Acts 8

Division 2. (Acts 8:1-40; Acts 9:1-43; Acts 10:1-48; Acts 11:1-30; Acts 12:1-25.)Israel rejecting, but the Church enlarging; the barriers between Jew and Gentile broken down. The death of Stephen was the definite rejection of Christ on the part of the nation. It closed on God’s side the last attempt to get fruit from the fig-tree of the vineyard, according to the parable (Luke 13:8-9). There was no remedy now, nor hope of averting the sentence pronounced, that it should be cut down; and for this the Roman axe had long been sharpening. There remained still -and remain -the promises of God to be made good to a future generation; which grace will fulfil, but of which no particular one can claim fulfilment. Meanwhile He has other purposes, for the accomplishment of which even the blessing of the earth (inseparably bound up with Israel’s) may well wait, -purposes which are to show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in Christ, and His manifold wisdom, to the principalities and powers in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:7; Ephesians 3:10). Thus the setting aside of Israel only leaves room for the increase and development of the Church already formed, but needing yet to know itself as the vessel of this display. The unfolding begins now at once; although with a slowness, for which the history of all previous revelations might well have prepared us. Successive communications, and by various instruments, have always been the method which God has employed, as Scripture, in every part of it, is witness to us. We may be able to see but little the reason of this; although we may be sure that there is profoundest wisdom in it. Nor is this the place to enquire as to the general meaning of the divine ways in this respect. In the case before us, however, we may easily discern how gently, one by one, the bonds are broken which held the people of God to a system such as Judaism was; a system of divine institution, although in accommodation to the need -in fact the self-sufficiency -of man, and not the expression of what was in His own heart.

These ties to it are therefore hindrances, which a deeper apprehension of God, or even of themselves, would bring deliverance from, and which the lack of deliverance will make formidable, and yet, with their apparent sanctions they cannot be too rudely broken through. We shall see how thoroughly yet how tenderly this is done; although the history here does not complete the deliverance; above all, does not give the full spiritual account of it, for which we must go to the epistles. The present division shows the breaking down of the partition wall between Jew and Gentile, by the reception of Gentiles into the assembly; although questions will come up for settlement afterwards, as we find in the fifteenth chapter with regard to the observance of the law of Moses. We see too the freer action of the Spirit of God, in those outside the original apostles. There is another reason for this in the need of the initiative being plainly taken by God Himself, in some sort even apart from these, who are very plainly under the influence of Jewish prejudices which the younger disciples, and perhaps less weighted with the responsibilities of their position, are the more ready to break through.

Acts 8:1-25

Subdivision 1. (Acts 8:1-25.)The free choice of the Spirit: individuality and independence. The Spirit, as we know, has come, and in signs and miracles of power is testifying to the Risen Christ. But until Stephen, and apart from speaking with tongues and prophesying, these seem to have been confined to the apostles themselves (Acts 2:43; Acts 5:12). With Stephen, who is used of God to give the final testimony to the rulers of the Jews, and in whom appears the anticipation of the impending change, the “wonders and great signs” seem more the fruit of faith and grace with which he is filled. Yet even in Stephen there might appear to be a connection of these with the office given to him, to which he had been set apart by apostolic hands. Now this is to be quite manifestly altered; the time for the free action of the Spirit has come; and He is to be seen as the true Vicar of Christ upon earth, not only energizing, but disposing and directing. Although there has been no doctrine of it yet, the Body of Christ is formed; and the various gifts which this implies manifest themselves under the constraint of divine love, in the various ability of which their possessors become conscious in the ministry to which love moves.

