Does the Bible support Communism?

A glance at the reports of a Church congress, or the columns of a religious weekly, will show at once what prominence this subject has in the thoughts of most persons. Turning to the New Testament, we fail to find this prominence given, though, as in all else, enough is said to guide the people of God. At Pentecost, gifts of their means was as liberal as the sense of the grace of God to them. There were none that lacked: houses and lands were freely disposed of to meet the needs of the poor (Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:34-37). The effort to make this appear like the socialism of the day fails entirely when we see the unique position of the believers at Jerusalem. There were large numbers of strangers, and many poor. Needs were great and pressing; love was ardent, faith bright. But even then it was entirely voluntary, not compulsory — which is a complete reversal of socialistic demands. (See Acts 5:3-4.) The love and faith remain for all time; the conduct is left to the individual believer, though liberality is ever the mark of those who have learned of God.

Community of goods is not, however, inculcated in Scripture: it is entirely foreign to its spirit. The rich had their duties, and the poor theirs as well (1 Tim. 6:17; James 1:9-10). All able were to work that they might have to give, not to the common purse, but to the needy. (Eph. 4:28; 2 Thess. 3:10, 12.) The needy Jews at Jerusalem were remembered and ministered to by their Gentile brethren (Acts 11:27-30; Gal. 2:10; Rom. 15:25-27. See also 2 Cor. 8 and 9). This liberality was to be shown wherever the need appeared, — even to the world, as ability was given. (Rom. 12:13; Gal. 6:10.) But it can be easily seen that these scriptures do not cover all the cases which seem at the present day to call for the expenditure of money. That the object of many of these calls is proper and necessary we have no question. The Lord's servants are to be supported while they work for Him at home and abroad; necessary expenses in the securing of meeting-places have to be met; the poor have to be cared for; Bibles and tracts to be printed and circulated.

There follow also, as surely, the fruits in practical life. The innate selfishness of the heart is surmounted by the influx of spiritual blessing which expands while it overflows it. There was no communistic law among these gathered saints; it would have spoiled all, if there had been; it was a unity of heart which allowed none of them to say that what was really his belonged to him. The sale of lands and houses was optional and unsolicited, as we see by the very specification of those who did this. There was therefore no general renunciation of personal title; but a love that knew no holding back from the need of another. It was the instinct of hearts that had found their real possessions in that sphere into which Christ had risen. The glorious fact of resurrection to which testimony was being given now with power took them of necessity out of the world; and great grace was on them all. The deeper need which could not be thus met found still the means to meet it in the actual sale of possessions on the part of those that had them; so that there were none that lacked: the money being laid at the apostles, feet. It is not necessarily that all sold all they had; but that this was the way in which the need was met: the history following, and which grows out of this, seems to make this plain.

The living energy of the Spirit of God implanting genuine love in the hearts of God's people led to their spontaneous desire to be together and share everything in common. This was no designed communal living, as has been tried by men time and time again, usually ending in disruption and worse. Those with possessions sold them, so that all could be shared. We shall see this referred to again in Ch.4:34-37. So long as all would be fully subject to the leading of the Spirit of God, this would be beautifully successful.

The eighth commandment enforces the rights of personal property. There was some measure of communal life amongst the children of Israel, and in the New Testament we read of a brief period of Christian communism, when many sold properties, and in Jerusalem they had all things in common. But even then the rights of private property were not set aside, for Peter said to Ananias, "While it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?" (Acts 5:4). Yes, it belonged to Ananias, and no one had the right to grab it away from him. The law forbade stealing, and when today anyone is converted the word is, "Let him that stole steal no more" (Eph. 4:28).

297 At no time, as Peter says to Ananias, was it claimed from any one that they should give their goods to the assembly, nor mentioned to them. It was the free power of the Holy Ghost working in love to others. There was no community of people or goods established at all, but a voluntary giving up of one's own where it could be made available; and most blessed it was, and acting in the spirit of it will be always blessed, though there be no apostles at whose feet I may lay what I have to dispose of. Riches are as dangerous now as then, devotedness as acceptable now as then. There is in principle no great difference in these respects, though in forms of life there may be. All this however is a mere question of worldliness or its degrees. "The friendship of the world is enmity with God, and whosoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4.

