_THE NEW CONVERT AND HIS HUMAN TEACHER._
"Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and
the Lord said unto him in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold,
I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go to the
street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of
Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus: for behold, he
prayeth."--ACTS ix. 10, 11.
Saul of Tarsus was converted outside the city, but the work was only
begun there. Christ would put honour upon the work of human ministry,
and therefore He directs the stricken sinner to continue his journey
and enter into Damascus, where he should be instructed in his future
course of action, though Christ Himself might have told him all that
was needful. It was much the same on the occasion of the so-called
conversion of Cornelius, the pious centurion.[38] The Lord made a
revelation to the centurion, but it was only a revelation directing
him to send for Peter who should instruct him in the way of salvation.
God instituted a human ministry that man might gain light and
knowledge by the means and assistance of his brother-man, and
therefore in both cases the Lord points the anxious inquirer to men
like themselves, who could speak to them in Christ's stead and guide
them into fuller knowledge. Why could not Christ have revealed the
whole story of His life, the full meaning of His doctrine, without
human aid or intervention, save that He wished, even in the very case
of the messenger whose call and apostleship were neither by man nor
through man, to honour the human agency which He had ordained for the
dissemination and establishment of the gospel. If immediate revelation
and the conscious presence of God and the direct work of the Spirit
could ever have absolved penitent sinners from using a human ministry
and seeking direction and help from mortals like themselves, surely it
was in the cases of Saul of Tarsus and Cornelius of Cæsarea; and yet
in both cases a very important portion of the revelation made
consisted in a simple intimation where human assistance could be
found.[39]
[38] Conversion is scarcely a fit word to apply to the Lord's
dealings with Cornelius. He had evidently been converted long
before the angelic message and Peter's preaching, else whence his
prayers and devotion? The Lord simply made by St. Peter a fuller
revelation of His will to a soul longing to know more of God.
[39] We should carefully observe, however, that there is a marked
difference between the cases of Cornelius and Saul. An angel
appeared to Cornelius, Christ Himself to Saul. St. Peter is sent
to Cornelius to instruct him in the revelation made by Christ.
That revelation was made by Christ Himself to Saul in the vision
by the way, during the three days of his blindness, and probably
during his stay in Arabia. Ananias was sent to Saul merely to
baptize him, and predict his future. "Enter into the city and
there it shall be told thee what thou shalt _do_," is our Lord's
direction to Saul. St. Paul's knowledge of Christ was neither by
man nor through man. His knowledge even about the institution of
the sacraments was by immediate revelation: see 1 Cor. xi. 23.
Saul after the vision rose up from the earth and was led by the hand
into Damascus. He was there three days without sight, wherein he
neither did eat nor drink. This period of his life and this terrible
experience is regarded by many as the time to which may be traced the
weakness of eyesight and the delicate vision under which he ever
afterwards suffered. The question has often been raised, What was St.
Paul's thorn, or rather stake, in the flesh? Various opinions have
been hazarded, but that which seems to me most likely to be true
identifies the thorn or stake with severe ophthalmia. Six substantial
reasons are brought forward by Archdeacon Farrar in defence of this
view. (1) When writing to the Galatians St. Paul implies that his
infirmity might well have made him an object of loathing to them; and
this is specially the case with ophthalmia in the East (see Gal. iv.
14). (2) This supposition again gives a deeper meaning to the
Apostle's words to these same Galatians that they would at the
beginning of their Christian career have plucked out their eyes to
place them at his service (Gal. iv. 15). (3) The term "a stake in the
flesh" is quite appropriate to the disease, which imparts to the eyes
the appearance of having been wounded by a sharp splinter. (4)
Ophthalmia of that kind might have caused epilepsy. (5) It would
explain the words "See with how large letters I have written unto you
with mine own hand," as a natural reference to the difficulties the
Apostle experienced in writing, and would account for his constant use
of amanuenses or secretaries in writing his Epistles, as noted, for
instance, in Romans xvi. 22 and implied in 1 Corinthians xvi. 21. (6)
Ophthalmia would account for St. Paul's ignorance of the person of the
high priest (Acts xxiii. 5).[40] This question has, however, been a
moot point since the days of the second century, when Irenæus of Lyons
discussed it in his great work against Heresies, book v., ch. iii.,
and Tertullian suggested that St. Paul's stake in the flesh was
simply an exaggerated head-ache or ear-ache.[41]
[40] See Tertullian's _De Pudicitia_, § 13, and compare Bishop
Lightfoot's _Galatians_, p. 183 note.