For the possession of the gift brings the responsibility to use it; -a responsibility which is, first of all, to God. The gift is a “manifestation;” and “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal” (1 Corinthians 12:7). The simple rule, intelligible to all, of imparting for the need anywhere what each might have to supply it with, -the adaptation in spiritual things of the rule with which they began in temporal things, -this they found amply sufficient, under the Spirit’s guidance, as the general principle of service; which the apostle formulates for them afterwards in the exhortation that “as every one has received the gift,” they were “so to minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). This is the principle of a “body,” -a living organism; in which there is no useless member, but the individuality of each one is maintained; individuality without independency, -things which are contradictory of one another: to affirm the latter, as to deny the former, is equally to destroy the thought of the body altogether. There was no doctrine of the body of Christ as yet. The love that united these disciples to one another taught them the practice doubtless; just as it taught them in temporal things not to say that anything was their own. There was no law to prohibit such ministry as any one was capable of; and they would no doubt have thought such a law as unreasonable in one case as in the other. While all were thus free to minister, there was of course an inspired teaching which was carefully distinguished from all other. “They continued,” it was said of these early disciples, “in the apostles’ doctrine.” There were men accredited as appointed and qualified of the Lord to lay the foundations on which, and according to which, all the building was to be. As yet there were probably not even the rudiments of any New Testament Scriptures; although one could not say that there was no beginning of such attempts at relation of things most surely believed as Luke afterwards refers to, encouraging his more perfect account. Who can say when Matthew began to write? But all must be the merest conjecture as to this. While yet at Jerusalem, with so many living witnesses as were around them, the need for written records would not be felt as afterwards; and yet it is hard to think that with the intense interest attaching to events then fresh in so many memories, there would be even then no effort to preserve these with the accuracy that writing alone could ensure. But God had taken care that “scriptures” the infant Church should possess from the beginning; scriptures by which the words of the primitive evangelists would be, and were (with the emphatic approbation of the inspired historian) carefully tested. These Old Testament Scriptures had, as we know, been opened by the Lord Himself after His resurrection to others beside the apostles, and their understandings also opened to understand them. Under such teaching, and with this divine assistance, how much of New Testament truth would they be able to anticipate in those “living oracles” of which Stephen speaks, and which, all through His life on earth, the Lord so constantly referred to and upheld. It is not even yet needless to insist upon the honor which God has always put upon His written Word, even in days in which there were inspired teachers in the Church; who themselves, as we see, constantly referred to it. The Church never taught: it was rather that which was to be profited by teaching. It was at all times in subjection to Scripture, not above it; as were also its inspired teachers. What cause have we for thanksgiving for that which puts into every hand that by which alone the apostolic rule can be observed, to “prove all things, hold fast that which is good!”

1. At this juncture, when the Church is beginning, (as yet, one may say, unconsciously,) her exodus from the Jewish limitations in which, as yet, she had been held, God manifests His overruling power in a very striking way. The tiger-spirit in people and rulers, which had been restrained hitherto, that the new-born child might gather strength, is permitted now to manifest itself; and having tasted blood in Stephen’s martyrdom, rages against the followers of the Lord. The Church at Jerusalem is scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, with the notable exception of those whom the priests and rulers had most cause to dread! The apostles, guided of God, no doubt, alone remain. The seed of the gospel is thus scattered abroad, presently to spring up with plentiful fruit; while the absence of the apostles necessitates the rising up of new leaders in these various movements.

All are cast with more simplicity upon God alone, to learn as the unfailing consequence, each for himself, the resources that are in Him. The weaning-time of Isaac is fairly begun; though unbelieving Ishmael may mock the more; all which will only hasten the casting out of the bondwoman and her seed. On the other hand Saul is seen in the very forefront of the persecution, ravaging the flock. Who could have foreseen that here the great apostle of the Gentiles was also getting his education in the omnipotent wisdom of God? But so it was. A Pharisee of the Pharisees was learning in himself, in the most effectual way possible, the spirit of Pharisaism; while he was sharpening the axe which was to smite his self-righteousness to the ground, and prepare him as the chief of sinners to be the humblest of scholars in Christ’s school of grace. Thus God works! How marvelous are His workings!

