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Literature and History of New Testament Times

[261] <h2>LESSON XLVII</h2> <h3>A MISSION FOR THE WORLD</h3> <h4>1. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY</h4> In teaching the lesson in class, it might be well simply to review the principal steps in the geographical extension of the apostolic Church. This geographical advance, however, was made possible only by an advance in principles which should not be ignored. The really great step in the early Christian mission was not the progress from Jerusalem to Antioch, or from Antioch to Asia Minor and to Greece, but the progress from a national to a universal religion. Judaism, despite its missionary activity, always identified the Church more or less closely with the nation; it was a distinctly national religion. Full union with it meant the abandonment of one's own racial and national relationships. (1) Limitations of Judaism.—The national character of Judaism was an insurmountable hindrance to the Jewish mission. Despite the hindrance, it is true, Judaism achieved important conquests; it won many adherents throughout the Greco-Roman world. These missionary achievements undoubtedly form an eloquent testimony to the power of Israel's faith; despite those features of Jewish custom which were repulsive to the Gentile mind, the belief in the one true God and the lofty ethical ideal of the Old Testament Scriptures possessed an irresistible attraction for many earnest souls. Nevertheless, so long as Jewish monotheism and Jewish ethics were centered altogether in the life of a very peculiar people, they could never really succeed in winning the nations of the world. (2) Apparent Identity of Judaism and Christianity.—At first it looked as though Christianity were to share in the limitation; it looked as though the disciples of Jesus formed merely a Jewish sect. Undoubtedly they would bring the Jewish people to a loftier faith and to a purer life; they would themselves become better and nobler Jews; but Jews they would apparently always remain. (3) The Great Transition.—Before many years had passed, however, the limitation was gloriously transcended. Christianity was no longer bound to Judaism. It became a religion for the world,[262] within whose capacious borders there was room for every nation and every race. How was the transition accomplished? It was not accomplished by any contemptuous repudiation of the age-long exclusiveness of Israel. Such repudiation would have involved the discrediting of the Old Testament, and to the Old Testament the Church was intensely loyal. Jewish particularism had been ordered of God; the Scriptures were full of warnings against any mingling of the chosen people with its neighbors. Jehovah had made of Israel a people alone; he had planted it in an inaccessible hill country, remote from the great currents of the world's thought and life; he had preserved its separateness even amid the changing fortunes of captivity and war. Salvation was to be found only in Israel; Israel was the chosen people. The Church never abandoned this view of Israelitish history. Yet for herself she transcended the particularism that it involved. She did so in a very simple way—merely by recognizing that a new era had begun. In the old era, particularism had a rightful place; it was no mere prejudice, but a divine ordinance. But now, in the age of the Messiah, particularism had given place to universalism; the religion of Israel had become a religion of the world. What had formerly been right had now become wrong; God himself had ushered in a new and more glorious dispensation. Particularism, in the divine economy, had served a temporary, though beneficent, purpose; God had separated Israel from the world in order that the precious deposit of Israel's faith, pure of all heathen alloy, might finally be given freely to all. The recognition of this wonderful new dispensation of God was accomplished in two ways. <h4>2. THE DIVINE GUIDANCE</h4> In the first place, it was accomplished by the direct command of the Holy Spirit. The first preaching to Gentiles was undertaken not because the missionaries understood why it should be done, but simply because God commanded. (1) Philip.—For example, when Philip preached to the Ethiopian—who was not in the strictest sense a member of the Jewish people—he was acting not in accordance with any reflection of his own—a desert road was a very unlikely place for missionary service—but under the plain and palpable guidance of the Spirit. What is emphasized in the whole narrative is the strange, unaccountable character of Philip's movements; evidently his actions at such a[263] time were not open to criticism; what Philip did God did; if Philip preached to an outsider, such preaching was God's will. Acts 8:26-40. (2) Cornelius.—In the case of the conversion of Cornelius and his friends, Acts 10:1 to 11:18, the divine warrant was just as plain. Both Cornelius and Peter acted altogether in accordance with God's guidance. On the housetop, Peter's scruples were unmistakably overcome. "What God hath cleansed," he was told, "make not thou common." Peter did not fully comprehend the strange command that he should eat what the law forbade, and it was not explained to him; but at least the command was a command of God, and must certainly be obeyed. The meaning of the vision became clear when Cornelius' house was entered; a Gentile had evidently been granted the offer of the gospel. God was no respecter of persons. Finally the Holy Spirit fell on all the Gentiles who heard the message; they spake with tongues as the disciples had done at the first. That was the crowning manifestation of God's will. There was no reason to wait for circumcision or union with the people of Israel. "Can any man forbid the water," said Peter, "that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?" Acts 10:47. All opposition was broken down; only one conclusion was possible; the Jerusalem Christians "glorified God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life." Acts 11:18. (3) The Grace of God in the Gentile Mission.