[41] See Dr. Farrar's long Excursus X., vol. i., p. 652, in his
_Life of St. Paul_, for a discussion of this question. There is a
portrait of St. Paul in Lewin's _St. Paul_, ii., 210, which shows
him as blear-eyed. It is engraved from a Roman diptych of the
fourth century. Lightfoot takes quite another view of the thorn in
his _Galatians_, pp. 183-8.
Let us now, however, turn to the more certain facts brought before us
in the words of the sacred narrative. St. Paul was led by the hand
into Damascus just as afterwards, on account, doubtless, of the same
bodily infirmity dating from this crisis, he "was sent forth to go as
far as to the sea," and then "was conducted as far as Athens" (cf.
Acts xvii. 10, 14, 15). From this time forth the kindly assistance of
friends and companions became absolutely necessary to the Apostle if
his footsteps were to be guided aright, and hence it is that he felt
solitude such as he endured at Athens a very trying time because he
had no sense of security whenever he ventured to walk abroad. He
became, in fact, a blind man striving to thread his way through the
crowded footpaths of life. The high priest's commissary must then have
drawn near to Damascus under very different circumstances from those
which fancy pictured for him a few days before. We know not by what
gate he entered the city. We only know that he made his way to the
house of Judas, where he remained for three days and three nights,
with his whole soul so wrapt up in the wonders revealed to him that he
had no thoughts for bodily wants and no sense of their demands.
The sacred narrative has been amply vindicated so far as its
topographical accuracy is concerned. Saul, as he was led by the hand,
instructed his escort to go to the house of Judas, a leading man we
may be sure among the Jews of Damascus. He dwelt in Straight Street,
and that street remains to-day, as in St. Paul's time, a thoroughfare
running in a direct line from the eastern to the western gate of the
city. Like all Oriental cities which have fallen under Turkish
dominion, Damascus no longer presents the stately, well-preserved, and
flourishing aspect which it had in Roman times; and, in keeping with
the rest of the city, Straight Street has lost a great deal of the
magnificent proportions which it once possessed. Straight Street in
St. Paul's day extended from the eastern to the western gate,
completely intersecting the city. It then was a noble thoroughfare one
hundred feet broad, divided by Corinthian colonnades into three
avenues, the central one for foot passengers, the side passages for
chariots and horses going in opposite directions. It was to a house in
this principal street in the city, the habitation of an opulent and
distinguished Jew, that the escort brought the blind emissary of the
Sanhedrin, and here they left him to await the development of God's
purposes.[42]
[42] "In the Roman age, and up to the period of the (Mahometan)
Conquest, a noble street extended in a straight line from
Bab-el-Jabyah (the West gate) to Bab Shurky (the East gate), thus
completely intersecting the city. It was divided by Corinthian
colonnades into three avenues, of which the central was for foot
passengers, and of the others one was used for chariots and
horsemen proceeding eastward, and the second for those going in
the opposite direction. I have been enabled to trace the remains
of the colonnades at various places over nearly one-third of the
length of this street. Wherever excavations are made in the line
fragments of columns are found _in situ_, at the depth, in some
places, of ten feet and more below the present surface, so great
has been the accumulation of rubbish during the course of ages.
There can scarcely be a doubt that this is 'the street called
Straight' referred to in the history of the Apostle Paul. Its
extreme length is about an English mile, and its breadth must have
exceeded 100 feet."--PORTER'S _Damascus_, p. 47.
