Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.
"And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 4:33).
"And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all
that heard these things" (Acts 5:11).
"And great grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:33).
Great power, and great grace, and great fear.
You know that what was taking place at the time of which these
things are recorded, was the beginning of a new dispensation, a
new order of things - for that is the meaning of the word
"dispensation". It is not only a time mark, it is the nature of
what obtains within the compass of a given time, and when God
institutes a new dispensation, which is both a new time and a new
order, He does two things. He does it in no uncertain way. There
is no mistaking the fact that God is moving with a new thought and
intent and is really instituting a new order of things. He commits
Himself very strongly and very deeply to that new regime. That is,
of course, perfectly patent in the case of the dispensation
inaugurated on the day of Pentecost. There is no mistaking that
God is doing something and that He is committing Himself most
strongly and most deeply. The other thing marking such a movement
of God is that He establishes the principles which are to hold
good and govern for the duration of that dispensation. He lays the
foundations, He institutes definite spiritual laws upon which the
whole of the new order will stand, or, by their violation or
non-observance, will fall. So it was that in bringing in the
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, God did it in power, and then
certain results followed which showed what the ways of the Spirit
are for all time.
Here in the words we have taken out of this whole movement of the
Spirit, we have two of these principles, these issues, which
emanate from the instituting of this new Holy Spirit order, and
they spring from Christ risen and are always at work in relation
to Christ risen, so that the Holy Spirit is working not only to an
historic fact that Christ was raised from the dead, but to a great
spiritual reality - if you like, a great spiritual principle.
Everything is the expression of Christ risen. It is what Christ
risen means, how it works out, and that is what is here.
Great Grace Upon All
We had a statement - "and great grace was upon them all." We take
that first, although it comes second in the three great things
mentioned. Grace, as you know, in the New Testament is inclusive
of various things. Grace is that which sets forth the beneficence
of God in the acceptance of those who have no ground of acceptance
in themselves. Grace, just grace, all of grace.
But then grace is used in other ways. It is used as of an
enablement to suffer and to endure. "My grace is sufficient for
thee" (2 Cor. 12:9) was said to a sorely tried and perplexed
servant of the Lord. "You will be able to go on; I will give grace
though you have to carry a heavy load." And so grace is used in
various ways, and here it is in another way, "Great grace was upon
them all." Here it refers to the character and behaviour of the
Lord Jesus reproduced in the Church and all its members: the
beauty, the striking beauty, the graciousness, the selflessness,
the kindness, the thoughtfulness of the believers. That is the
meaning of grace as it is mentioned here. That was great grace
which was upon them all. Here in this chapter you have that
wonderful outworking of the second chapter, verse 42 - "they
continued stedfastly in fellowship." If you want to know what that
means - "in fellowship" - it does not just mean they got together
at meetings and attended meetings. You have to go to chapter 4 to
know what fellowship meant and means. Fellowship is a wonderful
word in this book of the New Testament. It was the overflow of a
Christly disposition one to another. That was the essence of the
fellowship - "great grace was upon them all."
Well, what did they do? How did it work out? What was its
practical value? Well, just read the rest of the chapter, read
what immediately follows: this Christly character which was called
the great grace, the grace of the Lord Jesus. It is not here
specifically and peculiarly the grace of God, the grace of God
towards men as sinners to make a way for them into His presence -
that is the grace of God. It is the grace of the Lord Jesus here
in this sense - the wonderful kindness of the Lord Jesus. "Ye know
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet
for your sakes He became poor" (2 Cor. 8:9) and they were just
giving up their riches, their wealth, their properties, their
possessions, and virtually becoming poor for the sake of the
Church, and that is the grace of the Lord Jesus. The self-emptying
of the Lord Jesus - that was His grace for the sake of others.
Great Power Built Upon Great Grace
This Christly character, as you notice, had these two effects.
Firstly it lay behind the great power of their witness, "With
great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus." Why? Because the Holy Spirit always demands and
requires for ministry, for witness, a life behind: something to
back it up, something that speaks of Christ in the life. That
would never have been written but for the foundation. Great power
is built upon great grace. It was the spirituality of the Church,
the spirituality of those who composed it that issued in the great
power in testimony, in witness. Let us remember that. There is no
power where the character of the Lord Jesus is not manifested.
