01.05. V. Christ’s First Apostles
V CHRIST’S FIRST APOSTLES
“Now, as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him, and they went into Capernaum.”—Mark 1:16-21. THE lives of some great men make fascinating history. The life of Jesus Christ is superlatively so. For two thousand years men have been studying it, learning from it, marveling about it, and the marvel increases. Other men have had their followers, but no man ever had such disciples as those who became followers of Jesus. The first of these became especially famous, for in that list of four names, three of them became the inner circle of His intimates, Peter, James and John. The manner of their call is elaborated by John, who, being one of them, would know the minor details. The latter half of John 1:1-51 is devoted to this story. Mark, however, makes a briefer and much more graphic account of it, and in some ways a more suggestive one. There is not, necessarily, the least inharmony between these two reports. Mark reports the call of the four, while John gives the manner of their response. It would seem, therefore, from John’s Gospel, that it was not immediate in the instance of all, that two of the brothers, Andrew and John, more readily became inquirers, and that their influence was effectively brought to bear upon the other two, Peter and James.
Interpreting Mark’s report in the light of John’s record, we find especial attention called to The Christ of the Apostles, The Call of the Apostles, and The Commission of the Apostles.
I. THE CHRIST OF THE APOSTLES.
“Now, as he walked by the sea of Galilee.” He—Jesus of Nazareth! He, whom John the Baptist saw coming unto him, and of whom he said, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” In this remark of John’s we have three fundamental facts regarding the person of Mark’s report. He was Jesus of Nazareth, He was the Lamb of God, He was the world’s only Saviour.
He was Jesus of Nazareth! Jesus is His human name! Though it suggests His divine mission, its primary import is His pure humanity. He was born of a virgin; He was flesh and blood! When Pilate said, “Behold the man,” his phrase was properly employed. The famous paintings intended to represent Jesus strikingly signify a historical fact, namely, the debate of the centuries as between His humanity on the one side and His divinity on the other. The artists were doubtless influenced by the opinions of the fathers and early historians. Some of these describe Jesus as angelic in features, and God-like in the magnificence of His form. St. Jerome and St. Augustine, we are told, even reminded their auditors of the Psalmist’s words, “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” and Angelo, da Vinci, Raphael and Titian interpret the thought. On the other hand, great religious teachers, like Clement, Origen and Tertullian, took the prophet’s words “When we shall see him there is no beauty in him that we should desire him” literally, and reminded their auditors of the prophecy that He should be “marred as was never man,” and insisted that He was not only without celestial splendour, but lacked even in human attractions, was “ill-shapen and ignoble.”
If one will study the theology of these fathers he will find, to his surprise, that the more sceptical ones of the early age held to this latter view, while those men who believed more implicitly in every word of God, held to the former—a most significant fact! Those who believe only in the humanity of Jesus are liable to depreciate His personal attractions, “He is a man, and no God is to be found in that form.” On the other hand, those who believe in His deity to such an extent as to doubt His real humanity are equally tempted to overemphasize the signs of divinity showing from every feature.
We do not know how much of veracity there is in the claim made for the ancient manuscript supposed to have been sent by Fublicus Lentulus, President of Judaea, to the senate at Rome. It reads after this manner: “There lives at this time, in Judaea, a man of singular character whose name is Jesus Christ. The barbarians esteem him a prophet, but his followers adore him as the immediate offspring of the immortal God. He is endowed with such unparalleled virtue as to call back the dead from their graves, and to heal every kind of disease with a word or touch. His person is tall and elegantly shaped, his aspect is amiable, revered. His hair flows in those beautiful shades which no united colours can match, falling into graceful curls before his ears, and agreeably couching on his shoulders, and parting on the crown of his head like the head dress of the sect of the Nazarenes. His forehead is smooth and large, his cheek without spot, save that of a lovely red, his nose and mouth are formed with exquisite symmetry, his beard is thick and suited to the hair on his head, reaching below his chin and parting in the middle like a fork; his eyes are bright, clear and serene.