I. Let us now consider the persons which cluster round the new
convert, and specially the agent whom Christ used in the reception of
Saul into the Church, and see what Scripture or tradition tells about
them. One man stands prominent; his name was Ananias, a common one
enough among the Jews, as the Acts of the Apostles has already shown
us, for when we have surveyed the first beginnings of sin and moral
failure in the Jerusalem Church we have found that an Ananias with
Sapphira his wife was connected therewith.[43] This Ananias of
Damascus deserves special attention, for his case reveals to us a good
deal of primitive Church history and is connected with many ancient
traditions. Let us first strive to gain all the information we can
about him from the direct statements of Scripture and the necessary or
legitimate deductions from the same. Ananias was a Christian Jew of
Damascus. He must have held a leading position in the local Christian
Assembly in that city, within five years of the Ascension, for not
only did our Lord select him as His agent or medium of communication
when dealing with the new convert, but Ananias was well acquainted, by
information derived from many persons, with the course of conduct
pursued at Jerusalem by Saul, and knew of the commission lately
intrusted to him by the high priest. Ananias was probably the head or
chief teacher of the local Christian or Nazarene synagogue. At the
same time he was also in all probability one of the original company
of Jerusalem Christians who had been scattered abroad by the first
great persecution. We are told in Acts xi. 19 that "they that were
scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen
travelled as far as Phœnicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the
word to none save only to Jews." Ananias was probably one of these
fugitives from Jerusalem who came to Damascus, and there sought refuge
from the rage of the destroyer. St. Paul himself tells us of the
character which Ananias sustained at Damascus: "He was a devout man
according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews that dwell
there" (ch. xxii. 12). It is the character given of Zacharias, and
Elisabeth, and of Simeon. Ananias was, like all the earliest
disciples, a rigid observer of the minutest particulars of Jewish
ordinances, though he and they alike rested upon Christ alone as their
hope of salvation. Further than this, the Scriptures tell us nothing
save that we can easily see from the words of the various narratives
of the conversion that Ananias was a man of that clear faith, that
deep spiritual life which enjoyed perpetual converse with the Unseen.
He was not perturbed nor dismayed when Christ revealed Himself. He
conversed calmly with the heavenly Visitor, raised his objections,
received their solution, and then departed in humble obedience to
fulfil the mission committed to him. There is a marvellous strength
and power for the man of any age who lives, as Ananias did, with a
clear vision of the eternal world constantly visible to the spiritual
eye. Life or death, things present or things to come, the world
temporal or the world spiritual, all are one to him who lives in the
light of God's countenance and walks beneath the shadow of His wing;
for he feels and knows that underneath are the everlasting Arms, and
he therefore discharges his tasks with an assured calmness, a quiet
dignity, a heavenly strength of which the tempest-tossed and feverish
children of time know nothing. Beyond these facts and these traits of
character, which we can read between the lines of Holy Scripture, we
are told nothing of Ananias.[44] But tradition has not been so
reticent. The ancient Church delighted to gather up every notice and
every story concerning the early soldiers of the Cross, and Ananias of
Damascus was not forgotten. The Martyrologies both of the Greek and
Latin Churches give us long accounts of him. They tell that he was
born in Damascus, and make him one of the seventy disciples, which is
not at all improbable. Then they describe him at one time as bishop,
at another time as a simple presbyter, of the Church at Damascus.
They relate his abundant labours at Damascus and in the neighbouring
cities, terminating with his martyrdom under a Roman prefect called
Lucian.[45] But these details, though they may lend colour to the
picture, add nothing of spiritual significance to the information
vouchsafed in Scripture.
[43] Josephus, in his _Antiquities_, xx., 23, tells us of an
Ananias, a Jewish merchant, who was instrumental in the conversion
of Helena, Queen of Adiabene. The name Ananias signifies "Pleasing
to God." Ananias was also the name of the messenger who is said to
have conveyed the pretended letter of Abgar, King of Edessa, to
Christ. See _The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles_, by R. A.
