Acts 4:7-10 And when they had set them in the middle, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have you done this?… Christ acts in a two-fold capacity in the building up of human life. He is the foundation (1 Corinthians 3:2; 1 Peter 2:4-7); and the stone which crowns the edifice and gives it completeness, unity, and strength. He is thus the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. The text sets forth Christ in the latter of these two capacities. Man without Christ is incomplete, disorganised, and weak; in Him he has perfection, oneness, and power. We see this — I. IN THE HISTORY OF THE RACES. Before Christ came humanity lacked its full development. Never before the Advent was there an exhibition even in the ideal of what man could be. Just as man was the crown and perfection of God's handiwork in creation, so is Christ the crown and perfection of man. And wherever Christ is not accepted and placed in His true position, the fatal flaw of incompleteness is apparent. Note, too, the disintegration of humanity before Christ came, and where Christ's supremacy is not recognised. "One is your Master," etc., is the secret of the unity of mankind. Weakness, too, is stamped upon all ancient nationalities, in spite of high civilisation and bloated armaments, "part of iron and part of clay." Hence their non-survival. Internal weakness, prophetic of sure decay, is the fate of every nation that rejects the Head of the Corner. II. IN THE EXPERIENCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. These principles hold good of man's — 1. Intellectual life. Ancient and modern antichristian philosophy were and are defective, lacked coherence, had and have no power to quicken. The truth as it is in Jesus alone can survive, because it has in it all that man needs to know, appeals to all his faculties, reason, imagination, etc., and thoroughly satisfies the mind. Then it is a complete and well-rounded unity, and by accepting it man's intellectual nature becomes at one with itself and with the other faculties. And finally the words of Jesus "are spirit and are life." 2. Moral life. "One thing thou lackest " is the allegation against all systems and men out of Christ, and how true Romans 8. is of all the unregenerate! "Dead in trespasses and sins" completes the fatal category. 3. Business life. The fatal lack here is that of the ennobling motive, "Do all to the glory of God." Men are "distracted" because of the want of a cohering commercial principle such as "Ye serve the Lord Christ" would supply. And all enterprises are impotent to do more than supply man's physical needs which are not animated by the Spirit of Christ. III. IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FAMILY. (J. W. Burn.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this? |
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