“He rebukes with majesty, counsels with mildness, invites with tender and persuasive language, his whole address, whether in deed or word, being elegant, grave and characteristic of so exalted a being. No man has seen him laugh, but the whole world beholds him weep frequently, and so persuasive are his tears that the multitude cannot withhold their tears from joining in sympathy with him. He is very temperate, modest and wise. In short, whatever his phenomenon may turn out in the end, he seems a man of excellent beauty and perfections, every way surpassing the children of men.”
Beyond question this is the conception of Jesus pretty generally held now, and we suspect, as near the true picture of His Personality as any one is likely to present.
But, according to the text, He was more than a man!
He was the very Lamb of God! The word of John the Baptist was, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” In that language of the Baptist there was the linking up of Scriptures. The Old Testament prophets had pointed forward to One to come; the angel Gabriel had announced His arrival; by His baptism, God Himself unwilling longer to leave men in question, speaking of Him, said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
It would seem that any man who made an earnest study of the life of Christ would be compelled to the expression of Napoleon: “Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit over-awes me; and His will confounds me. . . . His Gospel, His apparition, His empire, His march across the ages and the realms, everything is for me a prodigy, a mystery-insoluble.” And yet, to stand in awe in the presence of Jesus is not enough; one who does that may be compelled to consent “He is the Son of God!” But such an one would not necessarily dwell upon John’s particular thought, “The Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world”— the long-looked-for Messiah, the One hope of hurting hearts!
How are we to get that knowledge of Him? We believe that the way of the text, especially John’s text, tells. The two disciples spent a day with Him. From His presence they went with a special testimony. It has always been so, and it will always remain so; the men who spend the most time with Jesus will most positively believe in His deity, and will be able to say without equivocation, “We have found the Messias,” and will be able to answer the question of their doubting brothers as Philip replied to Nathanael, “Come and see.”
Commenting upon that phrase, one said, “We are not at liberty to urge men to come and see our literature, we are not asking them to look upon the church as an institution, not to come and see the preacher, not to come and look upon the most noted servant the Son of God ever had; we must go beyond the servant and show the inquirer the Lord Himself.” And the man who sees Him in His risen glory and power, must of necessity fall at His feet, as did Thomas, and say, “My Lord and my God!”
If one answers that the visible presence of Christ is not in the world and so we cannot see Him, we reply, “If the visible presence of Christ is not in the world, the spiritual presence, which is a presence larger still, more positive, more glorious, is in the world,” dispelling its despair, breaking its fetters, setting at liberty its slaves, lifting the curse of ignorance, the intolerable burdens of poverty, driving before its face its cruel inhumanity, and breathing upon every part of the world where His name has been made known the breath of sweetness, of kindness, of joy; and every doubting Nathanael of the world, if he but study that presence and person alike, would exclaim, “Rabbi, thou are the Son of God, thou are the King of Israel!”
Dr. Strong, former President of Rochester Theological Seminary, on his seventieth birthday, expressed his amazement that any man who had ever known Jesus as Saviour could by any process of the intellect whatever doubt His deity. And another equally eminent theological professor said, “If a reference to a personal experience may be pardoned, I may here set my seal. Never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith and peace which came to my own soul not long after the first decisive and appropriating view of the crucified Lord as the sinner’s sacrifice.” So again we remark, the men who come into most intimate contact with Him will find it most easy to believe in His deity.
But, according to John, another remark regarding the Christ of the Apostles is justified.
He was the world’s only Saviour. It is not many years since a liberal minister of London, in his book, “New Theology,” exploited the theory that when Isaiah wrote the fifty-third chapter of his book he had no reference whatever to Jesus. One of the marked signs of the scepticism of this age is in the circumstance that now many men are mouthing this deliverance of infidelity, and some of them are men who once had reputations for loyalty to both Christ and His Book. By the same process of argument one must deny that any Old Testament lamb slain upon the altar, under the Levitical system, had any reference whatever to “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” The testimony of John the Baptist, then, is disputed, and the interpretations of Philip, as he told the Ethiopian treasurer the meaning of Isaiah fifty-three, was far-fetched and false.