How are they characterized? 'And the heart and soul of the multitude of those that believed were one.' Never before Pentecost had such a time appeared on earth. What is described is, if possible, more vividly spiritual now that opposition came out distinctly against them. All savours of His presence Who deigned to come down from heaven and make the saints the dwelling-place of God. The Holy Spirit it is Whose energy works all that is acceptable to God, all that is edifying for man. Without Him there had been only so many individuals. The Spirit unites to Christ, He also and thereby gives practical unity as here. The heart and soul of those that believed, though a multitude, was one. Undoubtedly such unity could not have been without one supreme and absorbing object, even Christ, but there was also needed the power of the Spirit to exclude the activity of each several will. For flesh loves to differ, and seeks its own things. Next, they all sought the things of Jesus Christ, though without intelligence of union with Christ or heavenly relationships. Yet never before nor since has there been in any communion on earth an equal testimony to deliverance through His name from the selfishness of nature and the pride of the world, never more sustained joy in God or more mutual love through our Lord Jesus. It was the accomplishment of the prayer in John 17:20-21, 'that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.' Their heart and soul were one. The expression of the inspired historian is more energetic, as the practical unity in grace was realized with singular brightness before the world. No sign of greater weakness in the church than division of way, feeling, or thought; no more evident mark of the Spirit's power than unity of which Christ is the spring and character.

Next follows, as fresh as ever, that unexampled token of superiority to personal interests which Pentecost first beheld. 'And not one said that aught of his possessions was his own; but they had all things common.' Certainty this was in no sense law but grace; but is it not surprising that any believing the scriptures should elude the plain and blessed fact? It was a state of things beautifully suited to the church when it was all in Jerusalem, and in the full early bloom created by the ungrieved Holy Spirit: when saints were gathered to the Lord elsewhere, we find it no more. Communion of goods, so far as it was carried out in grace, in the nature of things could only be rightly whilst all the members were in one place. When the Lord wrought in other places, the saints were as near in divine relationship as those that dwelt in the same city. That which was peculiar to the assembly in Jerusalem then merged into more ordinary and comprehensive forms of love toward all the saints wherever found, for the church on earth is one, and we are members one of another, even if in the most distant quarter of the globe. We have then instruction and exhortation of the most precious kind about giving, as in Rom. 12; 1 Cor. 16; 2 Cor. 8-9, Gal. 6; Eph.4; Phil. 4; 1 Tim. 6; Heb. 13, et al., clearly supposing no such state as all things common, but rather rich and poor who were appealed to accordingly. The word of the Lord, though to us always true, was receiving its most marked application: 'Verily I say to you, There is no man that has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world (age) to come, eternal life' (Mark. 10:29-30).

The closing verses show that just as there was powerful testimony flowing without so there was the circulation of love and care within. The Christian communism, mentioned at the end of chapter 2, still continued. The distribution was made to each, "according as he had need." Not people's wants, but their needs were met, and so nobody lacked. At a later date Paul could say, "I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need" (Phil. 4:12), but at this time such experiences were unknown by the saints in Jerusalem. Whether, by escaping such experiences, they profited more than Paul did, by having them, may be an open question, though we incline to think they did not. At any rate, the action of Barnabas was very beautiful, and the love and care found in the church then should be known today, though there may be some variation in the exact mode of expressing it.

A great wave of devotedness was passing over the infant Church in Jerusalem. Under the mighty impulse of divine grace earthly things were being held with a very loose hand. Property was freely surrendered (Barnabas being conspicuous in this,) and the proceeds were being laid at the feet of the apostles that all might share together (Acts 4:32-37). Did the Lord demand this of His people? Most assuredly not, for Christianity is characterised by grace, and God has taken the place of the Giver. But He values what His people voluntarily surrender, because it indicates appreciation of what He has wrought for them through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Such a communistic condition of things as obtained in the early Church was only possible while the Church was confined to one city. But liberal-heartedness is always pleasant in the divine sight. Alas, that it should be one of the rarest of Christian graces!

