The Great Commission. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. IVMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
The Great Commission. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. IV
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Theology
But we must call the reader's special attention to the form in which
the Holy Ghost came down on the day of Pentecost. It is full of
deepest interest, and lets us into the precious secret of the heart of
God in a most touching manner.
Let us turn to chapter ii. of the Acts of the Apostles.
"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were _all with one
accord in one place_"--instructive and suggestive fact!--"And suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto
them _cloven tongues_, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost"--He had full possession
of their hearts and minds, full sway over their whole moral
being--blessed condition!--"And they began to speak with _other
tongues_" (not in the absurd and unintelligible jargon of cunning
impostors or deluded fanatics, but), "as the Spirit gave them
utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, _out
of every nation under heaven_." Note this fact. "Now when this was
noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded,
because that _every man heard them speak in his own language_."--How
real--how telling!--"And they were all amazed, and marveled, saying
one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And
how _hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born_?"--not
merely wherein we were educated--"Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,
and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of
Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes
and Arabians, _we do hear them speak in our tongues_ the wonderful
works of God."
What a marvelous occurrence! How marked the coincidence! God so
ordered it, in His infinite wisdom and perfect grace, that there
should be assembled in the city of Jerusalem, at the exact moment,
people from every nation on the face of the whole earth, in order
that--even should the twelve apostles fail to carry out their
commission--all might hear, in the very dialect in which their mothers
first whispered into their infant ears the accents of a mother's love,
the precious tidings of God's salvation.
Can anything exceed this in interest? Who can fail to see in the fact
here recorded that it was the loving desire of the heart of God to
reach every creature under heaven with the sweet story of His grace?
The world had rejected the Son of God, had crucified and slain Him;
but no sooner had He taken His seat at the right hand of God than down
came the august Witness, God the Spirit, to speak to man--to every
man--to speak to him, not in accents of withering denunciation, not in
the thundering anathemas of judgment, but in accents of deep and
tender love, to tell him of full remission of sins through the blood
of the Cross.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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