Lipsius (Leipsic, 1891), p. 274.
[44] St. Chrysostom, in his _Homilies on the Acts_, notes the
spiritual eminence of this hidden and unknown disciple. In his
nineteenth Homily he observes that when St. Philip, one of the
seven, was sent to baptize the eunuch, Christ did not appear but
merely sent an angel to the evangelist; but Christ Himself
appeared to Ananias, and opened out His whole will to him about
the future of St. Paul. His conversation with our Lord was, too,
that of one accustomed to Divine visitations and communion with
Heaven. See Massutius on the Life of St. Paul, p. 107. Massutius
was a Jesuit commentator, whose writings are often rich in
spiritual suggestiveness. He published his _Vita S. Pauli
Apostoli_ in 1633. In the first and ninth chapters of the second
book he has many acute and learned remarks upon Ananias and his
history. The calming effect upon life's fever of spiritual
religion and close converse with God is a point often dwelt upon
in Scripture. The Old Testament prophets knew this secret of a
peaceful life right well. Isaiah often sings of it, as in ch. xii.
2, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid";
in ch. xxvi. 3, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on Thee"; in ch. xxviii. 16, "He that believeth shall
not make haste"; in ch. xl. 31, "They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as
eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not
faint." Habakkuk proclaims it in ch. iii. 17: "For though the fig
tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the
labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no
meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be
no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy
in the God of my salvation." A strain which St. Paul takes up in
his Epistle to the Philippians when he bids them (ch. iv. 6), "In
nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God"; to
which he adds the promise, not that their requests shall be
answered, for that would often be very unfortunate, but the much
more consoling one, "And the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ
Jesus." How much calmer and sweeter life would be did Christ's
people thus realise their privileges as God's ancient servants
did! Ninety per cent. of life's worries and anxieties would thus
pass away for ever. Alas! how pagan nominal Christians are in this
respect!
[45] See, for both the Greek and Latin stories about Ananias,
_Acta Sanctorum_, Ed. Bolland., 25 Jan., ii., 613.
Judas, into whose house Saul was received, is another person brought
before us, upon whom a certain eternity of fame has been bestowed by
his temporary connexion with the Apostle. He must have been a man of
position and wealth among the Jews of Damascus to receive the official
representative and deputy of the high priest. It is possible that he
may have been numbered among those early trophies of St. Paul's zeal
which he won in the earliest days of his first love, when he
"confounded the Jews, proving that Jesus is Christ." Judas has been
by some identified with that Judas who was sent with St. Paul, Silas,
and Barnabas as deputies to console the Church at Antioch and restore
it to peace when distracted with debates about circumcision (ch. xv.
22).[46]
[46] Judas of Acts xv. 22 is surnamed Barsabbas, as is also Joseph
Justus of Acts i. 23. Lightfoot, _Hor. Heb._, on Acts i.,
conjectures that Judas of Acts xv. may have been the apostle of
that name and that Joseph Justus was his brother.
And now, to conclude this portion of our subject, we may add that the
traditional houses, or at least the sites of the houses, of Ananias
and Judas, together with the fountain where St. Paul was baptized,
were shown in Damascus till the seventeenth century, as Quaresmius, a
traveller of that time, tells us that he visited the Straight Street,
which is the bazaar, and saw the house of Judas, a large and
commodious building, with traces of having been once a church and then
a mosque; that he visited the place of baptism, which is not far off,
adding withal a ground plan of the house of Ananias. Dean Stanley,
however, declares that the traditional house of Judas is not in the
street called Straight at all. Let us turn aside from these details,
the mere fringes of the story, to the spiritual heart and core
thereof.[47]
[47] The seventeenth-century travellers in Palestine, Syria, and
the East often give us much valuable information. See, on the
subject of Damascus, Quaresmius, _Elucidatio Terræ Sanctæ_, t.
ii., lib. 7, Peregrinatio 6, cap. 3, with which may be compared
Radzivilus, _Peregrinatio_, p. 33, A.D. 1614. See also Conybeare
and Howson's _St. Paul_, ch. iii.
