JSL-15-Chapter Fifteen:

Chapter Fifteen:
The Whole Subject Exemplified

I have sought to bring out, and to exhibit somewhat in detail, “the word of the beginning of Christ,” or the elements of salvation as taught in the Great Commission. No attempt has been made to treat the subject exhaustively. And if I have succeeded in settling forth these First Principles distinctly, and in their own clear light, showing their adaptation to the ends contemplated by them, and their mode of operation in reaching those ends, I may well leave the reader to survey, with more leisure and deeper thought, the whole ground which I have thus outlined. Lest, however, any should still be disposed to question the correctness of my interpretation of the commission, I deem it proper, before proceeding to consider its closing requirement, to ask how the apostles and primitive Christians understood it. Did their practice correspond in all essential particulars with the views which I have enunciated? They went forth to execute the very commission upon which I have been commenting, and what they did and said in the performance of this duty is upon record; or, at any rate, such specimens of their acts as were selected by the Holy Spirit is to be written for our learning; and this record, consequently, will show how men who were supernaturally preserved from mistake understood it. As, therefore, this commission is the one under which we are acting, and the only one which furnishes any divine authority for our action, the propriety of the above inquiry is manifest.

I had occasion, while discussing the subject of “conviction,” to refer to the Apostle Peter’s first discourse in Jerusalem, and to point out its immediate effect. But the reader will do well to study all the occurrences of that day with care. He will find that first of all the apostle preaches the gospel of Christ; that in doing so he presents the two leading facts in his history—his death and his resurrection; that he and his fellows apostles bear witness to these facts, as does also the Holy Spirit; and that this testimony is confirmed by showing its manifest agreement with the predictions of inspired prophets. It will furthermore be seen that, as the result of all this, a great multitude of his hearers were convicted of sin — a consciousness which could only have arisen in consequence of believing what had been preached. It will be observed that this effect was produced by the Holy Spirit, who was in the apostles, but not as yet in the hearers; and that it was produced by means of the word of truth which he spoke through the apostles—they serving as his organs for communications. So far, all is plain matter-of-fact, and my statement of it is manifestly correct. Its agreement, up to this point, with my previous argument is equally evident. When the convicted sinners asked what they were to do — meaning, as a matter of course, what they were to do to be saved, for they could have no other motive in putting the question — the apostle tells them to repent and be baptized. The only point which might here seem to diverge from my position is the fact that no mention is made of the confession of faith, which, it will be remembered, I located between repentance and baptism. But as such confession is elsewhere clearly taught as one of the elements of salvation (see Romans 10:9), its mere omission from the record in this place does not argue its absence in fact. Indeed, faith itself is not mentioned here, though, of course, it is necessarily implied. The confession is necessary, not only for the reasons stated in my chapter upon it, but also to make known to the Church, the existence of faith and repentance in him who makes it, thus giving evidence that he is a proper subject for the ordinance. We may safely conclude, therefore, that the three thousand confessed the Lord Jesus with the mouth, and thus made it manifest to the apostles that they “gladly received” their word; and thereupon they were baptized. As to the results which were to follow this baptism, the apostle specifies only two — “the remission of sins” and “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But these two involve and imply every good thing which Love itself could provide and impart. If God gives himself, as personated by his Spirit, nothing else can be withheld; if he receives the baptized into communion and fellowship and friendship with himself—with himself as Father, Son and Spirit—he must receive him as pardoned, justified, sanctified, reconciled, elected, redeemed, and saved. For surely from the Divine Heart of love, for this boundless Store-house of grace, no real blessing can be absent!

I neither say nor suppose that the returned sinner is able at once to appropriate all this in conscious enjoyment. But these blessings are his. They are freely given to him. And he takes hold of them little by little, and drinks them in more and more, as he daily “grows in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It seems to me, therefore, that the first authoritative exemplification of the true meaning of the commission is precisely in accord with the exposition which I have sought to give of it. And it should be noted that, for the very reason doubtless that it is the first, it is more elaborately detailed, and its elements more specifically stated, than most others. For instance, in the third chapter of Acts, Peter preaches to the people after healing the lame man, substantially as he had done in the second—the same gospel, the same Christ, the same facts, the same testimonies; but when he comes to give them directions what they are to do to be saved (verse 19), he uses the generic word “turn,” or “turn again,” where he had formerly used a specific. The authorized version of this text is exceedingly inaccurate and misleading, and so I quote it from the Revised Version: “Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may comes seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.” It will be noted here that, as in the previous case, instead of enjoining faith and telling them that they must exercise it, or seek to procure it from Heaven as the direct gift of God, he simply goes to work, by the direct presentation of testimonies, to produce it; and having done so, he is satisfied with it. He requires nothing more in the way of faith, and nothing different from this simple belief of the truth. It had risen normally and naturally as the result of considering and weighing the testimonies—of hearing the word of God. That was all there was to it; but that was enough. It was true faith, for it accredited, believed and received what God taught. But if they thus believed what he said, the apostle must instruct them in the duties and privileges consequent upon such faith, and so he proceeds to say, “Repent ye therefore, and turn again.”

