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‘Beginning at Jerusalem.’
Luk_24:47
I. Notice how explicitly this point is emphasised by Christ Himself.—How prominently Jerusalem, where He had been rejected and crucified, is in His thoughts. It is as though the Christian Church were to enlarge its borders in ever-widening concentric circles, so that He who is ‘a light to lighten the Gentiles’ may at the same time be ‘the glory of His people Israel.’ Christ’s messengers are not to scatter over the face of the earth, to commence a haphazard evangelisation of the nations. ‘He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem.’ ‘Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.’
II. Notice how exactly the Church obeyed the will of its risen Lord.—‘They worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.’ Then came the descent of the Spirit. The Jewish Pentecost is transformed at once into the Christian Whitsuntide. Then follows the preaching to ‘the Jew first.’ The Acts of the Apostles shows the Christian society at Jerusalem established as the mother of churches. To it the Christians of the first age look, as the ancient Israel had looked towards Zion. It is from Jerusalem that missionaries go forth to evangelise the Roman Empire. It is ‘the apostles at Jerusalem’ who heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, and sent unto them Peter and John. At Jerusalem is held the first council of the Church. From Macedonia and Achaia, from Philippi and Corinth, churches on the mainland of Greece, contributions are sent for the poor saints at Jerusalem. ‘Beginning at Jerusalem’ is printed, as it were, on the title page of the Acts. And it is quite in accordance with the prominence accorded to this city in the New Testament that the earliest instance of a bishop in the Christian Church should be found at Jerusalem, and that a deference quite out of proportion to its practical importance should have been paid to him as representing the original metropolis of Christendom.
III. A lesson in unity.—But if our Lord meant to fix Jerusalem as the capital, the metropolis of the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, then the conception of the Church of Christ as an actual historic society, with an outward unity as real as that which belongs to any world state, is at once conceded as belonging to the essentials of the Christian faith. ‘All one body we’ was never meant to be a mere pious expression of opinion that at the last, when the secrets of the heart should be disclosed, men who had failed to identify each other in the thick of the conflict would be found to belong to the hidden company of God’s chosen. A Church so vague as this were little better than no Church at all. What we need is a body ‘fitly framed and knit together,’ something that can kindle a common enthusiasm, and arouse the love and loyalty of its members. That Christ has given us in the visible Church.
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Rev. J. G. Simpson.