A grave crisis in the kingdom of God: more lessons.
The crisis of the kingdom will be found in the life of the Divine Leader of the faith. In those hours when all that was human in him shrank from the sufferings and sorrows which were before him, or from the agony which was upon him, or from the darkness which enshrouded him, then was "the crisis of the world" and of the kingdom of God on earth. But this also was a crisis, grave and serious. If the Church at Antioch had yielded to these "false brethren" (Galatians 2:4), when they came to invade its liberty; or if—a much greater peril—the Church at Jerusalem had decided in favor of the Judaizers, and had passed a sentence that circumcision was necessary to salvation; and if Christian truth had thus been narrowed to the small dimensions of a mere adjunct to Judaism, where would Christianity have been to-day? From the incident here related we draw the lessons—
I. WHAT HARM ZEALOTRY MAY TRY TO DO. These men "who came down from Judaea" (Acts 15:1) were members of the Pharisaic party "which believed" (Acts 15:5); they were formal adherents of the Christian faith; they spake reverently of Christ, and believed themselves to be acting in the interests of his kingdom. Yet we know that they were taking a course which, if they had carried their point, would hove simply extinguished the faith in a few years. Often, since then, has blind zealotry done its best to bring about a condition which would have proved fatal to the cause of God and of redeemed humanity.
II. IN WHAT UNINVITING LABORS FIDELITY MAY INVOLVE US. How different from evangelizing risks and toils, and from the fraternal intercourse which followed these, how much beneath both the one and the other, how much more uninviting this controversy with false brethren, narrow-minded, mistaking a rite whose significance was exhausted for an essential of salvation! How uncongenial, to the spirit of the apostle this "dissension and disputation" (Acts 15:2)! But it was necessary; it was as much a part of their bounden duty and their loyal obedience to their Lord as the preaching of the gospel or the indicting of an Epistle. The Christian workman cannot always choose his work. He must sometimes give up the congenial for the unpleasant, the inviting for the repellent.
III. HOW WELL TO ENCOURAGE THE FAITHFUL IN THE HOUR OF THEIR ANXIETY. Those who constituted the deputation were "brought on their way by the Church" (Acts 15:3). In the profound anxiety which must have filled the sagacious and earnest mind of Paul at this critical juncture, such gracious attention on the part of the Church must have been exceedingly refreshing. No "moral support' of tried and anxious leaders, in times of supreme solicitude, is thrown away; it is well-spent time and trouble.
IV. THAT IT IS SOMETIMES OUR DUTY TO TAKE INTO CONSULTATION OUR BRETHREN IN A HIGHER POSITION. The Church at Antioch was not obliged to consult that at Jerusalem; the latter had no jurisdiction entitling it to decide the disputes of the former. But it was becoming and it was wise, and therefore it was right, to refer the matter in dispute to "the Church [of Jerusalem] and the apostles and the elders" (Acts 15:4, Acts 15:6). Often when no written constitution obliges us to refer to authorities, it is a matter of practical wisdom, and therefore of rectitude, to go outside our own "body" and submit our case to those in high repute. We may gain far more than we lose thereby.
V. THE TEACHING OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE. (Acts 15:7-9.) Peter would not have taken the side he took now had not his eyes been opened by the event in which he had borne so large and so honorable a share (Acts 10:1-48.). We should grow more charitable and more large-minded as we grow in years.
VI. THE FREEDOM OF THE GOSPEL FROM ALL BURDENSOME IMPOSTS. (Acts 15:10.) Why tempt God by putting on the neck of the disciples an intolerable yoke? Why invite defeat? Why multiply difficulty and ensure disappointment by requiring of the whole Gentile world a conformity which they will not render and which God does not demand? Why make burdensome the yoke which the Master himself made easy (Matthew 11:30)? The gospel of his grace was meant to be a source of blessedness and deliverance; how insensate the folly of tying to it any institutes which would make it become an insufferable vexation!
VII. THE ESSENCE OF THE ORDINANCE. Circumcision was but the outward sign of admission to the privilege and obligation of the Law. The Law was but the schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. Those, then, who were saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 15:11) had the very essence and substance of which the old Jewish rite Was but the sign and symbol (Philippians 3:3; Romans 2:28, Romans 2:29).—C.