from others, to eke out the imperfections of His doctrine or the
insufficiencies of His work.
Let us ever remember that the initial work of Christ on earth is
complete in so far as the revelation of God to men is concerned. There
will be no other. There is needed no other. Nothing more is possible
than what He, by His words and by His life, by His gentleness and His
grace, by His patience and His Passion, has unveiled to all men, of the
heart and character of God. The revelation is complete, and he that
professes to add anything to, or to substitute anything for, the
finished teaching of Jesus Christ concerning God, and man's relation to
God, and man's duty, destiny, and hopes, is a false teacher, and to
follow him is fatal. All that ever come after Him and say, 'Here is
something that Christ has not told you,' are thieves and robbers, 'and
the sheep will not hear them.'
In like manner that work of Christ, which in some sense is initial, is
complete as Redemption. 'This Man has offered up one sacrifice for sins
for ever.' And nothing more can He do than He has done; and nothing
more can any man or all men do than was accomplished on the Cross of
Calvary as giving a revelation, as effecting a redemption, as lodging
in the heart of humanity, and in the midst of the stream of human
history, a purifying energy, sufficient to cleanse the whole black
stream. The past work which culminated on the Cross, and was sealed as
adequate and accepted of God in the Resurrection and Ascension, needs
no supplement, and can have no continuation, world without end. And so,
whatever may be the meaning of that singular phrase, 'began to do and
teach,' it does not, in the smallest degree, conflict with the
assurance that He hath ascended up on high, 'having obtained eternal
redemption for us,' and 'having finished the work which the Father gave
Him to do.'
II. But then, secondly, we have to notice what Christ continues to do
and to teach after His Ascension.
I have already suggested that the phraseology of the first of my texts
naturally leads to the conclusion that the theme of this Book of the
Acts is the continuous work of the ascended Saviour, and that the
language is not forced by being thus interpreted is very plain to any
one who will glance even cursorily over the contents of the book
itself. For there is nothing in it more obvious and remarkable than the
way in which, at every turn in the narrative, all is referred to Jesus
Christ Himself.
For instance, to cull one or two cases in order to bring the matter
more plainly before you--When the Apostles determined to select another
Apostle to fill Judas' place, they asked Jesus Christ to show which 'of
these two Thou hast chosen.' When Peter is called upon to explain the
tongues at Pentecost he says, 'Jesus hath shed forth this which ye now
see and hear.' When the writer would tell the reason of the large first
increase to the Church, he says, 'The Lord added to the Church daily
such as should be saved.' Peter and John go into the Temple to heal the
lame man, and their words to him are, 'Do not think that our power or
holiness is any factor in your cure. The Name hath made this man
whole.' It is the Lord that appears to Paul and to Ananias, to the one
on the road to Damascus and to the other in the city. It is the Lord to
whom Peter refers Aeneas when he says, 'Jesus Christ maketh thee
whole.' It was the Lord that 'opened the heart of Lydia.' It was the
Lord that appeared to Paul in Corinth, and said to him, 'I have much
people in this city'; and again, when in the prison at Jerusalem, He
assured the Apostle that he would be carried to Rome. And so, at every
turn in the narrative, we find that Christ is presented as influencing
men's hearts, operating upon outward events, working miracles,
confirming His word, leading His servants, and prescribing for them
their paths, and all which they do is done by the hand of the Lord with
them confirming the word which they spoke. Jesus Christ is the Actor,
and He only is the Actor; men are His implements and instruments.
The same point of view is suggested by another of the characteristics
of this book, which it shares in common with all Scripture narratives,
and that is the stolid indifference with which it picks up and drops
men, according to the degree in which, for the moment, they are the
instruments of Christ's power. Supposing a man had been writing Acts of
the Apostles, do you think it would have been possible that of the
greater number of them he should not say a word, that concerning those
of whom he does speak he should deal with them as this book does,
barely mentioning the martyrdom of James, one of the four chief
Apostles; allowing Peter to slip out of the narrative after the great
meeting of the Church at Jerusalem; letting Philip disappear without a
hint of what he did thereafter; lodging Paul in Rome and leaving him
there, with no account of his subsequent work or martyrdom? Such
phenomena--and they might be largely multiplied--are only explicable
upon one hypothesis. As long as electricity streams on the carbon point
it glows and is visible, but when the current is turned to another lamp
we see no more of the bit of carbon. As long as God uses a man the man
is of interest to the writers of the Scriptures. When God uses another
one, they drop the first, and have no more care about him, because
their theme is not men and their doings, but God's doings through men.
On us, and in us, and by us, and for us, if we are His servants, Jesus
Christ is working all through the ages. He is the Lord of Providence,
He is the King of history, in His hand is the book with the seven
seals; He sends His Spirit, and where His Spirit is He is; and what His
Spirit does He does. And thus He continues to teach and to work from
His throne in the heavens.