How well we may trust Him to carry out His purposes for the glory of Christ! Saul is already helping to scatter the seed which by and by he will be foremost in sowing. Now he is in agreement with Stephen’s being taken away; yet the glory in Stephen’s face is to have its part in his own transformation into another witness to the Son of man at the right hand of God; himself converted by the gospel of that glory! The martyr too is buried by devout men, who without being as yet Christians, are penetrated with the sense of the mockery of all justice in his cruel death, and are thus brought into indignant opposition to the heads of their own nation. We may see in them how the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church, as after-generations have proved abundantly. Here too God is working: defeat is victory, and the dead are workers still. They have not failed, who have fertilized the soil of the gospel with their life-blood. The Church is scattered; and those who are thus sent abroad proclaim, with all the emphasis of their suffering undergone for Him, the value to them of the Christ to whom they testify. Who could bribe these tongues to silence, when the Spirit of glory and of God rested upon the confessors of His Name, the more endeared to them? How could the “glad tidings of the Word” find better evangelists? 2. It is in this connection that another of the Seven comes before us, Philip, next named after Stephen, whom we find now, his office at Jerusalem having come to an end by reason of the persecution, preaching Christ in Samaria, among a people with whom (as another has said) law had failed utterly as always. The Gospel of John has shown us the Lord already there, and many believing through His word; while in the beginning of the Acts itself He names distinctly, after Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria as a place in which the apostles were to be His witnesses (Acts 1:8). Hitherto, however, it had not been visited by them; and we can understand how the reception of disciples from that schismatic region, with which the Jews had not even ordinary dealings, as the woman of Sychar reminded the Lord, would have created difficulty which it might have been hard for Jews to meet. Now, when driven out from Jerusalem, the opposition there seemingly hopeless to be surmounted, these circumcised worshippers of the One God could hardly fail to be among the first thought of, with the Lord’s example and His word before them. Samaria accordingly is the first place now to be evangelized. “The opinion,” says Lechler, “that this Philip was one of the twelve, was entertained already by Polycrates in the second century, by the authors of the Apostolical Constitutions, in the third century, and by others; it was suggested not only by the sameness of the name, but probably also by the special character of the labors of Philip, since these appear to be such as the apostles exclusively performed. This latter view seems, indeed, to be sustained by the expression, he preached (ekerusse) the Christ; inasmuch as it was originally applied to the proclamation of a herald, and denotes therefore here that a public declaration was made in a more than ordinarily solemn manner, and by special authority, while in the case of others, merely the terms euangelizesthai [evangelizing] (Acts 8:4; Acts 11:20) and lalein ton logon [speaking the word] were employed. The evangelizing labors of Philip, therefore, undoubtedly seem to be of a different kind from those of the latter. But they do not on this account assume a decidedly apostolical character, in which case didaskein or didache [teach, teaching] would have been the term employed, as in 4: 2, 18; 5: 25, 28, 42; comp. 2: 42. The word kerussein, in the present verse, constitutes, as it were, an intermediate grade, or occupies a position between the specifically apostolical didaskein and the general Christian euangelizesthai, or lalein ton logon. This view is in the strictest accordance with the opinion that Philip was one of the Seven, as these men really did occupy an intermediate position in their respective relations to the apostles, and to the disciples in general.” (See Lange’s Commentary the Acts). If such, indeed, is the language of the Word, it is right that we all should understand it. We must agree with Lechler that the Philip here spoken of is not the apostle, and for the double reason that the connection shows that the apostles were at this time all at Jerusalem, and because the visit of Peter and John to Samaria afterwards is inexplicable if Philip were of the same standing with themselves. As to the rest, there is no ground for the attempted distinction. Apostles “taught” indeed, and with peculiar authority; but they also “preached” (Acts 9:20; Acts 10:42; Acts 20:25, etc.), “evangelized” (Acts 8:25; Acts 14:7; Acts 14:15; Acts 14:21, etc.), and “spoke the Word” (Acts 8:25; Acts 14:25, etc). The word used with regard to Philip here, and which means “to publish, or proclaim,” is used with regard to those who preached Christ of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to Paul’s bonds (Philippians 1:16); and also with regard to the leper’s publication of his leprosy which the Lord had healed, but where assuredly he had no “special authority” to do so, but on the contrary, was expressly forbidden by the Lord (Mark 1:45). While as for the “teaching,” said to be “specifically apostolical,” it is the word used when Christians generally are exhorted to be “teaching and admonishing one another” (Colossians 3:16).

