Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
Ananias discharged his commission with lovely tenderness and power. How
sweet and strange to speaker and hearer would that 'Brother Saul'
sound! How strong and grateful a confirmation of his vision would
Ananias's reference to the appearance of the Lord bring! How humbly
would the proud Pharisee bow to receive, laid on his head, the hands
that he had thought to bind with chains! What new eyes would look out
on a world in which all things had become new, when there fell from
them as it had been scales, and as quickly as had come the blinding, so
quickly came the restored vision!
Ananias was neither Apostle nor official, yet the laying on of his
hands communicated 'the Holy Ghost.' Saul received that gift before
baptism, not after or through the ordinance. It was important for his
future relations to the Apostles that he should not have been
introduced to the Church by them, or owed to them his first human
Christian teaching. Therefore he could say that he was 'an Apostle, not
from men, neither through man.' It was important for us that in that
great instance that divine gift should have been bestowed without the
conditions accompanying, which have too often been regarded as
necessary for, its possession.
'THIS WAY'
'Any of this way.'--ACTS ix. 2
The name of 'Christian' was not applied to themselves by the followers
of Jesus before the completion of the New Testament. There were other
names in currency before that designation--which owed its origin to the
scoffing wits of Antioch--was accepted by the Church. They called
themselves 'disciples,' 'believers, 'saints,' 'brethren,' as if feeling
about for a title.
Here is a name that had obtained currency for a while, and was
afterwards disused. We find it five times in the Book of the Acts of
the Apostles, never elsewhere; and always, with one exception, it
should be rendered, as it is in the Revised Version, not '_this_ way,'
as if being one amongst many, but '_the_ way,' as being the only one.
Now, I have thought that this designation of Christians as 'those of
the way' rests upon a very profound and important view of what
Christianity is, and may teach us some lessons if we will ponder it;
and I ask your attention to two or three of these for a few moments now.
I. First, then, I take this name as being a witness to the conviction
that in Christianity we have the only road to God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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