II. The conversation between Christ and Ananias next claims our
attention. Here we may note that it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
who appeared to Ananias, and when appearing makes the most tremendous
claims for Himself and allows them when made by Ananias. We are so
accustomed to the words of the narrative that we do not recognise
their bold assumptions and what they imply. The Lord calls Ananias, as
He called Samuel of old, and then receives the same answer as Samuel
gave, "Behold I am here, Lord." Ananias speaks to Jesus Christ of the
disciples, and describes them as "_Thy_ saints, who call upon _Thy_
name." He knew that prayer to Jesus Christ was practised by them and
constituted their special note or mark. Our Lord describes St. Paul
"as a chosen vessel unto _Me_, to bear _My name_ before the Gentiles
and kings, and the children of Israel, for _I_ will show him how many
things he must suffer for _My name's_ sake." While again, when Ananias
came into the house of Judas, he is so completely dominated by the
idea of Jesus Christ, His presence, His power, His mission, that his
words are, "The Lord Jesus hath sent me that thou mayest receive thy
sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." In these passages we have a
view of primitive Christianity and its doctrine as taught by Christ
Himself, by His earliest disciples, and as viewed and recorded by the
second generation of Christians, and it is all the same from whatever
point it is looked at. The earliest form of Christianity was Christ
and nothing else. The personality of Christ dominated every other
idea. There was no explaining away the historical facts of His life,
there was no watering down His supernatural actions and claims; the
Lord Jesus--and His ordinary human name was used--the Lord Jesus, whom
the Jews had known as the carpenter's son, and had rejected as the
prophet of Nazareth, and had crucified as the pretended king of
Israel, He was for Ananias of Damascus the supernatural Being who now
ruled the universe, and struck down the persecutor of His people, and
sent His messengers and apostles that they might with Divine power
heal the wounded and comfort the broken-hearted. Ananias felt no
difficulty in identifying Jesus the despised, the crucified, with the
Lord of glory who had appeared to him, upon whose name he called and
with whom he communed. Jesus Christ was not for him a dream or a
ghost, or a passing appearance, or a distinguished teacher, or a
mighty prophet, whose spirit lived with the souls of the good and
blessed of every age at rest in paradise. The Jesus of Ananias was no
inhabitant or child of earth, no matter how pure and exalted. The
Jesus of Nazareth was the Being of beings, who had a just right to
call God's people "His saints," and to describe the great work of His
messengers and ministers to be that of "bearing His name before the
Gentiles," because the Christianity of Ananias and of the earliest
Church was no poor, weak, diluted system of mere natural religion
regarding Jesus Christ as a Divine prophet, but as nothing more. It
theorised not, indeed, about the Incarnation and the modes of the
Divine existence. It was too much wrapped up in adoring the Divine
manifestations to trouble itself about such questions, which came to
the front when love waxed cold and men had time to analyse and debate.
For Ananias and for men like him it was sufficient to know that Jesus
Christ was God manifest in the flesh. For them and for the earliest
Church that one fact embodied the whole of Christianity. Jesus Christ,
the same when living in Galilee, suffering in Jerusalem, ascending
from Olivet, reigning on the right hand of the Majesty on high, or
manifesting Himself to His people, was the beginning and end of all
religion.
This is a very important point to insist upon in the present age, when
men have endeavoured to represent the religion of the primitive
Church in quite a different light, and to teach that St. Paul was the
inventor of that dogmatic system which insists upon the supreme
importance and the essential deity of the Person of Jesus Christ. St.
