Acts 15:30-35

Chapter 51

Prayer

Almighty God, we are thine in Christ Jesus by an everlasting covenant. The law is dead, and has no charge against us in Christ Jesus thy Son. We do not live under the law, for all the law is fulfilled in one word the sacred word love. Show us how great is thy mercy in Christ. We do not bear burdens, or carry heavy yokes; we are not dragged back as by bit and bridle; nor hast thou set over us a watch, as if we were hirelings in thy field; we are saved by grace; we are redeemed by blood; we live no longer in the letter only, but in the life and breadth and liberty of the spirit. We are crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live; yet not we, but Christ liveth in us. Lo, now we walk before God as children of his love, called by his grace, sanctified by his Spirit; bearing upon our hearts the circumcision of adoption, we are free men, made free by the truth, and therefore made free indeed. May we not use our liberty as a cloak of licentiousness. May we know the meaning of liberty in Christ, that it is the liberty for the branch to abide in the Vine, and for all the lesser lights to revolve around the central Flame. May we know that we are the slaves of Christ, bondmen to him, having a joyous sense of bondage, a realization of captivity of mind, which amounts to thankfulness and rapture. Show us the wonders of the Gospel. We have tarried too long outside, beholding the wondrous provision as related in letters and books. In it we would, by the right of a common life, crowd all thyself, and in tender, loving sympathy with Christ would enter into the sanctuary of the Gospel, into the very Holy of Holies, and by the spirit of a new man would see and realize in happy consciousness and experience the infinite grace and tender love of God. Call us every day to some higher heights, where the dew is fresher, where the light is purer, where the air is healthier, and may our life be a continual ascension, so that, in the last moment, there may be no sense of violent separation, but a passing, as one hour melts into another, until the meridian shine in cloudless light. Few and evil are our days, full of sin and tumult, troubled with strange wonders, vexed by a thousand plans and schemes. We torture ourselves by day, and by night we spoil the sleep that should call back our youth, because of anxiety and fear. And our breath is in our nostrils, we hold everything but for the one moment. Lord, our prayer is, that we might count our days, one by one, with thoughtful economy, knowing the number and the measure, and wondering even to religiousness what the end can be, and what will happen when we open our eyes after the sleep of death. Comfort us every one with sweet words, bring back all that is tenderest and brightest in the summers of the past, and make us feel today as if walking in the garden of the Lord. Enlighten our minds with a great light, and before our eyes unveil the vision which we know by the tender name of heaven. The Lord enter our houses by right of proprietorship; the Lord make our bed in our affliction, and save our health in decay; the Lord find for us bread when we can find none for ourselves; when the wells are dry and the fields are bare, create for us pools in the desert, and find for us bread that is hidden away. The Lord go with those who must leave us for a time, and bring them back in safety and thankfulness; the presence of the Lord make glad those who remain. The Lord speak comfortably to the old and inspiringly to the young, and may all heaven be so near us today, in Christ Jesus our Lord, that we shall forget the gray, cold, troubled earth; and may we, waiting at the Cross, feeling the warm blood of Christ's own heart falling upon our shattered lives, be filled with peace and thankfulness and joy; and may our spirits long for the City where the light of the moon is as the sun, and the sun is sevenfold in brightness. Amen.

Act 15:30-35

30. So they, when they were dismissed, came down to Antioch; and having gathered the multitude [the church, Act 15:22 ] together, they delivered the epistle.

31. And when they had read it, they rejoiced for the consolation [G., "comfort": contrast with the "trouble" of Act 15:2 and Act 15:19 ].

32. And Judas and Silas, being themselves also [G., "also themselves"] prophets [ i.e., speakers as well as letter carriers], exhorted [G., "comforted" by speech, as the letter had] the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.

33. And after they had spent some time there, they were dismissed in peace [Acts 16:36 , usual formula of farewell] from the brethren unto those [ sci., those brethren; back again from the one church to the other. The A. V. has here the hierarchist gloss "apostles"] that had sent them forth.