Dr. Campbell Morgan, by earnest, honest study, has made himself easily one of the most noted men of the world, and his contributions to literature give positive proof of his versatility in Scripture, and Morgan, with much feeling, defends Isaiah’s prophetic reference as bang the plain finger of prophecy, and going further, he declares that Jesus, the Lamb of God, marked by the finger of John the Baptist, was typified as far back as Isaac’s proposed offering, and the very question of Isaac to his father, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” is answered by John the Baptist, who, pointing to Jesus, said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” He justly contends, “This is no mere accident. It is a part of the great proof of the unity of the Book. The old economy was able to produce the fire and the wood, symbol of judgment, but nothing more. In the New the perfect sacrifice is provided that sin may be put away; Jesus of Nazareth appears as God’s Lamb ‘slain from the foundation of the world.’”
Charles Spurgeon, speaking against the world’s effort to provide another way of redemption, says, “Poor sinners, you are still looking to yourselves. You rake the dung-hills of your human nature to find the pearl of great price which is not there. You will look beneath the ice of your natural depravity to find the flame of comfort which is not there. You might as well seek in hell itself to find heaven as look into your own words and merits to find sure ground of trust. Down with your self-reliances! Down with them, every one of them! Away with all those confidences of yours, for
“None but Jesus, none but Jesus, Can do helpless sinners good.” The one certain thing about Spurgeon is his scripturalness. Read Acts 4:12, “There is none other name, given under heaven and among men, whereby we must be saved.”
II. THE CALL OF THE APOSTLES.
“Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me.” His call amounted to an actual demand. If Christ were only a man this would be one of the strangest speeches ever made, and would indicate madness. What right has an ordinary Nazarene to stop at the lakeside and look into the faces of successful fishermen and say to them, “Come ye after me,” demanding that they leave their occupation, take up with Him, sit at His feet, learn of Him, take orders from Him, become not only His disciples, but His very servants? Where in human history has any other man, supposed to be in his right mind, addressed his followers after this manner, excepting he do it in the name of his office as king, or emperor, or caliph? And where did any man who had no such vested authority make such a demand upon his fellows, to have his demands regarded by a full and complete surrender of self?
No! What they had seen of Jesus had convinced them that He ‘was more than a man. Already there is an impression at least, profound and deep, to be later voiced by Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In His voice they heard God’s voice, and did not disregard it. When Joan of Arc undertook her matchless career, there was one impelling force driving her in unwonted ways, demanding of her the most unusual procedure, and in answer to every argument men made against her leadership she felt compelled to say, “My voices!” “My voices!” by which she meant, “God is speaking and I hear and must obey.” That great missionary leader, Robert E. Speer, speaking on “What Constitutes a Missionary Call,” says, “Every time I go down to Asheville, and the train stops long enough in Salisbury, I go out to a little graveyard in the middle of the town and walk to a grave that I found several years ago. Something on a stone caught my eye and when I came up to it I read the inscription, ‘Here lies the body of F. M. Kent, Lieutenant-Colonel of the First Louisiana Regulars, who died in 1864, in the month of April,’ and underneath are these words, ‘He gave his life for the cause he loved’ Near by was the grave of John R. Pearson, First Lieutenant of the Seventh Regiment of North Carolina, who was shot at Petersburg at the age of eighteen, and beneath the name the simple record, ‘I look for the resurrection of the dead.’ ” Spear says, “I took off my hat and stood beside the graves of the eighteen-year-old lieutenant and the older colonel, who had given their lives for the cause they loved. I said, ‘Was that the way men did in those days? Did they answer the call of their leader e’en though they knew they were marching in the face of death, prompted in their response by love for a great cause?’ ” Shall men do less now? Shall the call of Jefferson Davis and the love of the Southland mean more than the call of Jesus, than the love of a sinning and dying world? God forbid! This Scripture also expresses the idea of subservience. “Come ye after me.” “After me” is suggestive. Christ must lead, the Christian must follow. He must forever remain the Master, we must forever be servants. We employ the word “servant” meaning not alone secondary station, but with a view of faithful service. Many writers have spoken of the evident fact that Jesus was a judge of men. He knew what was in them. Have you not been impressed by the historical circumstance that Jesus never called any man from idleness? In the first instance here the brothers were casting their nets, actually engaged in their daily vocation. In the next instance they were mending their nets, not only indicating their expectations of success in future fishing, but possibly suggesting a catch like that which they took once at Jesus’ command, which broke the net. When Levi was called he was sitting at the seat of custom, and so on for every one of the twelve. That professor of the theological seminary who told his students about a man who came to him saying he was sure he had been called to the ministry, and when asked “Why?” replied, “Because I fail at everything else I try to do” was not reporting an exceptional instance. Again and again men talk after the same manner, saying that the Lord has shut all other doors before them and they think it is an evidence that He is opening to them the door of the ministry. It is the poorest recommendation that any man has ever brought. Servants of the Lord God, if they are to do anything for Him, must be busy men and successful ones. We are not surprised that Christ should call men who were successfully engaged. But the next sentence reminds us of another fact, namely, His call looks always to personal and official exaltation. “Fishing” is an honest calling, but “fishing for men” is a more honourable one. That statement is capable of a very wide application. We do not care for what you are fishing, whether it be fish or office or gold. We do not care how successful you are in taking fish, or in securing office, or in heaping up gold; if God calls you from that occupation to be a “fisher of men” He has favoured you with the highest of all honours, and brought you to an exaltation of which the world knows nothing.
We have a friend in the ministry, one of the most noted Congregational ministers in the world, who came up from a position of poverty and humble apprenticeship in England, to be pastor, author, lecturer, with international reputation in all. You say “God has exalted him and honoured him.” We have a friend in the Methodist ministry whose name is a household word in America, who began life as a blacksmith. You say “God has exalted and honoured him.” We have a friend in the Baptist ministry, looked upon now as knowing few equals and no superiors, who began life as a farm lad. You say “God has honoured him and exalted him.” We have a friend in the Presbyterian ministry who used to be one of the leading baseball lights of the land. You say “God has exalted him and honoured him.” We say to you that when God called another friend, a man from the office of teacher, to preach, God called him and exalted him; and yet another He called from the office of banker, and that man He also honoured and exalted, and yet another whom He called from a successful practice of law to preach the Gospel, and in the call he was honoured and exalted.
Those of us who are parents are very likely to think if our daughters could marry brilliant and rich men rather than go as missionaries, we should see them honoured instead of hidden. But such thought is folly and shows our poor appreciation of real values. We also think if our sons could engage in one of the noble professions and stand at the top in the same rather than serve God in some station of comparative humility, that we could share the honours with them. But such judgment is pitiable in the light of Scripture teaching, and none the less so in the light of Christian experience.
It will be confessed that when General Booth died no king of England was more highly honoured in his death. J. Wilbur Chapman says that one day he said to General Booth, “Tell me, what has been the secret of your success?” Before that question the great General hesitated a moment and then, with tears in his eyes, tears which crept slowly down his furrowed cheeks, said, “Chapman, I will tell you the secret. God has had all there was of me. There have been men with greater brains than I, men with greater opportunities, but from the day I got the poor of London on my heart, and a vision of what Jesus Christ could do for them, I made up my mind that God could have all there was of William Booth.” “Then,” said Chapman, “I learned another secret, for immediately the great man kneeled and prayed, and as I listened to him pleading for the outcasts of London, and of New York, the lost of China, and for the great world itself, lying in the wicked one, pleading with sobs and tears, I understood that his success was measured by his surrender.”