—Scarcely less palpable was the divine guidance in the subsequent developments of the Gentile mission. After the momentous step of certain unnamed Jews of Cyprus and Cyrene, who founded the church at Antioch, Barnabas had no difficulty in recognizing the grace of God. Acts 11:23. Not suspicion, but only gladness, was in place. When Paul and Barnabas returned from the first Gentile mission, they could report to the Antioch church that God had plainly "opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles." Ch. 14:27. If God had opened, who could close? At the apostolic council, in the very face of bitter opposition, the same great argument was used. The missionaries simply "rehearsed all things that God had done with them," ch. 15:4, especially "what signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles through them." V. 12. There was only one thing to be done; the Gentile mission must be accepted with gladness as a gift of God; he that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision wrought for Paul also unto[264] the Gentiles, Gal. 2:8; James and Peter and John could recognize, both in the Gentile mission and in the inner life of the chief missionary, the plainest possible manifestation of the grace of God. V. 9. <h4>3. REASONS FOR GENTILE FREEDOM</h4> The Church transcended the bounds of Judaism, then, primarily because of a direct command of God. Such commands must be obeyed whether they are understood or not. As a matter of fact, however, God did not leave the matter in such an unsatisfactory state; he revealed not only his will, but also the reason for it; he showed not only that the Gentiles must be received into the Church, but also why they must be received. The essence of the gospel had demanded Gentile freedom from the beginning; the justification of that freedom at the bar of reason, therefore, brought a clearer understanding of the gospel itself. Two contrasts, at least, enabled the Church to explain the reason why the Gentiles could be saved without becoming Jews. The first was the contrast between faith and works, between grace and the law; the second was the contrast between the type and the thing typified. The former was revealed especially to Paul; the latter to the author of Hebrews. (1) The Law and Grace.—Salvation through Christ, according to Paul, is an absolutely free gift. It cannot be earned; it must simply be received. In other words, it comes not by works, but by faith. The law of God, on the other hand, of which the Mosaic law was the clearest embodiment, offers a different means of obtaining God's favor. It simply presents a series of commandments, and offers salvation on condition that they be obeyed. But the trouble is, the commandments, since the fall, cannot be obeyed; everyone has incurred deadly guilt through his disobedience; the power of the flesh is too strong. At that point, however, God intervened. He offered Christ as a sacrifice for sin that all believers might have a fresh start; and he bestowed the Spirit of the living Christ that all might have strength to lead a new life. But Christ will do everything or nothing. A man must take his choice. There are only two ways of obtaining salvation—the perfect keeping of the law, or the simple, unconditional acceptance of what Christ has done. The first is excluded because of sin; the second has become a glorious reality in the Church. If, however, salvation is through the free gift of Christ, then the law religion has been superseded. All those features of the law[265] which were intended to make the law palpable, as a set of external rules, are abrogated. The Christian, indeed, performs the will of God—in the deepest sense Christianity only confirms the law—but he performs it, not by slavish obedience to a complex of external commandments, but by willing submission to the Spirit of God. Of course, the religion of the Old Testament was not, according to Paul, purely a law religion; on the contrary Paul quotes the Old Testament in support of faith. But there was a law element in the Old Testament; and the law served merely a temporary, though beneficent, purpose. It was intended to deepen the sense of sin and hopelessness, in order that finally salvation might be sought not in man's way but in God's. The new order at length has come; in Christ we are free men, and should never return to the former bondage. The middle wall of partition has been done away; the ordinances of the law no longer separate Jew and Gentile; all alike have access through one Saviour unto God, all alike receive power through the Holy Spirit to live a life of holiness and love. (2) The Type and the Fulfillment.—The contrast which was worked out in the Epistle to the Hebrews was especially a contrast between the sign and the thing signified. The ceremonial law, which had separated Jew from Gentile, was intended to point forward to Christ; and now that the fulfillment has come, what further need is there of the old types and symbols? Christ is the great High Priest; by him all alike can enter into the holy place. (3) The Meaning of the Gospel.—The transition from Jewish Christianity, with all the difficulties of that transition, led finally to a deeper understanding of the gospel. It showed once for all that the salvation of the Christians is a free gift. "Just as I am, without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me"—these words are a good summary of the result of the Judaistic controversy. The transition showed, furthermore, what had really been felt from the beginning, that Christ was the one and all-sufficient Lord. When he was present, no other priest, and no other sacrifice was required. That is the truly missionary gospel—the gospel that will finally conquer the world. <hr class="tb" /> In the Library.—Orr, "Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of Christianity" and "The Early Church." George Smith, "Short History of Christian Missions" (in "Handbooks for Bible Classes"). <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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