There is no really effective ministry if there is a contradiction
to Him in the background. Great power requires great grace. Shall
we use the other word? Great power demands great graciousness;
Christlikeness is the word. These men were not only proclaiming
doctrines and historical facts about Jesus. They were carrying in
their very presence and as from behind the embodiment of the Lord
Jesus risen, and the embodiment of the Lord Jesus above all other
things is this - great grace. He emptied Himself, He humbled
Himself. Great grace, great power, comes along that line.
Well, we pray for power, we pray for effective testimony, we pray
for the expansion and the extension of the testimony. Our hearts
want to see real effectiveness, real fruitfulness, real increase.
Let us always remember the one thing that will make all that
impossible is any un-Christlikeness in the background, and if
there is great grace, you can leave the matter of the great power
to take care of itself: it will just register.
The Practical Outworking of Grace
And so this grace, this great grace, was very practical. It says
immediately - "Neither was there among them any that lacked: for
as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and
brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at
the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto each, according
as anyone had need" (Acts 4:34-35). If anyone has need, the work
of the Holy Spirit is not going on. If anyone has need, there is a
contradiction to the very disposition of the Lord Jesus. The grace
of the Lord Jesus was to see that no one had need, that there were
no needy souls.
"And Joseph, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is,
being interpreted, son of exhortation or consolation)" (Acts
4:36) - tremendously interesting that, because the root of his
name is the same root as the name of the Holy Spirit - the
Paraclete, the one who comes alongside to help and console. Is not
that the Holy Spirit? This man had a beautiful Holy Spirit
ministry of exhortation and consolation, and he was so filled with
the Spirit that they gave him a name which meant the same in
effect as the Holy Spirit. Consolation. Paraclete is the Holy
Spirit's name, and this is Paracletos. We are getting very near to
the Lord when that can be true, when your given name is on the
basis of what you are, and this man, because he was like Jesus,
was surnamed Barnabas, Son of consolation. "Barnabas... a Levite,
a man of Cyprus by race, having a field, sold it, and brought the
money and laid it at the apostles' feet." That is great grace.
That is the meaning of grace. Grace is practical. The Holy Spirit
produced a Church like that, and a Church like that gave witness
with great power. It is all one thing.
And, while it is very nice and very beautiful to think about and
talk about, it is a challenge. What are we doing about it? Have
you got any fields? What have you got for the Lord's interests? We
have known in time past the Spirit of God to sweep over a company
of the Lord's people and so burden them with the Lord's need in
the world that they have come and, if they have not had monetary
gifts, have put watches and jewels on the table before the Lord to be
turned to account. I am not suggesting that you do that sort of
thing, but it is the spirit of the Holy Spirit. This is grace.
There was a time when the whole question of whether the Lord was
going on with His people centred in that thing. They came to the
point when the Lord said, "Ye are a stiffnecked people; if I go up
into the midst of thee for one moment, I shall consume thee:
therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know
what to do unto thee" (Ex. 33:5). And they stripped themselves of
every adornment and got adjusted that the Lord might go up with
them.
The grace of the Lord Jesus did that. He stripped Himself for our
sakes, and that is how it was there when the Lord instituted this
dispensation. There must be a spirit like that, a disposition like
that, where we hold everything in the interests of the Lord, and
not just say that we do, but do it. Now that is a spiritual
matter. You may say that is coming down to a low level. I do not
agree with that. I am trying to get at the heart of this thing -
great grace and how it works out. It will work out in many ways,
but it does work out like this in a very real, heartfelt, selfless
concern for every child of God in the Church; real care for each
one. "Care one for another" is an apostolic word (1 Cor. 12:25). I
say again, that is the spirit, not meetings, not coming and going,
but a real care for one another, making a business of this care
for one another. The Lord takes account of that, and sees the
reflection of His grace, of His Son, and great power will follow,
and great extension and expansion will take place. That is the way
of enlargement. It has ever been so.
Great Grace Leads to Great Fear
This very thing led to the great fear which came upon all. Why?
