Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come on you: and you shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem… I. THE BEING TO BE MANIFESTED. 1. The Holy Spirit is represented as having all the attributes of Deity, distinct from, yet united with, the Father and the Son. This is not sufficiently dwelt upon. In the apostolic age there were those who did not "so much as know whether there were any Holy Ghost." This is not your case, but it is needful to remind you lest you should withhold from Him His proper homage. That He is God is matter of explicit revelation — not in the Arian or Sabellian sense — not an illumination but an essence, not an influence but a Person. And to the blasphemers who deny His Divinity we hurl the thunderbolt, "Ananias, why hath Satan put it into thy heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Thou hast not lied," etc. 2. It is to the Spirit, thus Divine, that belongs the right of induction to the holy ministry; and however men may place their pretentions or trace their geneaology they are intruders without the call and unction of the Spirit. 3. As the Spirit is thus the originating source, so is His perpetuating grace the means of success in the ministry. This is everywhere asserted in the prophets. "Not by might," etc. II. THE RESULT OF HIS MANIFESTATION. "Ye shall receive power." 1. The power of God is the attribute which is earliest to impress the mind. It is impossible to send the thought out into the universe without discovering its manifestations. It lurks in the minutest and is exhibited in the mightiest phenomena. 2. And as it is the earliest, so it is the attribute of which men are most keenly coveteous. The fable of Prometheus, who made the figure of a man, and then animated it with the fire which he had dared to steal from heaven, is only a thinly veiled record of man's fierce ambition to create. Man, the master-mind, would stand in the midst of the elements and say, "Ye are vassals: work for me." And if from the world of nature you pass up into the world of mind you find the same coveteousness from the child-dictator of the nursery to the monarch of a hundred isles. Now as the apostles were men of like passions with ourselves they were under the influence of this desire. There was an effort ""o reserve seats on either side of the Redeemer in His kingdom for the sons of Zebedee. And here was asked, "Lord, wilt Thou," etc. Now this love of power, as it is an instinct, is not criminal. The God who implanted it had wise purposes in view. The gospel does not annihilate a solitary passion, only it directs those which were vehicles of rebellion into instruments of blessing. The Saviour therefore here rebukes unhallowed curiosity, but answers prayer. "Ye shall receive power," that is what you want and ye shall have it. When Pentecost came they saw how infinitely superior to all royalties was the kingdom they were to establish. Without this power the most perfect organisation and the most exquisite appliances are valueless. But give us this and the stammerer shall be an Apollos, and the stripling with the sling and stone shall be as an angel of the Lord. III. THE DESIGN OF THIS MANIFESTATION. 1. That the Church may testify to the world. Power Divinely given is to be used for Divine ends. God imprisons no force in aimless bondage. There is power in the lightning, but it is not to dazzle but to purify. There is power in the frantic breaker, and in the careering cloud; but they are all true and loyal servants in the vast palace in which the King of the universe has lodged His favourite creature man. And as in the physical so in the moral sphere. God's gifts are not given to be hoarded, despised, or abused. Every endowment of mind — the athletic reason, the lordly will, the creative fancy, the eloquent utterance, every communication of grace, and every attainment of privilege are all conferred upon as individually to minister as the rest of the universe ministers. 2. We are witnesses for Jesus. A crucified, risen, and exalted Christ will charm the heart of the nineteenth as it charmed the heart of the first century; and though scoffers deride it, cowards hesitate about it, and traitors betray it; it is the only testimony which the Holy Ghost will endorse with power. (W. M. Punshon, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. |
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