FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISES AS STATED IN ACTS.

We have seen in Part Third that while the book of Acts has been more confidently assailed by unbelievers than any one of the Gospels, its credibility has been completely vindicated. This vindication is the more remarkable from the fact that this book occupies such a relation to the others, and especially to Paul's Epistles, as to subject it to a greater variety of tests than any other. We come to its testimony on the subject of inspiration, therefore, with full confidence that in its statements we shall find nothing but the truth.

After a few introductory paragraphs, the body of this narrative opens with a detailed account of the fulfillment of the promises of Jesus in regard to inspiration. The author having referred to these promises in the close of his previous narrative, and also in the introduction to this, purposely and formally opens the body of his work with the account of this fulfillment; so that it comes in not incidentally, but formally and prominently. He represents the Twelve as waiting for it and expecting it till it comes; and he declares that it came on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus. He says that on the morning of that day they were all together in one place, and suddenly 14 there appeared to them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." He adds that there were men there from fifteen provinces of the Roman Empire, which he names, representing almost as many tongues and dialects, who heard these Galileans speaking in the tongues of all these countries, and that they were amazed and confounded by the fact, and inquired with one voice, "What does this mean?" He further states that one of the Twelve, Simon Peter, arose, together with his eleven companions, and declared that this miracle was the fulfillment of a prophecy uttered by the prophet Joel, which he proceeds to recite in their hearing, and that Jesus, who had risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, had sent upon them the Spirit whose power his hearers were witnessing (Acts ii. 1-33).

Now here was the fulfillment of the promises of Jesus in almost every particular. First, the Twelve had no premeditation, and they felt no anxiety. No amount of either could have helped them to speak in tongues; and for premeditation they had no opportunity. Second, both the "what" and the "how" of their utterances were given to them, and both were given by giving them the words; for, the words being unknown to them, they were not suggested by the thoughts which were conveyed to the hearers. In this was fulfilled almost absolutely the words: "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." Third, the Spirit led Peter into truth hitherto unknown; for it enabled him to declare the law of remission of sins under Christ, and to make known the exaltation of Jesus, which had recently transpired in heaven. It is highly probable, too, that it brought to his mind the predictions both of Joel and of David, and enabled him to give an interpretation to both which he had not conceived before that hour. Fourth, such a complete possession of their minds by the Holy Spirit fully justified the metaphor by which the transaction was called a baptism in the Spirit. By the miracle of speaking in tongues it was now demonstrated, both to the multitude and to the Apostles themselves, that a power had taken up its abode within them fully able to perform all that Jesus had promised, and that this power was the Spirit of God sent down from heaven by Jesus himself.

That the power thus bestowed on the Twelve on the great Pentecost continued to abide in them according to the promise, is set forth in Acts in several ways. In the first place, the author makes formal mention of it a few times, and then leaves us to infer that as it was thus far, it continued to be till the end. For instance, when Peter was first arraigned before the .Jewish Sanhedrim, the writer, as if to call attention to the fulfillment of the promise, says:" Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them" (iv. 8), and proceeds to quote his speech. When the Apostles, being forbidden to speak any more in the name of Jesus, had prayed, he says: "They were all tilled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness" (iv. 31).

In the second place, he quotes the Apostles themselves as affirming the continuance of this power. He quotes Peter, in -second time that he appeared before the Sanhedrim, as saying: "We are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit whom God hath given to them who obey him" (v. 31, 32). This was an echo of the promise. "When the Advocate is come, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." Again, he quotes Peter three times as affirming that the miraculous gift of tongues bestowed on the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius was the same as that bestowed on the Twelve at the beginning, thus reasserting the event of Pentecost (x. -14-17; xi. 16, 17; xv. 8). Finally he quotes the Apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem at the time of the conference about circumcision, as introducing the decree by the words, "It seemed good unto the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things ' (xv. 27, 28), thus affirming that their decision was the decision of the Holy Spirit, which it could have been only because they were guided in it by the Spirit.

In the third place, the author himself makes the same representation, by mentioning many miracles which the Apostles wrought, which were at once a proof and an exhibition of the presence of the Holy Spirit within them. This he does by his account of healing the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple; that of many such persons healed after the death of Ananias and Sapphira; that of Eneas at Lydda, and the raising of Tabitha from the dead in Joppa. We should especially note also, in this connection, that peculiar exhibition of the Spirit's power by which, when the device of Ananias and his wife put it to the test, Peter looked into the secrets of their hearts and exposed their inmost thoughts. Here was a most startling and unmistakable exhibition of a mental power which the divine Spirit alone could impart.

In the fourth place, the Apostles are represented as actually imparting the gift of the Holy Spirit in its miraculous manifestations to other disciples. Only one instance is formally described, that of its impartation by Peter and John to disciples in Samaria; but the gift was possessed by Stephen, by Philip, by Agabus, by Barnabas, by Symeon called Niger, by Lucius of Cyrene, and by Manaen; and it was doubtless conferred on all of these in the same way. If there were any doubt on this point, it would be dissipated by what we shall yet learn from the practice of the Apostle Paul. Now this impartation of the Spirit to others is a demonstrative proof that the Apostles still possessed it themselves, and that the promise, "He abideth with you," was fulfilled.

In the fifth place, all that is affirmed in Acts on this subject concerning the Twelve is in every particular affirmed of Paul after he became an Apostle. He was filled with the Spirit at the time of his baptism; he was a prophet; he wrought many miracles; he imparted the Holy Spirit to others; and he was even led by the direct power of the Spirit into proper fields of labor when his own judgment as to where he should go would have led him less wisely (Acts xvi. 6-8.

The sum of the evidence in Acts concerning the fulfillment of the promises, we can now see, is the sum of the promises made by Jesus. The two stand over against each other as the two sides of an equation; and they combine to show that there abode permanently in the Apostles, and in some of their companions, a power of God's Holy Spirit equal to their perfect enlightenment and guidance in all that they sought to know and say; and that it did, as a matter of fact, guide their thoughts, their words, and the course of their missionary journeys. Not only so, it enabled them to speak of things in heaven, on earth, and in the future, concerning which, without divine enlightenment, men in the flesh can know nothing. A more complete inspiration for their work of speaking, of writing, and of directing the attains of the church, is beyond conception. We can add nothing to it in thought, and we should not in thought be willing to take anything from it.