35. But Paul and Barnabas tarried in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also [Peter's visit, Galatians 2:11 , being subsumed here, has led many critics to dispute the authenticity of this whole narrative, see Act 15:1 ].

The True Law of Abolition

I DO not wonder that when the letter, sent from Jerusalem, was read at Antioch, the people "rejoiced for the consolation." It was an historical day. Never brighter had shone upon the young Church than when the Gentiles were told that, without any cutting of the flesh or any ceremonial processes, they were by faith in Christ Jesus sons of God and free men of heaven. We can hardly understand their ecstasy; but if we do not make some attempt in that direction, we shall lose one of the broadest opportunities we ever had of understanding the philosophy of the Divine education of the human race, and we shall fall out of the rhythm of Christian progress and advancement. The question was one of circumcision. It is a term which we can only know historically; but there is history enough before us to enable the intelligent mind to grasp the question in all its clearest and most particular bearings. We must think ourselves back a while: let us do so in a body. We must remember that circumcision was not a human invention, and therefore was not to be set aside by human authority. If you miss that point, all that may be said will be without coherence and pith. Circumcision was established by the Almighty himself, as is explained in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis; the doctrinal verse is the tenth, and reads thus: "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised." Language cannot be clearer; no exception was made for infirmity, mishap, or peculiarity of any kind. The language is inclusive, authoritative, final. We wonder how such an institution can ever be set aside, especially as the word " everlasting " occurs in its establishment once and again. That word everlasting needs to be explained. It is not a mere question of time; " eternal," " everlasting," are no arithmetical terms, or numeral quantities; they are expressive of quality. The words are clear: "My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant"; but what of the poor child that had not been circumcised for some reason? "That soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." We cannot but become extremely excited as to how such an institution can be not only modified but abolished. The sanctity of the Sabbath was not violated by the performance of this rite. Christ Jesus himself founds an argument upon that point. In the seventh chapter of John the Jews are told by Jesus Christ, "Ye on the Sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision... are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day?" You have branded him with a token of the covenant, and I have completed in his flesh God's purpose of health and strength and typical immortality. The eating of the Passover was a great institution in Israel; no man might eat it except he had been circumcised. The law is laid down in Exodus, the twelfth chapter and forty-eighth verse: "And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land; for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof." So even strangers were to be circumcised. This was the very argument of the Judaizing teachers in the Christian Church. They said: "In the olden time strangers were not admitted to the Passover except they were circumcised; so these Gentile converts cannot be admitted to the liberties and privileges of the Church, unless they have been circumcised too." And the men who reasoned thus seemed to have history and right on their side. Circumcision was not observed during the forty years' wandering in the wilderness. God was pitiful to his people then, for he knew their circumstances and allowed for them; but after the wilderness was past, Joshua was commanded to "make him sharp knives." The people that had been born in the wilderness were not circumcised, but now that process was to be undergone; and when it was accomplished the Lord said unto Joshua, "This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you." And in the evening, as the sun was slowly westering, dying like a king upon a couch of gold, on the fourteenth day of the month, the whole circumcised host of Israel kept the Passover in the plains of Jericho.

We wonder how such an institution, so solemnly organized and so repeatedly introduced, can be possibly set aside. We turn a page in the New Testament, and find John the Baptist was circumcised on the eighth day. We go on a few lines further, and we find that Jesus Christ himself was on the eighth day circumcised. There can therefore be no doubt about the Divine authority of the institution. You will see why I am so importunate about this presently. The mind must fasten itself with intelligent tenacity upon this initial point, that circumcision was not a human invention, but a Divine institution. Stephen recognized it as such in his great apology. In his Epistle to the Romans Paul also recognized it: "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." How to escape from this I know not. It is not in us to invent a plan of liberation; there is nothing for it but the knife! How can deliverance arise? The first streak of light is in the second chapter of the Romans and the twenty-fifth verse: "For what profit is there in keeping the law? for if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." So there is a moral meaning, there is a spiritual suggestion in this. If my flesh is cut, is it not cut once for all? and will not the brand admit me to heaven? Paul says, No; what is done in the flesh is only a sign of what is expected in the spirit obedience, keeping the law, doing it every whit, and if you fail in obedience, you might as well never have been circumcised at all.

