"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were _all with one accord in one place_"--instructive and suggestive fact!--"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them _cloven tongues_, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost"--He had full possession of their hearts and minds, full sway over their whole moral being--blessed condition!--"And they began to speak with _other tongues_" (not in the absurd and unintelligible jargon of cunning impostors or deluded fanatics, but), "as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, _out of every nation under heaven_." Note this fact. "Now when this was noised abroad, the mult.i.tude came together, and were confounded, because that _every man heard them speak in his own language_."--How real--how telling!--"And they were all amazed, and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how _hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born_?"--not merely wherein we were educated--"Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, _we do hear them speak in our tongues_ the wonderful works of G.o.d."
What a marvelous occurrence! How marked the coincidence! G.o.d so ordered it, in His infinite wisdom and perfect grace, that there should be a.s.sembled in the city of Jerusalem, at the exact moment, people from every nation on the face of the whole earth, in order that--even should the twelve apostles fail to carry out their commission--all might hear, in the very dialect in which their mothers first whispered into their infant ears the accents of a mother"s love, the precious tidings of G.o.d"s salvation.
Can anything exceed this in interest? Who can fail to see in the fact here recorded that it was the loving desire of the heart of G.o.d to reach every creature under heaven with the sweet story of His grace?
The world had rejected the Son of G.o.d, had crucified and slain Him; but no sooner had He taken His seat at the right hand of G.o.d than down came the august Witness, G.o.d the Spirit, to speak to man--to every man--to speak to him, not in accents of withering denunciation, not in the thundering anathemas of judgment, but in accents of deep and tender love, to tell him of full remission of sins through the blood of the Cross.
True, He called on man to judge himself, to repent, to take his only true and proper place. Why not? How could it be otherwise? Repentance is--as we have already fully shown and earnestly insisted upon in these papers--a universal and abiding necessity for man. But the Spirit of G.o.d came down to speak face to face with man, to tell him in his own mother tongue of the wonderful works of G.o.d. He did not speak to a Hebrew in Latin, or to a Roman in Greek; but He spoke to each in the very dialect in which he was born, thus proving to a demonstration--proving in the most affecting manner possible--that it was G.o.d"s gracious desire to make His way to man"s heart in deepest, richest, fullest grace. All homage to His name!
How different it was when the law was to be published from mount Sinai! If all the nations of the earth had been a.s.sembled round that fiery mount, they could not have understood one word--unless, indeed, any one happened to know the Hebrew tongue. The law was addressed to one people, it was wrapped up in one language, it was enclosed in the ark. G.o.d took no pains to publish the record of man"s duty in every language under heaven. But when grace was to be published, when the glad tidings of salvation were to be sounded abroad, when testimony was to be borne to a crucified, risen, ascended and coming Saviour and Lord, then, verily, G.o.d the Holy Ghost came down, for the purpose of fitting His messengers to speak to every man in a tongue which he could understand.
Facts are powerful arguments, and a.s.suredly the above two facts, in reference to the law and the gospel, must speak to every heart, in a manner the most convincing, of the matchless grace of G.o.d. G.o.d did not send forth heralds to publish the law to "all nations." No--this was reserved for "the great commission" on which we have been dwelling, and which we now earnestly commend, with all its great subjects, to the serious attention of every reader.
C. H. M.