Luke's narrative in this passage seems to me quite decisive against
such a theory, and shows us how Christianity struck an independent
mind like that of Ananias, and how it was taught at a distant
Christian Church like Damascus within five or at most seven years
after the Ascension of Jesus Christ.[48]
[48] Massutius, _loc. cit._, has a long chapter (book ii., ch. i.)
on the date of St. Paul's conversion. See Findlay's _Epistles of
St. Paul_, pp. 5, 6, for a concise statement of the arguments
concerning it. Lewin's _Fasti Sacri_, pp. lxvi. and 253, contains
long dissertations upon this point, a simple reference to which
must suffice.
Then, again, we have in the vision granted to Ananias and the
revelation made to him a description of Christ's disciples. The
description is a twofold one, coming on the one hand from Christ, and
on the other from Ananias, and yet they both agree. Ananias describes
the religion of Christ when he says, "Lord, I have heard from many of
this man, how much evil he did to Thy saints at Jerusalem"; and then
he proceeds to identify His "saints" with those that called on
Christ's name at Damascus. We have already noted prayer to Christ as a
distinguishing feature of His people[49]; but here we find, for the
first time in the New Testament, the term "saints" applied to the
ordinary followers of Christ, though in a short time it seems to have
become the usual designation for the adherents of the crucified
Redeemer, as we shall see by a reference to Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. i. 2;
Eph. i. 1, and to numerous other passages scattered throughout the
Epistles. Our Lord Himself sanctions the use of this title, and
applies it Himself in a different shape in the fuller account of the
divine words given us by St. Paul in his speech before King Agrippa
(ch. xxvi. 18). Christ tells St. Paul of his destined work "to turn
the Gentiles from darkness to light, that they may receive an
inheritance among them which are _sanctified_ by faith that is in Me."
The followers of Christ were recognised as saints in the true sense of
the word saint--that is, as separated, dedicated, consecrated persons,
who had been made to drink into one Divine Spirit, had been made
partakers of a new life, had been admitted to a kingdom of light and a
fellowship of love, and who, by virtue of these blessings, had been
cut off from the power of Satan and the kingdom of darkness. And all
this had been and ever is to be effected "by faith that is in Christ."
Christ's saints or separated people are sanctified by faith in Christ.
Not that the bare exercise of a faculty or feeling called faith will
exercise a sanctifying influence upon human nature,--this would be
simply to make man his own sanctifier, and to usurp for his own poor
weak wretched self the work and power which belong to the Holy Ghost
alone,--but when Christ is realised as including all the parts of
God's final revelation, when no partial or limited view is taken of
Christ's work as if it were limited to the Incarnation alone, or the
Atonement alone, or the Resurrection alone, but when the diverse and
various parts and laws of His revelation are recognised as divinely
taught, and therefore as tremendously important for the soul's health.
When the Holy Ghost and His mission, and good works and their absolute
necessity, and Christ's sacraments and His other appointed means of
grace are duly honoured and reverently received, then indeed, and
then alone, faith is truly exercised in Christ, and men are not merely
separated by an external consecration, such as the Jews received at
circumcision, and which qualified even that hard-hearted and stubborn
people to be called a nation of saints; but when Christ is thus truly
and fully received by faith into the hearts and affections of His
people, they walk worthy of the high vocation called upon them. Many a
mistaken exposition has been offered of St. Paul's Epistles, and many
an effort has been made to explain away the plainest statements,
because men will apply a false meaning to the word saints which
Ananias here uses. If we first determine that the word saint could
only have been applied to a truly converted man, clothed in the robe
of Christ's imputed righteousness, elected from eternity to
everlasting salvation, and who could never finally fall away, and then
find the term so defined applied, for instance, to the Corinthian
Church as a whole, we shall come to some strange results. If truly
converted men, true saints of Christ, could be guilty of sins such as
were not named amongst the heathen, or could be drunk at the Lord's
Table, or could cherish all that long and dreary catalogue of
spiritual crimes enumerated in the Corinthian Epistles, then indeed
the words true conversion have completely changed their meaning, and
Christianity, instead of being the principle and fountain of a
regenerate life, becomes a cloak under which all kinds of
maliciousness and evil-doing may have free course and be glorified.
