Acts 6:7

7. Increased… multiplied In consequence of this wise action of the apostles, peace and increased prosperity returned to the Church. And this is a clear indication that the complaints of the Grecians (Hellenists) (Acts 6:1) were originally just.

Priests The number of priests in Jerusalem even at the return of Ezra from Babylon was more than four thousand, and must have been much larger in the time of Stephen. It was a great evangelic triumph to reach this class, the hierarchy; and then the ingathering seems to have been suddenly great. A sanguine spirit might now begin to anticipate that all the priesthood, and thence all Jerusalem, and finally all Judaism, were about to accept the faith, and so Christianity about to triumph in the capital and the nation. This was the zenith of the Pentecostal Church its moment of highest popularity just previous to its downfall. That downfall is the next event of this history.

What was the theology of the Pentecostal Church? Special interest in this question arises from the fact that Rationalists have maintained that it was Ebionitic; that is, that this first Church maintained the cessation of property, and denied the divinity and vicarious atonement of Christ. With regard to the first of these points, enough has been already said in our foregoing notes. In regard to the latter, 1. If we confine our investigation simply to Luke’s history, we shall find that Jesus was held to be enthroned at the right hand of God, (Acts 2:33-36;) the hearer of prayer, (Acts 1:24;) the sender of the Spirit, (Acts 2:33;) the receiver of the spirits of the dying, (Acts 7:59;) and the final Judge of the human race, (Acts 2:25.) Salvation is possible only through his name, (Acts 4:12.) All these things are affirmed incidentally, without any formal purpose of laying down a complete system of doctrine, and they imply, if they do not fully express, the full theology of the evangelical Church of the present day. But, 2. We are not rightfully limited to Luke’s brief history, written with no purpose of framing a doctrinal programme. We have a right to say that there is no reason to doubt that this most primitive Church held the entire doctrine taught in the entire New Testament. We must not forget that the formers of this holy canon were members of that holy Church. Matthew and Mark, and John, and probably Luke, the four Evangelists, were all there. Peter, the author of two epistles, and James, of one, were also there. And Paul, if not there in person, was well represented by Luke, whose theology the epistles of Paul, and especially that to the Romans, may be safely held to have embodied. The Hebrew edition of the Gospel of Matthew was published, we believe, not much later than this, and that Gospel, in its baptismal formula, (xxviii, 19,) contains the fundamental trinitarian dogma. The exact relations of Christianity to the Church of the Circumcision, and the real era of the coming of Christ, inspiration itself professedly withheld from the infant Church. (See sup. note to Matthew 25:0.) There is no just ground to doubt, with these two exceptions, that the doctrines found by our present Evangelical Church in the New Testament were the doctrines of Pentecostal Christianity. Early in the second century, Hegesippus, having ascertained by extensive travel, declared that one Gospel doctrine was unitedly held by all the apostolic Churches.