It seems even impossible to believe that Lechler means to assure us that there were no rightful teachers except the apostles! Yet his words seem to have no meaning, if they do not mean this. The whole interest of such arguments clearly is in support of the claim which used to be more openly advocated than at present, that all preaching should be in the hands of a special class of men ordained for this, to which Philip could be then assigned, because of apostolic hands laid upon him; ignoring the fact which is so plain in the history here, that Philip was set apart, with the rest of the Seven, to “serve tables,” and that there is no such thought as that of ordaining to preach or teach, -by apostles or any other, -in all the New Testament. We are not going out of our way now, to take this up; but we must not shun what purport to be arguments from the word of God, as to this or any other matter. The signs which accompanied Philip’s preaching were never granted to all; and as intended to bear witness to the Risen. Lord, naturally would go with the proclamation of the Word. At first, they seem, for the same reason doubtless, to have been confined to the apostles, to whom was confided a special testimony to the Resurrection. The wider sphere in which now this testimony was going out would imply a corresponding enlargement in the range of such conferments. There is nothing apparently in this which demands very special explanation. God was acting in all this for the glory of Christ, and in behalf of the gospel of His grace which was now about to shine out in deeper, fuller, sweeter significance than it had ever exhibited before. The miracles at once gain the attention of the people; but only as making way for the Word, which holds them. The power over unclean spirits is marked; and Samaria appears in more than this respect as largely under the power of the enemy, spite of its professed worship of the true God. It may well be that the truth which had begun to work among them had stirred up special resistance on the part of one who knew its power; and Simon the sorcerer had been his special agent to distract and turn away the minds of the Samaritans from the truth. He had dazzled them with a wonder-working, the source of which he was content mysteriously to hint at as some preternatural greatness in himself, which left their imaginations to go further than his cautious claim. For them he came to be “The power of God which is called great;” but before the true power of God all this collapsed, and a great mass of the people followed Christ, and were baptized, both men and women. A more notable thing follows. The stronghold of Satan’s power is itself shaken, and Simon the sorcerer becomes by conviction and profession a disciple of Christ! Simon also himself believed, and having been baptized, remains constantly with Philip, as much astonished as he had astonished others, beholding the signs and great works of power taking place. So, apparently, the gospel had triumphed everywhere; in a sense, had done so; but it had to be realized that even victories of the truth in a world fallen away from God, are not always or wholly the triumphs that they seem. 3. Spite of the power manifested, and the joyful reception of the gospel in so many hearts, there was still a lack among these baptized believers which must have been felt greatly. The testimony at Jerusalem had been, “Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And so it came to pass. But at Samaria, where the conditions then announced had been evidently fulfilled, the effect did not follow: “as yet the Spirit was not fallen upon any of them.” It was not simply an absence of the signs that then followed those who believed. It was not only that the gifts failed, but the “Gift.” Manifestations of the Spirit regularly declared the Spirit’s presence; but here they were absent; and the inconceivably greater Gift -that of the Spirit itself, -had not been conferred. That this was the Pentecostal gift none can surely doubt; and the Lord Himself defines this as the Baptism of the Spirit (Acts 1:5). The apostle Paul assures us that by this we are brought into the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). This is certainly neither the effect nor the accompaniment of water baptism, as with the ritualists: for at Pentecost the hundred and twenty were not baptized with water, and the converts here in Samaria had all both faith and baptism, yet had not the Spirit. Moreover, while in Jerusalem baptism was a prerequisite, in the case of the Gentiles afterwards the Spirit fell on them before the baptism (Acts 10:47). Thus every way there have been distinguished for us things which should never have been confounded. The analogy between them manifestly is, that as water-baptism introduces into the outer sphere of profession, so that of the Spirit introduces into the inner circle of the Church of God. With new birth or conversion it would again seem almost impossible to confound the Pentecostal Gift. The apostles were neither converted nor born again at Pentecost, but long before; and the Samaritan believers were likewise, as in every other case, converted first. Finally, the gifts received for testimony were quite distinct from that indwelling of the Spirit personally which the Lord emphasizes for us in the Gospel of John as that which would be the result of His going to the Father (John 14:20; John 16:7). Signs and works of power the disciples had been commissioned to do before (Matthew 10:8), and many others had done them in Old Testament times. It only remains to enquire why the gift of the Spirit should be delayed in the case of the Samaritans, and why it should have been communicated by means of the apostles. We have not heard of the latter at Jerusalem, nor do we in the case of Cornelius and his friends; a thing which again quite overthrows the ideas which ritualism has associated with it. We find nothing like an ordinance which could only thus be administered, but on the contrary, a quite exceptional dealing with the Samaritans, repeated, as far as we know, but in one case (Acts 19:6). The rule among Gentiles seems to have been different (Galatians 3:5). And if apostles’ hands were indeed necessary for such a communication, where are the apostles, authenticated as the early apostles were, by whose hands alone it can be effected? Thank God that He has not tied His grace to anything of this kind! With regard to Gentiles also, the necessity of baptism as a prerequisite is done away. Who will assert that in the very first case of their admission to the Church the link between things which God intended to be kept united could be thus broken through? Baptism for those who had openly rejected the Lord as come to them would be there an open reception of Him, -the fit accompaniment of that repentance which was now preached to them in His Name. Here also, where there had been a long schismatic denial of the city and house of God at Jerusalem, that this should be ended by the acknowledgment on their part of Jerusalem in those who had to come from Jerusalem to communicate the Gift which they so imperatively needed, seems in keeping with His ways. For, as the Law pointed forward to the gospel, the necessity of which it so distinctly showed, so does the gospel in its turn confirm the Law. God’s dispensations have one common Author, who is to be acknowledged in them all.