Amongst those who brought to the apostles the proceeds of property sold were Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). These brought part only of the sum realized. This would have been doubtless acceptable enough both to God and to the apostles had they been open and frank about it. But the evil pair agreed together to represent the amount as the whole, and in so doing they became guilty of a grievous sin. They wished apparently to be regarded by their brethren as devoted and unworldly, like Barnabas and many others. How often has human opinion ensnared men's souls! Ananias, who tendered the money, was promptly challenged by Peter: "Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land?" There lay the enormity of the sin. God the Holy Spirit had come from heaven to make the Church His temple (1 Cor. 3:16). As surely as God filled both the tabernacle and the temple with the Shekinah — the visible token of His presence amongst His people Israel — so now in this more favoured age God has granted His Spirit from on high, first to form the Church, and then to inhabit it during the entire absence of the Lord in heaven. Ananias and his wife ignored this mighty fact, even as multitudes who profess and call themselves Christians do to-day. But just as Jehovah resented the affront of Nadab and Abihu in the opening days of the Israel age (Lev. 10), so in like manner He resented the affront of Ananias and Sapphira in the opening days of the Church era, and this for the warning of the people of God to the end.

At the time these parables were spoken, the Church had not been formed. It was in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus that the foundation of the Church was laid. The building of it on that foundation commenced at Pentecost. Christ died "to gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad." The Holy Ghost is the gathering power. "By one Spirit," says the apostle, "are we all baptized into one body, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." What a spectacle of love, and unity, and power, did the Pentecostal Church present! Some of the strongest barriers of human selfishness, those which consist in distinctions of rank and wealth, melted away before the presence of the Holy Ghost, who testified in power the ascension and heavenly glory of that Jesus, who but a few weeks before had been put to death. Pardoned through His blood, and actually, vitally, one with Him in glory (though they might not as yet be instructed in this feature of their calling) all mere human earthly distinctions vanished, "and all that believed were together and had all things common: and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all, as every man had need." (Acts 2:44-45.) It was not that selfishness in some coveted or claimed what others possessed, — but that love in each one thought of others rather than of himself, and thus all freely ministered to the extent of their entire possessions. Bright, happy days! We may well linger over the divine record of this earliest period of the Church's history. "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts 4:32-35.) Such was the Church — such was Christianity at the commencement. Look around, dear, reader, on all that now bears these names, and say whether the gold has not become dim, whether the most fine gold has not been changed!

Ananias convicted. — Direct and prompt was the Apostle's challenge. "Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied to men, but to God" (5:3-4). Ananias appears to have been the instigator in this matter; his wife, we are told, was privy to it (2). In Eden the serpent approached the woman. On this occasion he first turned to the man. And Peter addressed him in a way evidently unlooked for. In the place of accepting the gift and commending him, "Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?" etc., were the first words of the solemn questions with which he met him. The Apostle, be it observed, speaks to him as professedly a Christian, and holding him responsible for yielding to the temptation (1 Peter 5:8-9). Now the sin was great, far more heinous than he or others might suppose. For in the assembly of Christians, and professedly a member of it, he was in the company of those amongst whom the Holy Ghost dwelt on earth. He had therefore lied to Him in keeping back part of the price of the land when professing to have given up all of it. He might think he had lied only to man. He had really lied to God. And no extenuating circumstances could he plead. For no one demanded that sacrifice of him. No one could force the sale of his property. No one could claim that the price realised should be paid into the relief fund. He was perfectly free to retain the land or to sell it, and when sold he had perfect power over the disposal of its money value. Community of goods, it was thus authoritatively declared, was by no means obligatory. Freedom there was for any to give. Freedom, too, for any to retain their possessions, whether of land or of money, only, whatever was done, was to be done in uprightness. And on this, the first example, we believe, of the contrary, summary and solemn judgment had to be awarded. Ananias, struck dumb, it would seem, for he said not a word, immediately fell down dead, and was carried out for burial. How real and how solemn a truth is that of the Spirit's personal presence in the assembly!