THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY.
Acts 1:1-3
Int. Thank God for the book we know as The Acts of the Apostles! Without this book the New Testament would be greatly weakened. We are given four accounts of the Life of our Lord Jesus, but only one which has to do with the Genesis or the beginning of Christianity. So the Book of Acts holds a place of great importance in the New Testament. It has been called the action book of the New Testament. Certainly it constitutes therefore one of the most exciting books of the Bible.
We could never understand the New Testament if we did not have the book of Acts, for it fills the gap that would exist between the Gospels and the book of Romans, which follows. At the end of the Gospels we find a handful of Jews gathered in Jerusalem talking about a kingdom to come to Israel. In the book of Romans we find an apostle who is not even mentioned in the Gospels, and who was not one of the twelve, writing to a band of Christians in the capital city of Rome, talking about going to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts tells us how this happened, and why this change occurred.
There is intense conflict throughout the book, but a conflict met by a ringing confidence that is wonderful to see. It is a record of power exercised in the midst of persecution; an account of life and health pouring from a living Christ into a sick society through the channel of ordinary men and women, very much like you and me. Most Christians seem to suffer from a terrible inferiority complex when we confront the world around us. We have bought the idea of many around that the church is quite unrelated to the present world, a segment of society that is not at all important. That view is absolutely false. The church is the most important body in the world today -- far and away beyond every other body -- because whatever happens in the world happens as a result of something that is, or is not, happening in the church. We see this clearly in this book of Acts. In this scripture, we find the essential strategy by which Jesus Christ proposes to change the world, a strategy which is the secret of the revolutionary character of the church when it operates as it was intended to operate.
I. THE CREATIVE FORCES THAT GAVE RISE TO CHRISTIANITY.
The Gospel of Luke is the record of the incarnation of the Son of God. In John’s word, he was "the Word made flesh, who came and dwelt among us," {John 1:14 KJV}. Jesus, the man, came to begin something, "to do and to teach," and the record of that beginning is in the Gospels. But, by clear implication, this second book is the continuation of what Jesus began to do. In a very real sense, Acts is not the acts of Christians, but the continuing acts of Jesus. It is an account of what Jesus continues to do and to teach. In the Gospels he did it in his physical body of flesh. In the book of Acts he is doing it through the bodies of men and women who are indwelt by his life. In the Gospels and in the Book of Acts, incarnation is the secret strategy by which God changes the world.
A. God’s Design for Life as Projected in the Lives Jesus Changed.
Whenever God wants to get a message across to men he does not simply send someone to announce it; his final way of driving it home is to dress the message in flesh and blood. He takes a life and aims it in a certain direction and, by the manifestation of his own life through the blood and flesh of a human being; he makes clear what he has to say. That is the strategy of the book of Acts. It is the record of incarnation; men and women, possessed by Jesus Christ, owned by him, and thus manifesting his life. That is the secret of authentic Christianity. Anytime you find a Christianity that is not doing that, it is false Christianity. No matter how much it may adapt the garb and language of Christianity, if it is not the activity human beings possessed and indwelt by the life of Jesus Christ it is not authentic Christianity. That is the true power of the church.
B. God’s Doctrines of Truth as Proclaimed in the Message Jesus Commissioned.
In the first volume that Luke had written, he had made clear his unswerving commitment to recording history that was accurate and reliable. The reason for this was that the validity of the spiritual doctrines that he presented would be measured by his credibility in history. So, Luke’s main concern was with the saving significance of the history he recorded, rather than simply keeping an account of the past. Among the doctrines he stressed are:
1. Salvation has been prepared by God. Early in his Gospel account, he spoke of Simeon (2:30-31), who said, “For my eyes have seen your salvation,” Salvation is a matter that God had planned and promised for centuries. This is a theme that flows through all that Luke wrote both in Luke and in Acts.
2. Salvation has been bestowed by Christ. When Simeon made his statement, he was looking into the face of the baby Jesus whom he held in his arms. When Jesus became a man, He said, (19:10) “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” In addition, Jesus illustrated His salvation by the three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost boy. His disciples picked up on this and in Acts 2:38, said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Again in Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Acts 5:31, “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”
3. Salvation has been offered to all people. “Which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” It is this truth that Luke most heavily emphasizes. John the Baptist “And all mankind will see God’s salvation.” (3:6) (Acts 2:17) ”‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” The point that Luke is making throughout is that Jesus is the Savior of the world and that no one is beyond the embrace of His love.
II. THE CENTRAL FACTS THAT GAVE SHAPE TO CHRISTIANITY.
Here we learn the historic basis on which God’s marvelous plan for humanity rests.
A. The Cross of Christ Completed God’s Redemptive Plan.
The first element is that of the “suffering” mentioned in verse 3. In the original language pascw (passion) means “to suffer death.” In Luke 22:15, this is the way Jesus used it. The suffering that Jesus endured was God’s design from the beginning. It was to this end that He was born. His blood being shed was the final sin offering for all the world. Today we can know that by the Cross, every sin can be forgiven! Throughout his writings, Luke wanted to make clear that the death of Christ would provide the solution to every serious ill that would ever plague mankind. (Luke 24:46-47) “He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
B. The Resurrection of Christ Convinced God’s Selected Men.
The second of these historic elements is the resurrection of Jesus. Luke stresses for us the great and central fact of Christian faith: There is nothing else like it. Jesus alive, risen from the dead! This man, Jesus Christ, has risen from the dead: “he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. “ The Greek word for "proof" here is a word that includes the idea of being convincing -- infallible, as the King James Version has it. From the very earliest centuries and throughout the twenty centuries of Christendom, we have accounts of the enemies of Christianity who tell us that the appearances of Jesus were really nothing but hallucinations, they occurred only in the imaginations of these disciples, and that he really was not there. Luke says “let me show you the proof that he was risen: He appeared to them during forty days. The word here is one from which we get our word, ophthalmia, i.e., the word for the eye, or literally, the eyeball. If we were to use the modern vernacular, what Dr. Luke says is, these disciples "eyeballed" him for forty days. They saw him again and again, not merely once, but many times during this period. Each time he looked exactly the same. It is hard for an hallucination to accomplish that. This marvelous fact of the resurrection of Jesus is the bedrock upon which all Christian faith ultimately rests. Anytime you are troubled with doubts, or are under attack for your faith, come right back to this fundamental fact.
CONC: Jesus is alive! That incomparable fact is what thrusts Christianity ten thousand miles ahead of its nearest competitor in the field of religion.
