'And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.'--ACTS ii. 47.
'And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved.'--(R. V.)
You observe that the principal alterations of these words in the Revised Version are two: the one the omission of 'the church,' the other the substitution of 'were being saved' for 'such as should be saved.' The former of these changes has an interest as suggesting that at the early period referred to the name of 'the church' had not yet been definitely attached to the infant community, and that the word afterwards crept into the text at a time when ecclesiasticism had become a great deal stronger than it was at the date of the writing of the Acts of the Apostles. The second of the changes is of more importance. The Authorised Version's rendering suggests that salvation is a future thing, which in one aspect is partially true. The Revised Version, which is also by far the more literally accurate, suggests the other idea, that salvation is a process going on all through the course of a Christian man's life. And that carries very large and important lessons.
I. I ask you to notice here, first, the profound conception which the writer had of the present action of the ascended Christ. 'The Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved.'
Then Christ (for it is He that is here spoken of as the Lord), the living, ascended Christ, was present in, and working with, that little community of believing souls. You will find that the thought of a present Saviour, who is the life-blood of the Church on earth, and the spring of action for all good that is done in it and by it, runs through the whole of this Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The keynote is struck in its first verses: 'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day in which He was taken up.' That is the description of Luke's Gospel, and it implies that the Acts of the Apostles is the _second_ treatise, which tells all that Jesus continued to do and teach _after_ that He was taken up. So the Lord, the ascended Christ, is the true theme and hero of this book. It is He, for instance, who sends down the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. It is He whom the dying martyr sees 'standing at the right hand of God,' ready to help. It is He who appears to the persecutor on the road to Damascus. It is He who sends Paul and his company to preach in Europe. It is He who opens hearts for the reception of their message. It is He who stands by the Apostle in a vision, and bids him 'be of good cheer,' and go forth upon his work. Thus, at every crisis in the history of the Church, it is the Lord--that is to say, Christ Himself--who is revealed as working in them and for them, the ascended but yet ever-present Guide, Counsellor, Inspirer, Protector, and Rewarder of them that put their trust in Him. So here it is He that 'adds to the Church daily them that were being saved.'
I believe, dear brethren, that modern Christianity has far too much lost the vivid impression of this present Christ as actually dwelling and working among us. What is good in us and what is bad in us conspire to make us think more of the past work of an ascended Christ than of the present work of an indwelling Christ. We cannot think too much of that Cross by which He has laid the foundation for the salvation and reconciliation of all the world; but we may easily think too exclusively of it, and so fix our thoughts upon that work which He completed when on Calvary He said, 'It is finished!' as to forget the continual work which will never be finished until His Church is perfected, and the world is redeemed. If we are a Church of Christ at all, we have Christ in very deed among us, and working through us and on us. And unless we have, in no mystical and unreal and metaphorical sense, but in the simplest and yet grandest prose reality, that living Saviour here in our hearts and in our fellowship, better that these walls were levelled with the ground, and this congregation scattered to the four winds of heaven. The present Christ is the life of His Church.