The grace of God here has very probably the specific meaning of the
miracle-working gift of the Holy Spirit. That is rendered probable by
the analogy of other instances recorded in the Acts of the Apostles,
such as Peter's experience at Caesarea, where all his hesitations and
reluctance were swept away when 'the Holy Ghost fell on them as on us
at the beginning, and they spake with tongues.' If so, what convinced
Barnabas that these uncircumcised Gentiles were Christians like
himself, may have been their similar possession of the visible and
audible effects of that gift of God. But the language does not compel
this interpretation; and the absence of all distinct reference to these
extraordinary powers as existing there, among the new converts at
Antioch, may be intended to mark a difference in the nature of the
evidence. At any rate, the possibly intentional generality of the
expression is significant and fairly points to an extension of the
spiritual gifts much beyond the limits of miraculous powers. There are
other ways by which the grace of God may be seen and heard, thank God!
than by speaking with tongues and working miracles; and the first
lesson of our text is that wherever that grace is made visible by its
appropriate manifestations, there we are to recognise a brother.
Augustine said, 'Where Christ is there is the Church,' and that is
true, but vague; for the question still remains, 'And where _is_
Christ?' The only satisfying answer is, Christ is wherever Christlike
men manifest a life drawn from, and kindred with, His life. And so the
true form of the dictum for practical purposes comes to be: 'Where the
grace of Christ is visible, there is the Church.'
That great truth is sinned against and denied in many ways. Most
chiefly, perhaps, by the successors in modern garb of the more Jewish
portion of that Church at Jerusalem who sent Barnabas to Antioch. They
had no objection to Gentiles entering the Church, but they must come in
by the way of circumcision; they quite believed that it was Christ who
saved, and His grace which sanctified, but they thought that His grace
would only flow in a given channel; and so do their modern
representatives, who exalt sacraments, and consequently priests, to the
same place as the Judaizers in the early Church did the rite of the old
Covenant. Such teachers have much to say about the notes of the Church,
and have elaborated a complicated system of identification by which you
may know the genuine article, and unmask impostors. The attempt is
about as wise as to try to weave a network fine enough to keep back a
stream. The water will flow through the closest meshes, and when Christ
pours out the Spirit, He is apt to do it in utter disregard of notes of
the Church, and of channels of sacramental grace.
We Congregationalists, who have no orders, no sacraments, no Apostolic
succession; who in order not to break loose from Christ and conscience
have had to break loose from 'Catholic tradition,' and have been driven
to separation by the true schismatics, who have insisted on another
bond of Church unity than union to Christ, are denied nowadays a place
in His Church.
The true answer to all that arrogant assumption and narrow pedantry
which confine the free flow of the water of life to the conduits of
sacraments and orders, and will only allow the wind that bloweth where
it listeth to make music in the pipes of their organs, is simply the
homely one which shivered a corresponding theory to atoms in the fair
open mind of Barnabas.
The Spirit of Christ at work in men's hearts, making them pure and
gentle, simple and unworldly, refining their characters, elevating
their aims, toning their whole being into accord with the music of His
life, is the true proof that men are Christians, and that communities
of such men are Churches of His. Mysterious efficacy is claimed for
Christian ordinances. Well, the question is a fair one: Is the type of
Christian character produced within these sacred limits, which we are
hopelessly outside, conspicuously higher and more manifestly Christlike
than that nourished by no sacraments, and grown not under glass, but in
the unsheltered open? Has not God set His seal on these communities to
which we belong? With many faults for which we have to be, and are,
humble before Him, we can point to the lineaments of the family
likeness, and say, 'Are they Hebrews? so are we. Are they Israelites?
so are we. Are they the seed of Abraham? so are we.'
Once get that truth wrought into men's minds, that the true test of
Christianity is the visible presence of a grace in character which is
evidently God's, and whole mountains of prejudice and error melt away.
We are just as much in danger of narrowing the Church in accordance
with our narrowness as any 'sacramentarian' of them all. We are tempted
to think that no good thing can grow up under the baleful shadow of
that tree, a sacerdotal Christianity. We are tempted to think that all
the good people are Dissenters, just as Churchmen are to think that
nobody can be a Christian who prays without a prayer-book. Our own type
of denominational character--and there is such a thing--comes to be
accepted by us as the all but exclusive ideal of a devout man; and we
have not imagination enough to conceive, nor charity enough to believe
in, the goodness which does not speak our dialect, nor see with our
eyes. Dogmatical narrowness has built as high walls as ceremonial
Christianity has reared round the fold of Christ, And the one
deliverance for us all from the transformed selfishness, which has so
much to do with shaping all these wretched narrow theories of the
Church, is to do as this man did--open our eyes with sympathetic
eagerness to see God's grace in many an unexpected place, and square
our theories with His dealings.
It used to be an axiom that there was no life in the sea beyond a
certain limit of a few hundred feet. It was learnedly and conclusively
demonstrated that pressure and absence of light, and I know not what
beside, made life at greater depths impossible. It was proved that in
such conditions creatures could not live. And then, when that was
settled, the _Challenger_ put down her dredge five miles, and brought
up healthy and good-sized living things, with eyes in their heads, from
that enormous depth. So, then, the savant had to ask, _How_ can there
be life? instead of asserting that there cannot be; and, no doubt, the
answer will be forth coming some day.
We have all been too much accustomed to set arbitrary limits to the
diffusion of the life of Christ among men. Let us rather rejoice when
we see forms of beauty, which bear the mark of His hand, drawn from
depths that we deemed waste, and thankfully confess that the bounds of
our expectation, and the framework of our institutions, do not confine
the breadth of His working, nor the sweep of His grace.