(1) _The doctrine of Christ's Person_. The doctrine is of the simplest kind, but the facts asserted by the apostles imply that He is divine. He is the Messiah, anointed by God, and the Holy One, and He is in a special sense the Holy Servant or Child of God (iii. 14; iv. 27). He is seated at the right hand of God (v. 31), He is Prince and Saviour. He fulfils divine functions. It is He who has poured out the Holy Spirit (ii. 33). He is the object of man's faith, and His name or revealed personality is declared to have just restored a lame man to soundness (iii. 16); signs and wonders are expected to be done through Him (iv. 30). There is "salvation" in none other (iv. 12), and He is to be "the Judge of quick and dead" {110} (x. 42). St. Stephen in dying prays to Him. He is perpetually called Lord, and the fact that the same name is applied to Jehovah in the Septuagint makes it impossible to suppose that Christ is not regarded as possessed of divine attributes. (2) _The doctrine of the salvation of the world_. Rationalist critics have asserted that the first apostles had no idea that the gospel was meant for the world, and that they limited its light to the children of Abraham. The unfairness of this assertion is shown by the consistent manner in which the same doctrine of the salvation of all men is interwoven in different parts of Acts, including the early chapters, which are generally acknowledged to be derived from an early Jewish Christian source. The doctrine is that salvation is offered to the Jews first (iii. 26), but "all that are afar off" may share in it (ii. 39; iii. 25). This is exactly the doctrine expressed by St. Paul in Rom. i. 16. And the conversion of Gentiles of different classes, as recorded in Acts, testifies that the apostles acted up to the doctrine. They did not doubt that the Gentiles had a right to the gospel. The point which did agitate them was, how much of the Jewish ceremonial ought the Gentiles to be required to observe. When the Gentile converts became numerous the question became acute, being sharpened by the demand of certain Jewish Christians that all converts should be circumcised.