Surely no reverent person can suppose that by the phrase “turn again” he means to set aside any of the conditions of salvation mentioned in the commission, and to substitute something else in their place. The supposition would do dishonor to the apostle’s faithfulness, and discredit his authority. We must believe on the contrary that, as he had not right, so he had no disposition to depart from his Master’s instructions. Nor did he do so in fact. those addressed were not to be deprived of the privilege of being “baptized into Christ.” If they did not know, from being having heard the previous discourse, or having see the three thousand baptized, or some of the numerous other instances exhibited every day in the city (for “the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved”)—I say if they did not know that this specific act was involved in the more general word “turn again,” we can not doubt that he would have explained it to them when they resolved to “turn.” Similar variations in mere phraseology are usual with all speakers; and to candid hearers, seeking simply to know the truth, they are neither misleading, nor of uncertain meaning. In this case the very generality of the word “turn” would have led those who desired to obey it to ask, if they not already know what it involved. The text, therefore, can not be understood to teach a different doctrine, but only the same doctrine in different terms. As for the results or consequents of this “turning again” these, too, are the same that were promised in the first discourse, but also differently expressed. We have here “blotted out” instead of “remission” of sins, and “seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” for “the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Other cases recorded in the Book of Acts exhibit slight variations in phraseology, but the most notable feature is the omission from the record of now one and now another of the essential elements of the saving truth. But we may not conclude that these were absent in fact simply because in the summarized report they are not mentioned in detail. For example: In the salvation of the Samaritans and of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8 :) nothing is said of their repentance, nor, especially in case of the former, of confession; and yet we must believe that they did repent, and that with the mouth they did make confession unto salvation. In the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the only element expressly recorded is his baptism; but how truly each of the others was present is evidenced by the genuineness and thoroughness of the change wrought in him. It is obvious to remark that in his case there was an immediate and supernatural visitation, wholly exceptional in its character, which puts it to this extent outside the sphere of our present investigation. But it will be observed that, notwithstanding the miraculous appearance to him of the glorified Lord, he had still to comply with the terms of the commission, in order to wash away his sins (Acts 22:16). The case of Cornelius (Acts 10 :) was also, for reasons which are obvious, exceptional in several particulars, especially in the angelic visitation, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit before his baptism. This was God’s way of signifying to Peter, not that Cornelius did not need baptism, but that, Gentile though he was, it was not to be withheld from him. And who was Peter that he should withstand God? Again we see that, notwithstanding the miraculous visitation, the commission must still be observed; nay, in this case the miraculous gift was bestowed only that it might be observed.

Yet once more: In Antioch the preachers “spake unto the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number that believed turned unto the Lord” (Acts 11:21). It will be remembered that in the third chapter the hearers were told to “repent and turn,” and here they are reported to have “believed and turned.” In the case of Lydia, “whose heart the Lord opened, to give heed to the things spoken by Paul,” it is immediately added: “And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord come into my house, and abide there” (Acts 16:14-15). The conversion of the jailer, reported in the same chapter, shows (1) that Paul told him to believe; (2) that he spake the word of the Lord to him, with all that were in his house, that they might believe; and (3) that he was baptized, he and all his, immediately. Of Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue in Corinth, we are told, in the historical account, only of his belief, that “he believed in the Lord with all his house;” and yet, in the epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle makes known that he himself baptized him (see I. Cor. 1: 14). We thus learn that, though the fact was not reported in detail, his case did not differ from that of the others, of whom we are told that “many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptized” (Acts 18:8). And so we learn the principle that prevailed in recording the numerous examples of conversion; that the writer did not deem it necessary to give a tabulated statement in every individual case of the elements of salvation which were present and operative; that he sometimes generalizes them by using terms that involve them; and that in mentioning only one or more of these elements we are to understand, not the exclusion, but the implication of the others. All this is so obviously true, and so entirely free from even a shade of difficulty, to any honest and unbiased inquirer who is simply seeking to ascertain what God’s word really teaches, that however the facts stated may have been abused in the interest of party, I need not dwell longer upon them. Suffice it to say that the inspired record furnishes abundant and conclusive evidence that the apostles and primitive Christians understood the commission in the plan and ordinary sense of its terms, substantially as I have presented it. And although they might upon occasion vary the expression of them, and although one or more might be omitted here or there in the reports of cases—as something well understood and to be taken for granted—still we can not doubt that in very deed they uniformly inculcated and observed each and all of those First Principles of the gospel which constituted then, as they do now, the germ and essence of the Christian religion.