We
have seen that the “beginning” relates to the
earliest part of New Testament times, not even to the
latest parts of the New Testament. The latest writings
are characterized by correctives, recalls and appeals for
recovery, showing that all too soon in apostolic times,
things began to deviate from the first principles and to
change in both nature and form. These changes will be
given more detailed consideration here as we go on.
For
the present we confine ourselves to one more general and
basic factor from which all else takes its rise. We have
already pointed out that the possession of the Holy
Spirit within the spirit of the believer produces a new
and different “species” or genus, a new kind of
person, the kind referred to by the apostle Paul as
“he that is spiritual”, which he differentiates
from “the natural [soulical or psychical] man”.
This is the new man which is the subject of all New
Testament concern.
It is
not just that an element called “spirituality”
has been taken on, but a fundamentally different kind of
man has been born by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Albeit, the natural or psychical man remains, and remains
a force to be reckoned with. On one side, spiritual
education consists of the growing realization and
understanding of how utterly different from the Spirit of
God the natural man is. The tendencies, proclivities,
directives, conceptions, etc. of the natural man work in
ways that are just the opposite of those of the Spirit in
the new man. This is one of the most obvious things in
the early chapters of the book of Acts. In those chapters
we have the essence of what came in on the day of
Pentecost as the very nature and principle of the new
dispensation. It is an education to observe the way
devoutly religious and wholly sincere men were being
educated in regard to this fundamental difference between
the natural, even though religious, man and “he that
is spiritual”. The inclusive and all-embracing
factor was the absolute sovereignty of the Holy Spirit as
the executor of the risen and exalted Lord Jesus.
A
strong, very strong, carry-over of the Old Testament
system and mentality was present in those first
responsible men such as Peter, James and John. Largely
because of this one factor, this mentality, the advent of
the Spirit had to be “like the sound of a mighty
rushing wind”. Not only a sound, but the force. The
one initial necessity was that those concerned should
realize that things were taken altogether and absolutely
out of THEIR hands; that whatever their hands
might imply — e.g. mentality, predisposition,
reasoning, tradition, conception, interpretation, etc.
— the Spirit of God was above that, either as
contrary to it or as having a meaning which they had
never seen. That is the first factor in the practical
meaning of “As it was in the beginning”.
It
would seem that, while those concerned realized the force
of the happening, they had yet to learn the meaning of
it, for from then onwards the conflict between the
natural man and the spiritual man, IN THEM, was
the way of their education. The transition from Judaism
to the full implications of the new dispensation of the
Spirit was fraught with some hard and painful battles and
revolutions. Repeatedly we see a crisis presenting itself
on this issue and the balances trembling between the old
order and the new. Not, let it be emphasized, between the
world and evil men and Christianity (that was another
aspect), but between the inheritance, training and
tradition of good and committed men (“devout”
they are often called) and an altogether new heavenly
meaning and mindedness.
Let us
repeat: the drastic actions from heaven, as in the case
of Pentecost in general and of Peter and Saul of Tarsus
in particular, demonstrated that the new order was new
and not a carry-over of anything. It was a mastery, a
domination, a Lordship!
Peter,
on the ground of his interpretation of Old Testament
Scriptures about eating the unclean, might remonstrate
with the Lord, but Peter’s entire apostleship and
usefulness would depend upon allowing the Lord to know
better, and submitting. It was a crisis in which Peter
was on the threshold of a discovery which absolutely
amazed him and left him without any explanation except:
“God did it”, and “who was I that I should
withstand God?” The principle herein contained is
the battleground of the continuous question of less or
more power and spiritual fullness.
The
natural, psychical, man is positively incorrigible and
inveterate in the matter of crystallizing, fixing,
legalizing, and putting into final forms. He just MUST
systematize and finalize. Although he may not know
what he means, he will sing with gusto, “As it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be”,
because he is wedded to formulas. He resorts almost
mechanically to “drawing up something” to put
it into a framework and make a box for it. Never has the
Holy Spirit done something but men have subsequently
taken the features of it and compiled therefrom a manual
or text-book and have sought to impose it upon the Holy
Spirit and the church as binding and essential. The
beginning shows that the Holy Spirit will have none of
this. For Himself absolute liberty of action and method
is demanded and never to be denied Him. From a
consideration of historic and organized Christianity it
is wellnigh impossible to realize that there are certain
things that Christianity was NOT at the beginning.
For
instance, it was NOT a new religion. Christianity
was not set over against or alongside of other
“religions”, so that it would be included in
“Comparative Religions”. Although some of the
apostles themselves were tardy in realizing that Judaism
was finished with by Christ and set aside, “lock,
stock and barrel”; and only Stephen, and perhaps a
few with him, had seen the completeness of the break, for
which he had to pay with his life, yet this fact had
steadily to be faced, and its acceptance — fully or
reservedly — determined the degree of their
spiritual measure. Paul is to be accounted for on this
one issue supremely. Their thinking, reasoning and
handling of their prejudices had to be done AFTER the
embarrassing experiences and accomplished facts. They
started with “acts”, not with a new religion.
Further,
Christianity was not a new “teaching”. There is
nothing in the whole record upon which to build a theory
or affirmation that the apostles went out with “The
Teaching of Jesus” as a stereotyped system. They
were not propagating in the pagan, heathen or Jewish
world new doctrines as such or a new system of truth.
Explanations, which became the teaching or doctrine of
the church, were reserved for those who had responded in
faith to the declaration of certain fundamental FACTS relating
to the person of Jesus Christ and these were few. The
most that they did was to support and substantiate their
testimony TO HIM from the Scriptures.
Once
again: Christianity was not originally thought of as a
new movement. No plans of campaign were laid. There was
no policy. Organization was almost entirely absent. The
very small degree of this was subsequently forced upon
them by the embarrassment of the very vitality of the
spiritual life. A thought-out campaign did not exist. To
set up, form, launch, or bring into being, or found a new
society, sect or community, was not in their minds.
Outsiders put the labels on, perhaps because of the SPIRITUAL
distinctiveness of the believers, but they never
adopted a special title for themselves. The really
distinguishing characteristic was not the name of a
movement, but the presence of a mystery to all the
outside world. Every attempt to explain them by a label,
such as Christians, The Way, Sect, just missed the point.
There does not exist a formula for or an explanation of
life, whether natural or divine; and if there were, it
would be like trying to put the Pacific Ocean into a
bottle. So much the worse for the bottle, as Jesus said
about the new wine and the old wine-skins. It was this
“law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”
which accounted for the experience, explained it in
teaching, energized the action, and produced the
“form” — the ORGANIC form at the
beginning.
Here,
then, we have confined ourselves to the overall,
inclusive factor at the “Beginning”, that is
the absolute sovereign liberty, government, mastery and
direction of the Spirit of the enthroned Christ in
heaven. This demanded a transcending, superceding, and
subjugating of all the assertions of the natural man.
This is a crisis and then a progress. As we have implied,
this had an effect both as to the relationship with the
world and the developments within the church. The former
of these two aspects will retain us in our next chapter.