What is the history and significance of the church at Jerusalem?

We have read in the Gospel of Luke of the birth and life on earth of its Founder. The birthplace, however, of the movement recorded in the Acts was really an upper room in Jerusalem, its time was the feast of Pentecost, and its first company numbered one hundred and twenty souls. But the number of its adherents in that city swelled to upwards of three thousand ere its first day had closed. And that remarkable result was effected simply by preaching the Gospel of the grace of God. Soon the company numbered five thousand. Priests and people in Jerusalem and Judea, and subsequently men and women of wealth and position elsewhere, came under the sound of the preached Word, felt its power, and bowed to it as the truth of God. Never before had people of all classes and of various creeds in such numbers given heed to a message from heaven.

First, as to preaching the word. This evidently varied according to circumstances. The first day, the Pentecost, was ushered in by the descent of the Holy Ghost. A vast multitude was called together by the rushing sound from heaven. The assembly of God on earth was formed by the Holy Ghost. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and spoke with miraculous power. Peter was then used to preach the crucified and risen Christ. The result is a new company is formed at Jerusalem. That company is called the church, or more properly translated, "the assembly." The word thus translated always means an assembly. It is so used to describe the nation of Israel in the wilderness. (Acts 7:38.) It is the same word in the Greek used to describe a crowd in the theatre at Ephesus (Acts 19:32, 39, 41), and it is properly translated assembly.

But the preaching proceeded and the converts multiplied amazingly. Whole-hearted devotion filled the hearts of the disciples. They were prepared to give their lives for Him Who had suffered for them. The mighty change was wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. Let us look at the effect as it was displayed in its simplicity and its power in Jerusalem, for it is a lesson that we, as those that belong to the church of God, must never forget. The power for growth in grace, the power for multiplication in numbers is now what it was then; the same mighty, changeless Holy Spirit of God is still here to see that the church makes its proper advance and that it does its work in announcing the glad tidings everywhere throughout the whole world.

The church rapidly increased in Jerusalem, so that we read of a multitude that were together, of a multitude of people believing (Acts 4:32; Acts 5:14; Acts 6:2). Jerusalem was very thickly populated at that season of the year and great numbers of visitors to the annual feast were also lodged in the immediate vicinity; but there was the fact that grace was working mightily among the Jews from other lands, as well as among the bloodstained betrayers and Murderers of Jesus Christ of Nazareth; the good seed was springing up and bearing fruit abundantly. God had mercy upon that guilty city that had slain the righteous, the Holy One. Their sin was at their very door, but "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound", and so large numbers were brought to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. A great company of the priests also were obedient to the faith.

In the very town, then, where the Lord had been so lately crucified, the work commenced of adding together such as should be saved (Acts 2:47); and this was effected by the instrumentality of the Word. The movement did not originate in some obscure village of Galilee, and, when it could boast of numbers, display itself to the world; but, just six weeks after the crucifixion of the Lord, and in the very centre of Judaism, in the metropolitan city Jerusalem, under the shadow, as it were, of the temple, the words of life were spoken, which bowed hearts to confess the crucified One as their Saviour and their Lord. The work thus commenced nothing could stop. Peter and John were arrested, and put in ward; but many who heard their word believed, and the number of the men now swelled to about five thousand souls. (Acts 4:4.) At a little later date, when the opposition of the sanhedrin became more marked, the sacred historian acquaints us with the onward march of the work. "The word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." (Acts 6:7) Like the waters of Ezekiel (Ezek. 47), each time the stream is, as it were, measured, it is only to tell of its expansion in breadth, as well as of its ceaseless flow. And resembling that river in another character, the movement, as it spread over the land of Israel, and reached even to Gentiles, disseminated life to all who profited by it.

At the time when this epistle was written; the gospel, preached first in Judea, had had among the Jews very great results. Numerous churches had been formed; many myriads of Jews had believed (Acts 21:20); a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7.) In those days of beginning, the believers from among the Jews still took part in the old order of things. They were all zealous for the law; and there were even some of them who offered sacrifices. Jerusalem on its side occupied a very particular position; it was under a new responsibility by the fact of the introduction of Christianity and the deposit of faith granted to the holy city at the starting-point of the gospel. But this privilege, too little appreciated by her children, was going shortly to pass from their hands into those of the Gentiles. It is in the midst of these different elements that James, whilst having in view principally the believers, addresses nevertheless his epistle to the twelve tribes, to all Israel, giving them this last warning before God should detach the church from the Jewish system.

It is perfectly plain from the early portion of the Acts of the Apostles, and confirmed too by the latest glimpses which the Holy Ghost gives us of the church in Jerusalem, that there was still a great and decided cleaving to that which was properly Jewish on the part of the early Christians there. They used the faith of Christ rather for conscientious, godly, thorough carrying out of their Jewish thoughts. Whatever people may say or think about it, there is no denying this. Whatever they may know to be their own proper place as Christians who never were in such a position, and, so far from being led into it, guarded from it strenuously by the Holy Ghost, there is no question that the facts which scripture presents to us regarding the church in Jerusalem are as I have endeavoured to state them.

The effect of Paul's first mission on the disciples at Jerusalem led to a great crisis in the history of the church. The jealousy of the pharisaic mind was so aroused, that a division between Jerusalem and Antioch was threatened at that early period of the church's history. But God ruled in grace, and the matter as to Antioch was happily settled. But the bigotry of the believing Jews was unquenchable. In the church at Jerusalem they still connected with Christianity the requirements of the law, and these requirements they sought to impose on the believing Gentiles.

Before we speak about the conference at which these questions were decided, we must try and make clear one or two matters that will help us to understand the chapter before us. If you will look at the map, you will see two important cities: Jerusalem in the south, and Antioch in Syria in the north. Jerusalem, as you know, for many hundreds of years had been the one place in all the world that God had chosen to put His name there: there was His holy temple; and there God dwelt on earth amongst His people Israel. So, Jerusalem in the eyes of the Jewish Christians was the religious center of the world. To Jerusalem the Jews who had been scattered everywhere, returned to worship at the feasts from all over the world. Those who lived in Jerusalem were mostly Jews, and so those who composed the assembly in Jerusalem were mostly Jewish Christians, and we know that a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7).

The assembly at Jerusalem, on the other hand, was almost exclusively JEWISH. Jerusalem was the place where the Lord had been pleased to put His Name. The temple was there. For centuries Jews from every quarter came to Jerusalem for the festivals. They still do. With the advent of Christianity we read that a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith (Acts 6: 7), and when Paul came to Jerusalem for the last time (Acts 21: 20) they said to him "Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law." Peter, the apostle of the circumcision was in Jerusalem, John also, and it seems James was something of a leader in the church. If these two assembly situations are kept clearly in mind it goes a long way to understanding the significance, and also the triumph of the important council in Acts 15.

There follows, verses 23-37, a beautiful picture of the early church in Jerusalem. Released by the council, the apostles went to "their own company." This shows us that at the outset the church was a "company" distinct and apart from the world, even from the religious world of Judaism. This point needs much emphasis in days when the world and the church have so largely been mixed together.