The Gentiles were a people “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12), but a circumcised and orthodox nation must own the institutions of the God they worshiped. All seems here consistent and in place. 4. But the wondrous Gift, while perfecting the true disciples in what they lacked, unveils the unhappy Simon as still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. Wondering at this new power displayed, he covets for himself the ability to bestow it, and would make merchandise of the divine vouchsafement; it was in full reality, -even in the extremest form of it, -the “trader in the House of the Lord” (Zechariah 14:21), -the sin of which Christ had indignantly purged His Father’s House, and of which Judas himself was but the highest expression. What was afterwards called “simony” was necessarily a feebler manifestation of the same spirit, which may take forms, moreover, not covered by this word. The carnal mind intruding into divine things will necessarily seek to use them for fleshly advantage; -necessarily, for it knows nothing better: the only full victory over it is with him who has found in Christ Himself the satisfaction which frees him from self-enslavement, and makes it a delight henceforth to pour out upon His feet its most precious ointment. The fervid heart of Peter bursts forth at this offer on the part of a professed disciple, and he denounces it with terrible severity, as if to prevent the possibility of any recurrence of so great a crime. “Thy money go with thee to destruction,” he says, “because thou hast thought that the Gift of God might be obtained with money.” It was indeed a bold attempt on the part of Satan, if it were not too foolish to be taken as one of his, to regain the ground that he had lost in Samaria. He had in fact insulted the Lord in as evil a fashion in the temptation in the wilderness; and in his worst malice his utter folly is most manifested too. And this poor tool of his, who had seemed to have escaped from his hand, had only demonstrated now how near it was possible to come to the Saviour and His salvation without ever having really “part or lot in the matter” of the Holy Spirit at all. The apostle urges upon him, therefore, repentance and supplication to God, if perhaps the thought of his heart might be forgiven. The doubt arises, not from the limitation of divine mercy, but rather from the hardened condition of the man himself, whom he cannot but regard as in the bitterness of gall itself, and as in the bond (some would say, “bundle”) of iniquity. Nothing of all that he had seen and owned as to the power of God manifest there, and bowing so many souls before God, had changed him from the sorcerer he had been before, who would now but use the wondrous power he was witness to, to bring men under his own control and make himself to others the centre which he was to himself!