Well, you see, where there is the preciousness to God of Christ,
there is the jealousy of God. God is very jealous for the
preciousness of His Son. The Holy Spirit was jealous over the
fellowship. Fellowship is a matter over which the Holy Spirit is
very jealous. He acted accordingly; He acted judicially. When
things are like this, there is something very precious for the
Lord and the Holy Spirit acts on that ground; He acts judicially.
You see, there was that which was knowingly contrary to the
Spirit. It was perfectly obvious what the Holy Spirit was doing,
the way that the Holy Spirit was taking, what He was producing,
how He was exercising people, what He was causing them to do; that
was clear to all. And when Ananias and Sapphira did what they did,
they did it in the face of the obvious way of the Holy Spirit, and
that is where the Holy Spirit intervened in this very solemn way.
Let us note this.
You see, there were two aspects to this matter, to this case. It
was, after all, a voluntary and gratuitous matter. It was not
legal. The Holy Spirit had not laid down any laws about selling
fields, houses, or anything else, and said, "This is the pattern
and you have to do it; if you do not, woe betide you." It was the
spontaneous, gratuitous response to the work of grace in the
heart, not a bit compulsory. Let us beware about setting up a
system of Christian communism and imposing it and saying, "This is
the order that obtains in the church - a Christian communism." You
can be as legal and cold and dead about that as about anything
else. The Holy Spirit never did that at all. This was simply a
heart response to the Holy Spirit, not obedience to a set of laws,
or regulations, which had been imposed or established.
The apostle said, "While it remained, did it not remain thine
own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?" (Acts 5:4).
But there is a difference between withholding like that and
consciously doing something to deceive. The Holy Spirit cannot be
deceived. In the light of what was happening, they consciously
sought to deceive. There are two aspects. You can just not do it
and in not doing it you will not meet judicial judgment, the Holy
Spirit will not smite you, you will not be one of those who die,
not discerning the Lord's Body. You will lose spiritually, you
will lose right enough, but it will not be judicial action. But if
we are aware of something contrary to the Lord Jesus, and in our
awareness of it seek to go on as though it did not exist and make
believe and deceive, try to pass ourselves off with the others who
are going wholly with the Lord as though we were on the same
footing, and we know all the time in the background of our life
there is a lie, and that lie is to the Holy Ghost, not to men, it
is not even to ourselves, it is to the Holy Ghost, then that opens
the door to something else. It is a very serious thing to have the
knowledge of something wrong in the background of our lives, and
then try to come in and pass ourselves off as though that did not
exist. That is a lie to the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit knew all
about it, and this loss was much more than just a spiritual loss:
this was a judicial act of the Holy Ghost. No, no deceiving of the
Holy Spirit.
The point is that absolute transparency is the mark of grace,
absolute truth before God in the background of our lives, absolute
facing up to the situation and accepting it, is what it means to
be in the Holy Ghost regime. That is a very holy regime; that is a
very holy dispensation. You may have and keep it, you will only
suffer spiritually, the Lord will not come and do anything to
perhaps take your life away. But if there should be that in the
background which the Holy Spirit has pointed out as being
altogether inconsistent with the truth and the purity and the
holiness of a life in the dispensation of the Spirit, and we just
close our eyes to it and go on as though all was right, we are
going to meet something presently. That is not a pleasant thing to
say, but it is very necessary in order to get to this.
"With great power gave the apostles their witness", and then you
get the whole of this book on the movement of the Spirit, the
power of God, and what is happening everywhere. God is on the
move, and He was able to do it because this Christly condition
obtained in the background. You can read the New Testament in the
light of that. You have nothing said about the church in Corinth
as to its far-reaching testimony, its spiritual influence beyond
its own borders because this state of things did not obtain. But
in Thessalonica it is otherwise. "The love of each one of you all
toward one another aboundeth" (2 Thess. 1:3). "From you hath
sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and
Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth"
(1 Thess. 1:8). It is self-evident. You see the basis of power, of
victory, witness, fruitful ministry, far-reaching testimony, it is
a life in the Holy Spirit, a life according to Christ, and a very
practical one at that. It is looking after all sorts of details
within its own company. The Lord make us a company like that.