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2.2.5 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
Primitive Jewish Christianity
Pentecost and the Earliest Evangelism - The Future Nature of the Kingdom
In stating to his hearers at Pentecost and on other occasions as well, the means by which they might make amends for the crime they had committed, and prepare themselves for the approaching kingdom, Peter laid down no strange and un-Jewish conditions. In the same way, when describing the blessing that they might expect to enjoy if they repented and were baptized, he preached no new and unfamiliar Gospel. "Repent and be baptized," he says, "in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" [Acts 2:38].
It was a common belief among the Jews that the presence of the Holy Spirit would be a characteristic feature of the Messianic Kingdom; that the spiritual gifts, which in earlier day were enjoyed only be favored individuals here and there, would in that kingdom be bestowed upon all. Peter was therefore on familiar ground, when he connected the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost with the advent of the Messianic Age. If his hearers agreed with him that the Pentecostal phenomena indicated the Spirit's presence, they could not help agreeing with him in the conclusion drawn therefrom.
But in the prophesy of Joel, which he quotes, the outpouring of the Spirit is made to precede and not to follow the "Day of the Lord," and it is clear, in the light of Joel 3:19 sq., that Peter thus understood the prophecy, and that he regarded the Spirit's advent as a sign not that the promised kingdom was already established upon earth, but that its establishment was at hand. The days that were introduced by Pentecost were only preparatory; the consummation was sill in the future.
The Messianic Realm belonged, in Peter's thought, just as in the thought of his contemporaries, not to this eon, but to another, and before its inauguration must come the day of judgment and the "end of the world," that is, the end of the present age. That Jesus was already Lord and Prince and Savior did not mean that his kingdom was already a reality, and that he was exercising dominion therein, but only that he was preparing the way for its realization.
By the outpouring of the Spirit he was fitting his followers for it, ad making its speedy establishment possible. That outpouring was a sigh of its approach, but not of its actual presence. The disciples therefore lived in the future ad truly as their unconverted brethren. The Christ was yet to come to accomplish his true work. [Looking to the future as the disciples were for the consummation of the Kingdom, and for the complete fulfillment of Messianic Prophecy, they must inevitably feel less interest in the life of Jesus on earth than in his future advent. The life, which they had witnessed, was only preparatory, not final, and had value chiefly in its relation to days to come. Thus is explained the remarkable fact that for a long time the significance of Jesus' earthly life was almost entirely overlooked.
Regarding Jesus' true work, there is no reason to suppose that Peter and his fellows conceived in any other way than their Jewish brethren. They evidently thought of the expected kingdom as a national kingdom, for Peter distinctly makes the advent of the Messiah dependent upon the repentance and conversion of those whom he addresses. [Acts 3:19] Only when the Jewish nation has listened to the preaching of the apostles and has recognized Jesus as the Christ, can the time of refreshing come, and the Messiah return to set up the kingdom.
Into the details of that kingdom Peter does not enter, but he implies that the expected Messianic judgement will take place, [Acts 2:20,21; 3:23] and he conceives the punishment of the wicked in genuine Jewish for as a "destruction from among the people." [Acts 3:23]. He speaks also of the restoration of all things, a common phrase in Jewish apocalyptic literature, and of the fulfillment of the entire range of messianic prediction. [Acts. 3:21]
All the blessings promised by the prophets, and longingly anticipated by the fathers, he assures his hearers they will yet enjoy, if they repent and thus secure forgiveness and the figt of the Holy Ghost. In the present is offered the opportunity not of realizing a present salvation, but of making certain the enjoyment of a future salvation. It is to make the most of the at opportunity that Peter exhorts his hearers on all possible occasions.
[A very noticeable feature of the discourses of Peter, which he is reported to have given during these early years, is the uniform absence of a reference to faith as a condition of enjoying God's favors, and sharing in the blessings of the Messianic Age. Only once during the period with which we are concerned does he refer to faith, and then he makes faith in the name of Jesus the ground of the healing of the lame man. Of course, baptism in the name of Jesus involves a certain kind of faith, or more accurately the conviction that he is the Messiah, but faith in him is nowhere expressly made a condition of baptism or of discipleship. In the respect the utterances of Peter very closely resemble the Synoptic Gospels, and clearly represent an early type of Christian teaching. Doubtless the later emphasis upon the necessity of faith, which was universal even in circles where most was made of the observance of law, was largely due to Paul. That emphasis did not involve a new conception of the Gospel, but only a clearer apprehension of the which had been from the beginning implicitly wrapped up in it. Peter in his address at the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:9) refers to faith as a means by which the heart is cleansed, and Gal. 2:16 implies that he was one with Paul in his recognition of its necessity. Indeed, he could not do otherwise than agree that the observance of the law was insufficient unless it were supplemented by the belief in Jesus' Messiahship. The fact, therefore, that in the early discourses recorded in Acts, faith is not made a condition of salvation, argues strongly for the primitive character of the documents containing them, of which the author of the Acts made use. To him and his contemporaries Christianity was the proclamation to all the world of eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to his commands, and it is inconceivable that he, or anyone else in his day, can have invented and put in to the mouth of Peter a number of discourses in which no trace of such a Christianity occurs, and in such there is no reference whatever to the importance and saving character of faith.]
Used by permission of the publisher.
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