This is man still, with the devil’s deceit clinging to him, “Ye shall be as God;” -which was in this way, that, as there cannot be two Gods, man must displace God, and feign himself in the empty throne! Antichrist at the end will be the full exemplification of this; and, as the Lord intimated to the Jews, for those who refuse Him who comes in His Father’s Name, the alternative must be that they will receive Antichrist. He is only the incarnation of their own desires, although like Saul of old he may be a head and shoulders taller than any of his followers. Simon’s answer to the apostle shows that, though alarmed, there is no repentance with him. He asks that they would supplicate the Lord that nothing of the things of which they have spoken may come upon him. He is alarmed as to what may come, and that is all; there is no consciousness of his great inward need, no confession that we read of Like the devils, he believes and trembles, but he does not turn to God on his own account. And so he passes out of the inspired history. There is a legendary one about him, which speaks of him as returning to his old arts as a magician, but with inveterate hatred of that from which he has turned; but there is no certainty about anything beyond what is written here. The apostles help on the work in Samaria with their own testimony, and themselves evangelize many other villages; but there is no record given as to the success of their labors. The work is confirmed by their visit to Samaria, and fellowship established between this and what has been the headquarters of the Jewish work. A great step forward has plainly been accomplished.

Acts 8:26-40

Subdivision 2. (Acts 8:26-40.)The Word still going further, and the Old Testament conducting to the New. We are carried off to other scenes, in company with the fruitful preacher at Samaria; who is taken from the work in which he has been blessed and honored, upon a journey which would seem naturally a strange one, announced to him as it is beforehand as to an indefinite place upon a desert road, -the road to a Philistine city. But God claims obedience as a first requisite for blessing; which surely follows it: the labor of believing simplicity shall not go unblessed. In fact he is to be now the evangelist of far-off lands. A man of Ethiopia has been to Jerusalem to worship, and is returning by that desert road. We may be confident that Jerusalem had not much at that time to reward a pilgrimage. The road might well be to him a dreary one. With a heart for God, such as he surely had, the contact with priests and rulers of the stamp of Caiaphas and his Sadducean company must have thrown a shadow upon his soul. He was besides an outcast religiously, spite of a high position and his heart for God. As a eunuch, (if we are to take that literally, as I doubt not,) he could not come into the congregation of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:1); whatever precious assurances there might be for him of future blessing (Isaiah 56:3-5).