He continues to teach, not by the communication of new truth. That is
finished. The volume of Revelation is complete. The last word of the
divine utterances hath been spoken until that final word which shall
end Time and crumble the earth. But the application of the completed
Revelation, the unfolding of all that is wrapped in germ in it; the
growing of the seed into a tree, the realisation more completely by
individuals and communities of the principles and truths which Jesus
Christ has brought us by His life and His death--that is the work that
is going on to-day, and that will go on till the end of the world. For
the old Puritan belief is true, though the modern rationalistic
mutilations of it are false, 'God hath more light yet to break
forth'--and our modern men stop there. But what the sturdy old Puritan
said was, 'more light yet to break forth from His holy Word.' Jesus
Christ teaches the ages--through the lessons of providence and the
communication of His Spirit to His Church--to understand what He gave
the world when He was here.
In like manner He works. The foundation is laid, the healing medicine
is prepared, the cleansing element is cast into the mass of humanity;
what remains is the application and appropriation, and incorporation in
conduct, of the redeeming powers that Jesus Christ has brought. And
that work is going on, and will go on, till the end.
Now these truths of our Lord's continuous activity in teaching and
working from heaven may yield us some not unimportant lessons. What a
depth and warmth and reality the thoughts give to the Christian's
relation to Jesus Christ! We have to look back to that Cross as the
foundation of all our hope. Yes! But we have to think, not only of a
Christ who did something for us long ago in the past, and there an end,
but of a Christ who to-day lives and reigns, 'to do and to teach'
according to our necessities. What a sweetness and sacredness such
thoughts impart to all external events, which we may regard as being
the operation of His love, and as moved by the hands that were nailed
to the Cross for us, and now hold the sceptre of the universe for the
blessing of mankind! What a fountain of hope they open in estimating
future probabilities of victory for truth and goodness! The forces of
good and evil in the world seem very disproportionate, but we forget
too often to take Christ into account. It is not _we_ that have to
fight against evil; at the best we are but the sword which Christ
wields, and all the power is in the hand that wields it. Great men die,
good men die; Jesus Christ is not dead. Paul was martyred: Jesus lives;
He is the anchor of our hope. We see miseries and mysteries enough, God
knows. The prospects of all good causes seem often clouded and dark.
The world has an awful power of putting drags upon all chariots that
bear blessings, and of turning to evil every good. You cannot diffuse
education, but you diffuse the taste for rubbish and something worse,
in the shape of books. No good thing but has its shadow of evil
attendant upon it. And if we had only to estimate by visible or human
forces, we might well sit down and wrap ourselves in the sackcloth of
pessimism. 'We see not yet all things put under Him'; but 'we see Jesus
crowned with glory and honour,' and the vision that cheered the first
martyr--of Christ 'standing at the right hand of God'--is the rebuke of
every fear and every gloomy anticipation for ourselves or for the world.
What a lesson of lowliness and of diligence it gives us! The jangling
church at Corinth fought about whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas was
the man to lead the Church, and the experience has been repeated over
and over again. 'Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? but ministers by whom ye
believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. Be not puffed up one
against another. Be not wise in your own conceits.' You are only a
tool, only a pawn in the hand of the Great Player. If you have
anything, it is because you get it from Him. See that you use it, and
do not boast about it. Jesus Christ is the Worker, the only Worker; the
Teacher, the only Teacher. All our wisdom is derived, all our light is
enkindled. We are but the reeds through which His breath makes music.
And 'shall the axe boast itself,' either 'against' or apart from 'Him
that heweth therewith'?
III. Lastly, we note the incompleteness of each man's share in the
great work.
As I said, the book which is to tell the story of Christ's continuous
unfinished work must stop abruptly. There is no help for it. If it was
a history of Paul it would need to be wound up to an end and a selvage
put to it, but as it is the history of Christ's working, the web is not
half finished, and the shuttle stops in the middle of a cast. The book
must be incomplete, because the work of which it is the record does not
end until 'He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to the Father, and
God shall be all in all.'
So the work of each man is but a fragment of that great work. Every man
inherits unfinished tasks from his predecessors, and leaves unfinished
tasks to his successors. It is, as it used to be in the Middle Ages,
when the hands that dug the foundations, or laid the first courses, of
some great cathedral, were dead long generations before the gilded
cross was set on the apex of the needlespire, and the glowing glass
filled in to the painted windows. Enough for us, if we lay a stone,
though it be but one stone in one of the courses of the great building.
Luke has left plenty of blank paper at the end of his second
'treatise,' on which he meant that succeeding generations should write
their partial contributions to the completed work. Dear friends, let us
see that we write our little line, as monks in their monasteries used
to keep the chronicle of the house, on which scribe after scribe toiled
at its illuminated letters with loving patience for a little while, and
then handed the pen from his dying hand to another. What does it matter
though we drop, having done but a fragment? He gathers up the fragments
into His completed work, and the imperfect services which He enabled
any of us to do will all be represented in the perfect circle of His
finished work. The Lord help us to be faithful to the power that works
in us, and to leave Him to incorporate our fragments in His mighty
whole!