We begin now to see light. In the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, to which we have come, we have what amounts to a formal abolition of circumcision as a condition of entrance into Christian communion and fellowship. The tone of the New Testament is infinitely different from the tone of the Old Testament. A few passages will show this. Take Paul in first Corinthians and seventh chapter: "Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." How different from what is written in the seventeenth chapter of the book of Genesis, where circumcision is called "my covenant," "an everlasting covenant"! And now Paul rises and says "circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing"! If one man is not to boast that he has been circumcised, neither is another to boast that he has not been circumcised. If you say you have been baptized, and begin to rejoice in it, you do wrong; and he also does wrong who boasts that he has not been baptized. Circumcision (baptism) is nothing, and uncircumcision (unbaptism) is nothing; the real thing, vital and unchangeable, is keeping the commandments of God. In his Epistle to the Galatians Paul says, "If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing... in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." And rebuking a certain sect of mistaken teachers, he said, "As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised."

We now begin to see that circumcision, like every typical rite, had a spiritual signification, and that the moment the spiritual purpose was realized, the mere type or symbol was done away; not done away in the sense of violent abolition, but abolished as the noontide abolishes the dawn, or as summer abolishes spring, or as your manhood has abolished your infancy. There is nothing violent in the dispensations of God. The ages, like the planets, move calmly onward, melting into one another. The days do not contradict the ages that are gone, but ripen them and present them to us in noble maturity.

Here, then, is the law. Now I have the key, I can do many things. If I had not studied the subject of circumcision so closely and so long, I should have been lost at many other points. We have not studied this one question of circumcision for its own sake, but because here we have the key to many a door, and the solution of many a mystery. Take the question of the Sabbath. There can be no doubt of the Divine institution of the Sabbath day. In the Christian Church there can be no debate about this. "The Lord rested on the seventh day and blessed it," and afterward he embodied his purpose concerning it in a formal commandment. The hand of God has been upon the Sabbath day as certainly as it was upon the ordinance of circumcision. But circumcision is abolished, and so is the Sabbath day. But why is circumcision abolished? Because we have entered into the consecration which it implied. Now we do not cut the flesh, we give the life; and now we do not keep the Sabbath day in the Judaic sense of the term, we keep it in the spirit. There are not now twenty-four hours in the Sabbath day; the Sabbath day is seven days long. We do not give up the Sabbath day in the sense of not observing it, but in the sense of enjoying, in happy realization, the Sabbatic spirit all the week long. If circumcision had been violently disannulled as an inconvenience, or an inexpedient thing, the question would have been different, but it was kept long enough before the ages within whose compass it operated to show that God's meaning was circumcision of the heart obedience, love, sympathy, identification with the Divine purpose. So the Sabbath day is not a square piece, cut out of the week, but a spirit animating the whole time; not discarding the day, but glorifying every hour of human life. The man who enters into this spirit will not have one Sunday in the week, but seven. He will not honour the day itself, as a mere fraction of time, with less honour, but with the more, that he does it, not according to the narrowness and bondage of the letter, but according to the liberty, the joyousness, and the resurrectional triumph of the spirit.

Take the matter of giving. There can be no doubt that God himself recognized this great institution of giving to himself. There are those who tell us that we ought to give one-tenth of our income to the Church, to charity, or to Christ (put the phrase as you please). There are those amongst ourselves who do this, or I see not how the Church could be maintained, amid the crowd of those who sneer at the Jewish practice. There are others of a still more advanced class who say the very least we ought to give is one-tenth of our income. For myself, I believe that no arithmetical proportion is mentioned in the New Testament; but how to set aside tithes was at all events endorsed by the Almighty under the old covenant.

