(2) The gift is both individual and corporate. All the announcements and instructions were delivered to the disciples as a corporate group; and were so received and acted upon. The disciples tarried in the city together, assembled in one place, and this is specified as characteristic among the circumstances under which the promise was fulfilled and applied : " They were all together in one place." In short, our Lord did not announce the Holy Spirit only as a guide for individual hearts, essential as this part of His office is, but also as the Giver of power for the corporate witness of the Church, and for its extension. He laid down the doctrine of a Church which as a whole should be guided in her missionary operations by God the Holy Ghost, while for the execution of the details of that task, her members, each in his own grade, should receive power from the same Spirit.
■[j Jesus Christ made men before He made the Church. Jesus created and concentrated strong, personal forces among His personal followers, before He gave to the disciples the cup of communion, and ordained them as His Apostles to gather con- gregations of believers in His name. In Christ's work the inspired personality came first, and afterwards the New Testament and the Church. A true communion, or saved society of men and women, was the end sought from the beginning by Him who came preaching the Gospel of the kingdom ; but the method of Jesus was personal influence, and the inspiration of chosen personalities by. His Spirit. The power of the Church consists in its fulness of personal forces. Your personal power for good may be multiplied many fold in the organized life of the Church ; but personal powers are the vital units which, multiplied together, constitute that organic whole which is the living body of Christ.1
(3) It is a gift once for all, and cannot be repeated. On this day the promise was fulfilled, the Holy Ghost came, and the new
1 Newman Smyth, Christian Facts and Forces, 163.
i4 POWER FOR WITNESS
era was inaugurated. It was not a step which could be repeated. We talk of new Pentecosts, but it is an inaccurate phrase. The fact of Pentecost has taken place once for all, and we are here, not to wait for new Pentecosts, but to believe in the one which God established. We may drink, as individuals, of the stream then set flowing, or we may neglect it ; but there can be no second stream. We may stir up, as a Church, the Spirit which all the Churches have received, but if we neglect it there is no new Pentecost. That the new era had been on that day in- augurated became instantly evident. The Apostles, who had been very slow to understand either the essence or the nature of Christ's work, or the current of God's purposes, immediately were found masters of the application of the Old Testament to every part of their duty, masters of Christ's system, laying down the principles of conversion, communion, discipline ; even found full of insight into the meaning of God in history, and the scope of His future purpose. As scattered fragments of iron filings are instantly ranged in order and charged with force when a great magnet is brought over them, so the group of wavering adherents, of different temperaments and aims, became in a moment a coherent and disciplined band, instinct with the mind and the force of their ascended Master, by the power of that Holy Spirit whom He had said that He would send.
Tf In the Church there ever is, living as an actual fact, to be seen of men, the Christian life, i.e. a character seen in actual life and work, with marks clear and distinct — a character which appeals to all as the highest and noblest life that man can live. There it is with many features, infinite variety, yet one and the same through the ages, governed by the same dominant and deeply fixed principles which make it what it is. It is not an imagination, but a real thing, which we can trace back to the time of Christ, and which we can trace no further.1
III.
The Use of Power.
"Ye shall be my witnesses."
The expression which St. Luke represents our Lord as employing, simple as it is, is full of meaning. It has a history.
JM. B. Williamson.
ACTS i. 8 15
In the second part of Isaiah, the prophet draws a magnificent picture of a great assize (Isa. xliii. 9 ff. ; cf. xliv. 8 ff.). Jehovah puts Himself on His trial. His claims to sovereignty become the subject of a universal controversy. On the one side all the nations are assembled together; on the other, Israel, now chastened and restored — Jehovah's sons brought " from far and his daughters from the end of the earth." The nations are challenged to produce their witnesses and to sustain the pre- tensions of their gods. There is silence ; the appeal is un- answered. Then Jehovah turns to Israel, who has known Him. " Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen. ... Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God."
The great assize is now no longer a prophetic vision. Hence- forth it is to be wrought out in the daily struggles and triumphs of the Christian Church. The supreme messenger of Jehovah is renewing the ancient challenge. Israel after the flesh by their rejection of Him has proved unworthy of the prerogative once theirs. They are no longer Jehovah's witnesses to the nations. They have rather passed over into the ranks of those who must receive the testimony of others. The Apostles, the representatives and prophets of the new Israel of God, are bidden to take up the abdicated office, and, themselves the first recipients of a final salvation, to be Jehovah's witnesses to all the world. Thus Christ's parting words seem to be designed to mark alike the continuity of revelation and the passing away of the old order.