Sitting in his chariot, on his return from the city of hollow forms and barren solemnities, he turns naturally to the pages of the prophets, and of Isaiah most of all, to find consolation; but here too he was met by sorrow, and of a kind also that he could not penetrate, -the sorrows of One from whom Israel, it seemed, had turned, of One led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before its shearers, His judgment taken away, His life from the earth. He is reading this aloud as he overtakes Philip upon the road, as if he would impress himself with something which should have significance for him, but has not; the cloud is over it hopelessly, as it seems to him, without some guide; and he has none. How could he think of finding an interpreter upon that desert way, his back upon Jerusalem, and after his useless visit there? How the voice of the evangelist, cheery with its message ready, the Voice of the Spirit astir in him to deliver it, must have made his heart leap in response to the question which penetrated already with a ray of light the gloom of his perplexity, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” “How should I?” he answers simply; “except some one should guide me?” And immediately there springs up in his soul the eager hope that in this unknown stranger, God may have sent him help. He asks Philip, therefore, to sit with him in his chariot, and soon is an enwrapt hearer of the gospel of Christ. Philip’s text has been already found for him: from the prophet’s picture of the Servant of Jehovah he begins to preach Jesus as the fulfilment of Old Testament prediction; and the good seed sinks into soil prepared. The eunuch finds that he too can have his place in the congregation of the Lord; and he finds One who can do for him what Jerusalem and the law have been unable to do. He takes his place without hesitation as owning in baptism Jesus as his Lord; and, Philip being immediately caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, he goes upon his way with the living Saviour, who is to be henceforth his Guide and Friend, rejoicing. This story closes here too soon to satisfy the interest that has been awakened in it. We would fain follow this simple-hearted traveler, and learn whether he is permitted to become the evangelist of the land to which he is returning, -whether, or in what measure, Ethiopia will now stretch out her hands towards God: but nothing of all this is made known to us. If we find in it a hint of the gospel now to go out to the nations afar off, yet it is but a hint, and not an assurance. The apostle of the Gentiles is not yet raised up, and it is his work that we are to pursue in this connection, though there are preliminaries, as we are now to see. But if this be the purport of the story here, it does not seem completed as we might expect. There must be, one would say, another purpose in it; and we are naturally led to look at it again, to see if we may not discover this. And here at once it strikes us, that this is a child of the old dispensation, in whom its necessary limitations and failure to satisfy those to whom it ministered are plainly set forth, and to whom it is but a hand pointing forward to Him who alone can do this. It is, in short the Old Testament leading on its disciples to the New, that we have before us here; an important point in the history of these times we are considering. We have but just now seen in Samaria how the New Testament takes care to vindicate the Old. Now we have the converse of this; it is the Old Testament seen awakening the longings of the heart after that which it cannot itself supply, while it does testify to the Living Source of it. With this meaning all the details of the story agree: the appearance of the angel of the Lord -that is, of Jehovah* -to Philip, to make known to him his commission. When his work is accomplished, again, it is “the Spirit of Jehovah” who snatches away the messenger.

This is both Old Testament speech and action. The Spirit of Jehovah occurs once in the Gospels (Luke 4:18), and once before in the Acts (Acts 5:9); it never occurs in the New Testament again. Jehovah also, or what stands for it here, the Name for Israel’s covenant God, is naturally found also in Old Testament connection, or in that part of the New in which it is not yet decided whether Israel is or is not to be the special people of God. The Gospels have it frequently, and the first eight chapters of the Acts; after this, except for special reasons in the twelfth chapter, it occurs but twice, or possibly thrice (Acts 13:10-11; Acts 15:17). The Old Testament has in fact handed over its disciples to the New; and in the Epistles we find it only in such references as before mentioned, or two or three times in those written to believers of the circumcision, as in James and Peter. A very few times (again most naturally) it occurs in Revelation.

The significance here is therefore plain.
The eunuch is a man in high position, a man of wealth, and of an earnest heart. He is therefore one in whom the character of the Old Testament can be most conspicuously seen; while we see also the care of God for His own to relieve the darkness for those who in their perplexity sought to Him. The Psalms illustrate abundantly both the darkness and the relief. Now the dawn of a brighter day had begun; and the Old Testament hails with gladness its coming so long delayed. It was yet but the dawn, though how bright a one! Philip is caught away; the mere human teacher is not to take the place of the Divine. His coming and his departure are both well fitted to assure the new disciple how safely he may rest in the all-sufficiency that has thus met and ministered to him. Philip on his part is found at Azotus, the Philistine Ashdod; and from thence, with the joy in his heart of one who is taking the spoil* from the strong one whom a Stronger has overcome, he evangelizes all the cities as far as Caesarea. \