[49] See vol. i., pp. 338-41.
Our Lord protests beforehand unto St. Paul against such a perversion
of the gospel of free grace with which His great Apostle had all his
life to struggle. Antinomianism is as old as St. Paul's doctrine--so
very much misunderstood--of justification. Our Lord raises His voice
against it in His earliest commission to St. Paul when He sends him to
the Gentiles "to turn them from darkness to light," that is, from
moral and spiritual darkness to moral and spiritual light, and "from
the power of Satan unto God." And the New Testament often enough tells
us what is meant by "the power of Satan." It was not any mere system
of false beliefs alone, but it was a wicked, impure belief joined and
leading to a wicked and impure practice; and St. Paul's work was to
turn the Gentiles from a wicked faith, combined with a still more
wicked practice, to a life sanctified and purified and renewed after
the image of a living Christ.[50]
[50] I am referring in this passage to what we may designate the
Antinomian method of expounding First Corinthians still current in
many circles. They first determine that the word saint is always
used by St. Paul to express a truly converted man, one, therefore,
in their idea who has no need to ask pardon for sin and who never
can finally fall away. They then find this term "saints" applied
to the Corinthian Church, which must therefore have been composed
of truly converted men alone, else, they think, St. Paul would not
have called them saints. But then a difficulty arises, How about
the gross sins prevalent in that Church? Their peculiar system of
theology, however, rapidly solves this perplexing point. All the
sins of believers, past, present or to come, have been forgiven
long before they were born, therefore these gross immoralities at
Corinth were mere believer's slips, as I have heard them called. A
believer guilty of them should be sorry for them as causing scanda
to the world, but as far as final salvation is concerned he has
nothing to do with them save to assure himself of their pardon
wrought out by our Lord on the cross. Abundant instances of this
method of exposition will be found in the works of Dr. Williams,
the Nonconformist of the time of William III., founder of the
well-known library in Grafton Street, London. He had a great
controversy with the Antinomians of the day, who represented
themselves as the true champions of the doctrines of grace. They
were simply teaching the ancient Gnostic heresy that the soul can
be in communion with God while the body is all the time wallowing
in the depths of sin. Precisely the same views are now commonly
taught and called as in Williams's day, two hundred years ago,
"the Gospel." If, however, we recognise the New Testament use of
the word saints as meaning "dedicated to God, consecrated to His
service," the meaning of the First Corinthians and of the words of
Ananias is quite clear and plain, and no such immoral results
follow as the Antinomian exegesis implies, but rather the saintly
character of baptized Christians becomes the foundation of the
most practical exhortations to holiness of life.
III. Finally, we notice in this conversation, and that only very
briefly, the title given by our Lord to St. Paul, which became the
favourite designation of the Apostle of the Gentiles, especially among
the Western doctors of the ancient Church. "Go thy way," says Christ
to Ananias, "for he is a chosen vessel unto Me," or, as the Revisers
put it in the margin, translating still more literally from the
original, "for he is a vessel of election." "Vas Electionis" is the
usual title for St. Paul in St. Jerome's letters, as also in St.
