What does it mean that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church"?

But even then, all was not perfection; so He says, "I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan" -- referring to the Judaizing movement that came into the church in the early centuries. It was the leaven of Galatianism which had never been wholly judges, and which made astonishing progress in the second and third centuries. He says, "Fear not... thou shalt have tribulation ten days." It is significant that in the two centuries of Roman persecution, which began with Nero and which terminated 312 A.D., there were ten distinct edicts demanding that governors seek out Christians everywhere and put them to death. The last was under Diocletian. He was the tenth persecutor. The early Christians believed he would be the last, and he was. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," said Augustine. The testimony of the dying again and again led their very persecutors to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior because of the convincing power of the truth manifested in the martyrs. Satan's effort to destroy Christianity by persecution was in vain. But those were days when it meant something to be a Christian. When God's people were being crushed like myrrh, what a sweet odor of devotion, what fragrance of Christian love was wafted up to the very throne of God!

Then we come to the second part, from the eighth chapter to the twelfth. There you find the gospel going out. There is a saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. So out from the blood of Stephen comes the seed that grows and bears fruit amongst the Gentiles as well. After that persecution you have the gospel going down to Samaria, first of all; Samaria was outside of Judaism. Then there was the Ethiopian eunuch. He had been up to Jerusalem and got nothing for his soul there. He has come all the way from Ethiopia, a poor hungry man, to get something at Jerusalem where the knowledge of the true God was taught, and yet going back with an empty heart. Would the Lord let that be? Would He let a man who is seeking Him in that way, go back empty? He takes Philip from the midst of the revival at Samaria and sends him into the desert, and there He brings Philip and the eunuch together, with the Bible open at the very place where He wants him to preach from, in the eunuch's hands. Out of the fifty-third of Isaiah, Philip preaches Jesus to him. Did you ever think of it? There is one lonely man coming from Jerusalem, another lonely man coming from Samaria; the Lord had led them, and they meet out there in a desert place, with the Bible open at the very message that man needs for his soul. That is the blessed Lord we serve, who again and again brings just such things to pass.

The martyr too is buried by devout men, who without being as yet Christians, are penetrated with the sense of the mockery of all justice in his cruel death, and are thus brought into indignant opposition to the heads of their own nation. We may see in them how the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church, as after-generations have proved abundantly. Here too God is working: defeat is victory, and the dead are workers still. They have not failed, who have fertilized the soil of the gospel with their life-blood. The Church is scattered; and those who are thus sent abroad proclaim, with all the emphasis of their suffering undergone for Him, the value to them of the Christ to whom they testify. Who could bribe these tongues to silence, when the Spirit of glory and of God rested upon the confessors of His Name, the more endeared to them? How could the "glad tidings of the Word" find better evangelists?

Man had not yet learnt the truth of the proverb, that "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." In the case of the first and the noblest of martyrs, the proverb was fully verified. But all these eighteen hundred years, men have been slow to learn, or believe, this plain historical fact. Persecution, generally speaking, has advanced the cause which it sought to repress. This will be found true in the main, under every form of opposition and persecution. Resistance, decision, and firmness are created by such treatment. True, timid minds may be driven to apostasy for a time by persecution; but how often have such, with the deepest repentance, and in order to regain their former position, endured with cheerfulness the keenest sufferings, and displayed in their last moments the greatest fortitude! But persecution, in one form or another, is to be expected by the followers of Jesus. They are exhorted to take up their cross daily and follow Him. It tests the sincerity of our faith, the purity of our motives, the strength of our affection for Christ, and the measure of our confidence in Him.

Still the number of Christians rapidly increased. Our Lord had said He would build His church, against which the gates of hell should not prevail (Matt. 16:18); and though Satan had stirred up his servants to fight against that church, it still grew in numbers and spread itself far and wide. As has been often said, "The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church;" and, if a few were put to death, many seemed to spring out of their ashes.

Tertullian also wrote an Apology about A.D. 198. He ends it with "Do your worst, and rack your inventions for tortures for Christians. It is all to no purpose; you do but attract the notice of the world, and make it fall the more in love with our religion. The more you mow us down, the thicker we spring up. The christian blood you spill is like the seed you sow: it springs from the earth again and fructifies the more. That which you reproach in us as stubbornness, has been the most instructive mistress in proselyting the world; for who has not been struck with the sight of what you call stubbornness, and from thence were prompted to look into the reality and ground of it? And who ever looked well into our religion that did not embrace it? and who ever embraced it that was not ready to die for it? For this reason it is that we thank you for condemning us, because there is such a happy variance and disagreement between the divine and human judgment, that when you condemn us upon earth, God absolves us in heaven."

The first great persecution then broke out against the church in Jerusalem. Saul was evidently the leader (Acts 26:10-11; 1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13). But "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." God permitted this persecution that His Word might now be scattered abroad by the suffering saints. Philip, the Grecian Jew, one of the chosen seven, not an Apostle, is mightily used in preaching the Gospel in Samaria. The first missionary move to extend the Gospel was, therefore, not brought about under apostolic leadership, nor by the decree of an apostolic council, but by the Lord Himself. He led Philip to Samaria, where He Himself had been, yea to the very city of Samaria, Sychar (John 4). Great results followed the preaching of the Gospel. Miracles took place. Unclean spirits were driven out, many taken with palsies, and those who were lame were healed, so that there was great joy in that city. Simon Magus was a sinister instrument of Satan. He bewitched the people of Samaria, claiming to be some great one.

From the history of the church in the Acts we learn, that the effect of the martyrdom of Stephen was the immediate spread of the truth, which his persecutors were seeking to hinder. The impressions produced by such a witness, and such a death, must have been overwhelming to his enemies, and convincing to the unprejudiced and the thoughtful. The last resort of human cruelty is death: but, wonderful to say Christian faith, in its first trial, was proved to be stronger than death, and that in its most frightful form. This the enemy witnessed, and would ever after remember. Stephen was on the Rock, and the gates of hell could not prevail against Him.

Two hundred years had now rolled away since the death of Christ; two hundred years of odium and suffering for His beloved church, but still its numbers were increasing. Again and again the powers of hell had been loosed against it, but all to no effect. "This was an anvil which had worn out many a hammer," and when the Thracian savage ascended the imperial throne he found that he had the same difficulties to overcome, the same mysterious power to subdue, which had baffled the wiliest and most indefatigable of his predecessors. In truth, the church throve in persecution, and the seeds of the gospel, scattered over an ever widening area, and watered by the blood of martyrs, bore fruit a hundredfold, though the efforts to tread them down were terrible and relentless. The power of man in all its varied forms had been arrayed against the unresisting community, but neither imperial edicts, nor angry mobs, nor discontented augurs, nor gibing philosophers could check its steady growth, much less accomplish its destruction. Fixed on its Rock foundation it stood there — the work of God and the wonder of men; with that eternal promise its strong confidence, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Satan, indeed, at first endeavoured to stamp out the name of Christ from the earth, through persecution by the pagans; but in this, as in many other things, he was deceived: the blood of the saints became the seed of the church, as has so often been seen and spoken of. For every saint put to death a number sprang into life. These persecutions had a purifying effect: few who were not real cared to risk all their property and their lives at the will of a pagan emperor: so that, if Christianity was not in full vigour, there was but little of mere profession.