HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE FIRST CENTURY.1

 

CHAPTER 1.

CONDUCT AND PREACHING OF THE APOSTLES TO THE TIME OF THE DEATH OF STEPHEN; WITH THE CAUSES WHICH OPERATED TO PROMOTE THE SPREADING OF THE GOSPEL

 

THE Kingdom of Christ, or the Church of Christ, may be said to date its beginning from the time when the Head of that Church and Kingdom rose in triumph from the grave. The Son of God, as He Himself informs us, had shared His Father's glory before the world was; and the scheme of redemption had been laid in the counsels of God, from the time of the promise being given, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head: but this gracious and merciful scheme had not been fully developed to mankind, till Jesus Christ appeared upon earth, and died upon the cross.

It had indeed pleased God, at sundry times and in divers manners, to acquaint the Jews with the coming of their Messiah; but the revelation had been made obscurely and partially: it was given to one nation only, out of the countless millions who inhabit the earth; and the Jews themselves had entirely mistaken the nature of that kingdom which their Messiah was to found. They overlooked or forgot what their prophets had told them, that He was to be despised and rejected of men; and they thought only of those glowing and glorious predictions, that kings were to bow down before Him, and all nations were to do Him service. The prophecy of Daniel (though there might be doubts as to the precise application of its words) had marked with sufficient plainness the period when Christ was to appear; and when Augustus was Emperor of Rome, a general expectation was entertained, not only by the Jews, but by other nations also, that some great personage was shortly to show himself in the world. The Jews had strong reasons for cherishing such an expectation. If the sceptre had not actually departed from Judah, it had not been sufficient to preserve their independence, or to save them from the disgrace of being a conquered people. That this disgrace was shortly to be removed, and that their fetters were soon to be burst asunder, was the firm belief of a large proportion of the Jewish nation; and the name of their Messiah was coupled with ardent aspirations after liberty and conquest.

It was at this period, when the minds of men were more than usually excited, that the voice was heard of one crying in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”. John the Baptist was the forerunner of the long-promised Messiah; but, instead of announcing Him to his countrymen as a king and a conqueror, he opposed himself at once to their strongest prejudices. They prided themselves upon being God's chosen people; and, as children of Abraham, without thinking of any other qualification, they considered their salvation to be certain. John the Baptist persuaded his followers to get rid of these notions. He taught them to repent of their sins; and, instead of trusting to outward ceremonies, or to the merit of their own works, to throw themselves upon the mercy of God, and to rest their hopes of heaven in a Saviour, who was shortly to appear. This was a great step gained in the cause of spiritual and vital religion. The disciples of the Baptist were brought to acknowledge that they had offended God, and that they had no means in themselves of obtaining reconciliation. It was thus that they were prepared for receiving the Gospel. John the Baptist made them feel the want of that atonement, which Jesus Christ not only announced but which He actually offered in His own person to God. And not only was John the forerunner of Christ during the short time that he preceded Him on earth, but even now the heart of every one, who is to receive the Gospel, must first be prepared by the doctrines preached by John: he must repent of his sins, and he must have faith in that One who was mightier than John, who was then announced as about to appear, and who shortly did appear, to reconcile us to His Father, by dying on the cross.

John the Baptist proclaimed to the Jews, that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand; and though it is not probable that many of them understood the spiritual nature of the kingdom which was to be established, yet they would all know that he spoke of the Messiah; for the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, were expressions which they had long been in the habit of using for the coming of Christ. When the Christ was actually come—not, as the Jews expected, with the pomp and splendor of an earthly king, but in an obscure and humble station—He began His preaching with the same words which had been used by the Baptist, that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. When He sent out His twelve disciples to preach these glad tidings to the cities of Judaea, He told them to use the same words. From which we gather, that the Kingdom of God, or of Christ, was not actually come when Jesus was born into the world, nor even when He began His ministry. It was still only at hand. Jesus Christ did not come merely to deliver a moral law, nor to teach us, by His own example, how to live, and how to die. These were indeed the great objects of His appearing among us as a man; and the miracles which He worked, together with the spotless purity of His life, were intended to show that He was more than man: but Jesus Christ came into the world to atone for our sins, by dying on the cross. This was the great end and object of His coming; and Christ did not properly enter upon His kingdom till the great sacrifice was offered, and He had risen again from the dead. It was then that the Church of Christ began to be built. The foundation of it, was laid in Christ crucified; and the members of it are all the believers in Christ's death, of every country and every age. It is this Church, of which, with the blessing of God, we may attempt to trace the history.        

Jesus Christ had a great many followers while He was upon earth. Many, perhaps, sincerely believed Him to be the Messiah; but it is probable that very few understood the spiritual nature of the deliverance which He had purchased. The task of explaining this doctrine to the world was committed by Him to twelve men, or rather to eleven; for the traitor was gone to his own place: and when Jesus Christ was ascended into heaven, we have the spectacle before us of eleven Jews, without a leader, without education, money, rank, or influence, going forth to root out the religious opinions of all the nations of the earth, and to preach a new and strange doctrine, which was opposed to the prejudices and passions of mankind.

The doctrine itself may be explained in a few words. They were to preach faith in Christ crucified. Men were to be taught to repent of their sins, and to believe in Christ, trusting to His merits alone for pardon and salvation; and those who embraced this doctrine were admitted into the Christian covenant by baptism, as a token that they were cleansed from their sins, by faith in the death of Christ: upon which admission they received the gift of the Holy Ghost, enabling them to perform works well-pleasing to God, which they could not have done by their own strength. The commission to preach this doctrine, and to admit believers into the Christian covenant by baptism, was given by Christ, while He was upon earth, to the eleven apostles only; and one of their first acts, after His ascension, was to complete their original number of twelve, by the election of Matthias, who was known to them as having accompanied Jesus from the beginning of His ministry.

It is needless to observe that this small band of men, if we give them credit for the utmost unanimity and zeal, was wholly unequal to the conversion of the world. There is also reason to believe that, at this time, they had very imperfect insight into the doctrines which they were to preach; but their Master had promised them assistance which would carry them through every difficulty, and fit them for their super­human labor. Accordingly, on the day of Pentecost which followed His ascension into heaven, He kept His promise by sending the Holy Spirit upon them, in a visible form, and with an effect which was immediately connected with their commission to preach the Gospel. The twelve apostles suddenly found themselves enabled to speak several languages which they had never learned; and the feast of Pentecost having caused the city to be filled, at this time, with foreign Jews, from every part of the world, there was an immediate opportunity for the gift of tongues to be exercised by the apostles, and observed by the strangers.

We have thus, at the very outset of the Gospel, a convincing proof of its truth, and of its having come from God; for nothing but a miracle could enable men to converse in languages which they had never learned; and if the apostles, by means of the gift of tongues, propagated a false doctrine, it must follow that God worked a miracle to assist them in propagating a falsehood.

The effect of the miracle was such as might have been expected. There must have been some hundreds of persons in Jerusalem, who had not only witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus, but who were partly acquainted with His life and doctrines. The foreign Jews were probably strangers to His history; but they now heard it, for the first time, from men who proved their inspiration by evidence which could not be resisted. The apostles took advantage of the impression which this miracle had caused. They explained to the multitudes the great doctrines of the Gospel; and the result was, that on this, which was the first day of their preaching, no fewer than three thousand persons were baptized, professing themselves to be believers in Jesus Christ. These persons were not yet called Christians, nor do we read of their being known at present by any particular name; but they were distinguished by a spirit of brotherly love and charity, which might have been sufficient of itself to show, that their religion came from God.