III. THE COMMISSION OF THE APOSTLES.
It was to be fishers of their fellows.
“Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”
Notwithstanding our modern teaching with the emphasis upon sociology and all the rest, the Son of God set His disciples to one task, viz., to win their fellows, to be fishers of men. Dr. A. C. Dixon is a good example of his own words. On one occasion he said, “Our business is to save some. We may do other things, but they are incidental. As you walk down the corridor of the Astor House towards the restaurant you will see standing in the door a man who never looks into your face, he always looks at your shoes. That man’s business is to black shoes, and I have never seen him look into the face of a guest. His one thought is about the condition of their shoes. A life insurance agent told me that he never saw a respectable man who did not suggest to him a policy. His business was to get policies. Every person you meet should suggest salvation.” When John Wesley was robbed by a highwayman he said to the fellow, “Some time, my friend, you may repent of this, and if you ever do, remember, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’” Years afterward that man sought out Wesley and told him that the word spoken then had been as a barbed arrow in his heart, finally compelling repentance and surrender to the Son of God. The apostle of Christ has one supreme call! Take men! For that call Christ has promised to prepare them. “I will make you to become fishers of men.” The essential preparation for every man who would do Christ’s service must come from Christ Himself. Other teachers he may have, this greatest of teachers he must have. Men talk sometimes about “modern education” as if the world had just now begun to believe in scientific research, as if the church had just now begun to think that an educated ministry were desirable. Such conceptions are but the expression of the egoism of the age. There were cultured men in Greece, cultured men in Rome; Gamaliel was a great teacher two thousand years ago, and the apostle Paul a splendid and accomplished scholar. “Modern education” is, for the most part, a boast. Our forefathers believed in education, and in proportion to their opportunities, they secured it, notwithstanding the circumstances by which they were hampered.
If anybody doubts this he needs only to look into history a little to be convinced of it. Let our Puritan fathers express themselves upon this subject. Over the north gate of Harvard you will read the inscription, “After God had carried us safely to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to our churches when our present ministry (mark the phrase—an educated one) shall lie in the dust.” The Church of God, wherever it has lived in the spirit of its Master, has been at once the parent and patron of education, but if the day ever comes when she forgets that for the special apostles of Jesus at home and abroad the essential education must come from the great Master Himself, it will be a day darkening into night, a day threatening doom. As the pastor of a congregation including hundreds of young people, I have almost a boundless pride in the number who are students, good students. But I should be a false leader if I did not remind them that no teacher at whose feet men sit is worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with the Teacher who said, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” No preparation of the schools can ever take the place of that preparation which comes from receiving His Spirit and imbibing His wisdom. And yet one point more in this election of the first apostles. The place of their work was His appointment. For when they forsook their nets and followed Him, He led them “into Capernaum.” When they arose to go after Him they did not know where He would lead, nor does it seem that they asked. That was with Him! He makes no mistakes! It may be in India, it may be in Africa, it may be in China, it may be in America; let the Master say. It is little wonder that He wants some to go to Africa when we are told that oftentimes the delegates that come from the villages and jungles walk hundreds of miles to beg for teachers. It is little wonder that He sent two of my college mates to Korea, Moffitt and Beard, for in thirty-five years there they have seen thousands and tens of thousands turn to the Lord God.
It is little wonder that He lays financial demands upon some of those of us He has called to live in this land of light and privilege. The marvel is that with our small sacrifices He accomplishes so much. Some years since we were told that each thousand dollars spent in a year paid the salary of one missionary, supported seven native workers, helped to win sixteen new converts, assisted four Sunday Schools, provided Bible instruction for one hundred and sixty-five Sunday school pupils, gave Christian education to sixty boys and girls, secured $745.00 in contributions from native Christians, gave Christian medical treatment to forty-five sufferers, cared for the administration work, and secured immeasurable spiritual results which no man can tabulate. And so in our giving or going, let Him lead!