Chrysostom's homilies, and it expresses a side of his character which
is prominent throughout his writings. Saul's early life was so
alienated from Christ, his career had been so completely hostile to
the gospel, his conversion had been so entirely God's work and God's
work alone, that he ever felt and ever insisted more than the other
New Testament writers on God's electing love. If we compare the
writings of St. John with those of St. Paul, we shall see how
naturally and completely they reflect in their tone the history of
their lives. St. John's life was one long continuous steady growth in
Divine knowledge. There were no great gaps or breaks in that life, and
so we find that his writings do not ignore God's electing love and
preventing grace as the source of everything good in man. "We love Him
because He first loved us" are words which show that St. John's gospel
was at bottom the same as St. Paul's. But St. John's favourite topic
is the Incarnation and its importance, and its results in purity of
heart and in a sweet consciousness of the Divine Spirit. St. Paul's
life, on the other hand, was no continuous upgrowth from youth's
earliest day to life's latest eventide. There was a great gap, a
tremendous yawning chasm separating the one portion from the other,
and Paul never could forget that it was God's choice alone which
turned the persecuting Rabbi into the Christian Apostle. His Epistles
to the Romans, Ephesians, and Galatians amply testify to the effects
of this doctrine upon his whole soul, and show that the expositors of
the early Church displayed a true instinct and gauged his character
aright when they designated him by this title, "Vas Electionis." And
yet the Apostle proved his Divine inspiration, for he held and taught
this truth in no one-sided manner. He combined the doctrine of
electing love with that of intense human free will and awful personal
responsibility. He made no effort intellectually to reconcile the two
opposite sides of truth, but, wiser than many who followed him, he
accepted both and found in them both, matter for practical guidance.
God's eternal and electing love made him humble; man's free will and
responsibility made him awfully in earnest. Two passages, drawn from
different Epistles, sufficiently explain St. Paul's view. Gal. i. 15,
16--"When it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from
my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son
in me"--are words which show how entirely St. Paul viewed himself as a
"Vas Electionis." 1 Cor. ix. 27--"I buffet my body, and bring it into
bondage, lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I
myself should be rejected"--are words showing how real and profound
was his fear of final defeat and ruin, how convinced he was that no
display of Divine grace or love assured him of his own final
perseverance. It is well that people should notice this difference
between the tone and spiritual experience of a Paul and of a John. At
times sincere Christians have been troubled because their spiritual
experience and feelings have been very different from St. Paul's. They
have limited to a large extent their own reading of Scripture to his
writings, and have not noticed the clear distinction which Scripture
makes between the tone and ideas of St. Paul and St. Peter, St. James
and St. John; and why? Just to meet this very tendency, and to show us
that spiritual experiences, feelings, temptations, must vary with the
varying circumstances of each individual. No saintly life can be taken
as a universal model or standard; and, above all, the conversion of a
persecutor and blasphemer like St. Paul is not to be taken as the
normal type of God's dealings with men, who grow up, like St. John or
like Timothy, in the paths of Divine love from their earliest
childhood.[51]
[51] It should be carefully noted that the great end of St. Paul's
election is set forth by our Lord when speaking to Ananias as "to
bear My name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of
Israel." From the very outset of Paul's Christian career his work
as the Apostle of the Gentiles is thus clearly revealed through
Ananias. I say _through_ Ananias, and not _to_ him; for I suppose
that Ananias could not himself have realised the real force and
meaning of the Divine words.
There is one common feature, however, which can be traced in all
religious lives, whether sternly and even violently ordered like
Saul's, or gently guided like St. John's. They all agree in presenting
one feature when the fresh breath of the Spirit blows upon them and
the deeper sense of life's importance first dawns upon the vision, and
that is, they are all marked by prayer. Of every sincere seeker the
Divine watcher, ever on the outlook for the signs of spiritual life,
repeats "Behold, he prayeth." Saul, we may be sure, had never
forgotten his duty in the matter of the prescribed round of Jewish
devotions; but now for the first time he rose above the level of mere
mechanical saying of prayer to spiritual communion with God in Christ;
now for the first time he prayed a Christian prayer, through Christ
and to Christ; now for the first time perhaps he learned one secret of
the spiritual life, which is this, that prayer is something wider and
nobler than mere asking. Prayer is communion of the spirit with God
reconciled in Christ Jesus. That communion is often deepest and most
comforting when enjoyed in simple silence. Saul, the converted
persecutor, could know but little yet of what to ask from Christ. But
in the revelations made in those hours of darkness and penitence and
silence, there were vouchsafed to him renewed proofs of the truths
already gained, and of the awful trials which those truths, realised
and acted out, would demand from him, "I will show him what things he
must suffer for My sake."