Two lessons should be conveyed by our study of to-day: in the first place the lesson of separateness, and in the second place the lesson of unity. Neither can be truly learned without the other. There can be no true Christian unity if individual members of the Christian body make common cause with the unbelieving world. A knowledge of the common enemy will draw us all into closer fellowship. That fellowship need not necessarily be expressed in a common organization; but it will be expressed at least in a common service. Separateness from the world will not mean leaving the world to its fate; the Christian salvation will be offered freely to all. But the gravity of the choice should never, by any false urbanity, be disguised. It is no light difference whether a man is within the people of God or without; there is a definite line of demarcation, and the passing of it means the transition from death into life.
IN THE LIBRARY.--Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible": articles on "Church," "Disciple," "Christian." Hastings, "Dictionary of the Bible": Gayford, article on "Church." Hort, "The Christian Ecclesia." Charteris, "The Church of Christ." Westcott, "The Two Empires: The Church and the World," in "The Epistles of St. John," pp. 250-282. "The Epistle to Diognetus," introduction and translation in Lightfoot, "The Apostolic Fathers," pp. 487-489, 501-511. Erdman, "Coming to the Communion."
In the Student's Text Book the Christian message has been represented as primarily a piece of good news, a story of something that happened. That representation does not pass unchallenged to-day. Many suppose that the message of the apostles was concerned simply with reflection upon eternal truths. For centuries, it is said in effect, men had been reflecting upon the problems of God and the world and sin; what the apostles did in Jerusalem and elsewhere was simply to provide better instruction on these great themes; Jesus had taught men that God is a Father, the apostles simply continued his teaching.
Such a view, of course, can be held only by rejecting or distorting the testimony of the New Testament. If the book of The Acts is correct, if Paul is correct, then the preaching that founded the apostolic Church was not better instruction about old facts, but information about a new fact. Before Jesus came, the world was lost under sin; but Jesus lived and died and rose again, and gave salvation to all who would receive. According to the New Testament, Jesus did not come to tell men that they were God's children; he came to make them God's children. John 1:12; Gal. 4:3-5. Without him they were under God's wrath and curse; but by faith in him, by acceptance of his sacrifice of himself for them, by receiving from his Spirit the power to believe, they could call God Father. On the day of Pentecost Jesus was presented as more than a Teacher; he was presented as a Saviour.