Here we come back to our lesson. We do not give less if we be in Christ, we give more. We are not circumcised in the foreskin, we are circumcised in the heart. We do not keep the Sabbath day because we are compelled to keep it, but because we love to keep it, and could not live without it. And we do not give a tenth as an arithmetical calculation, but as an oblation of love and an expression of sacrifice. Thus you have the upward way marked out most clearly. Show me where Christianity asks us to do less than circumcision; to keep less than one day in the week; to give less than one-tenth of our income. Christianity has not abolished the old law in any violent sense of befooling it and contradicting it, but in the sense of maturing it, carrying it up to its highest significations, so that those who once served in the bondage of the letter now serve in the liberty of the spirit "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." We needed all the discipline of formal submission and obedience to break down our rebellious hearts. Having been broken down and saturated by the grace of God, and instructed in principles of the Divine kingdom, we now do not need to read the regulation-bill to see what we have to do next; the Spirit is in us; we are in sympathy with God; we know it without being told. The law of Christ is written, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart. The Holy Ghost dwelleth in us, and to be circumcised makes us impatient; we want to give the whole life. To be bound down to keep one day holy we would give all the days in one grand offering to the Master's service. And to give a tenth would make us feel that we had fallen below the royalty of our calling, for we have nothing that we have not received, and all we have is God's.

So, you see, our study of the matter of circumcision was not a narrow study; it led us up to a principle which explains all things. Shall I dare to apply this principle to the literal revelation itself which we call the Bible? I can imagine the time coming when we shall not need a book, a Church, a ministry! I have but to be faithful to the philosophy we have now traced in the Biblical history to see how the time may come when we shall have no need of candle, or moon, or sun, or written book, or preaching voice! Yea, the time will come when he who is our Mediator shall rise, and God shall be All in All! We shall not need them to read a book, for the Spirit will be within us; then our Christianity will not be a question of "chapter and verse," but of inward conviction, spiritual sympathy, or actual life; we shall be swallowed up of love.

So far we have gotten away from circumcision and baptism and the bondage of a merely literal Sabbath which begins at a certain hour, and ends at another ascertained and declared point of time. We are going forward, and the time will come when we ourselves will be revelations, and when we shall not need the dear old Book itself any more; when in us will be the Word, which is as a well of water springing up into everlasting life, and we shall have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things. But that time has not yet come; that time is far off in the experience and consciousness of many of us. The age itself will close before that end is accomplished. Meanwhile, I need the sacramental bread and wine to help my poor reluctant memory. Meanwhile, I need the dear old church to fix my thoughts, and give a centre around which my best affections may revolve. Meanwhile, I need the friendly preacher, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, who has wrestled with the same temptations, and flung in mighty conflict the same great devils! I need his human voice to say something to me in God's name, in the darkness and in a strange land. Meanwhile, I need all the Book, every page of it, from Genesis to Revelation, to comfort me, warn me, reprove me, and build me up in sacred doctrine and in noble wisdom. The time will come when there shall be no need of the sun, nor of the moon, nor of the stars. I saw the heavenly Jerusalem, and in it was no temple, no sun, nor light of the moon, for the Lamb is the light thereof.

Let God himself say when we shall do away with the lamps we now need, with the helps which are now essential to our progress; it is not for us to put out a violent hand, and say, "This is the end." Let us obey. Law is never abolished by license. We go forward by the power of the Spirit, until hand-washing becomes heart-cleansing, until obedience becomes grateful acquiescence, until slavery becomes sonship, and until all the law is fulfilled in one word love; for God is Love. Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, He who is our Intercessor shall close his mediatorial priesthood, shall rise from his seat and deliver up the Kingdom to God and his Father, and God shall be All in All! But we can only understand and enjoy the end by patient submission to every point of the process.