What is the origin of Christianity?

Now there is another reason why the fact of resurrection is detested by the world, and that is because it was the great public testimony to the truth of Christianity, which was founded in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was God's great public manifestation in the world of the truth of Christianity, which was to be and which was an entirely new thing in. the ways of God down here in this world. You cannot blend Christianity with Judaism, though that is the attempt which has been made in the world. Christianity is a completely new system of God, introduced entirely when the old system was set aside for the time being. The Jewish system was God's system, up to the cross, and all that was connected with that system as such will no doubt find its place again in a new way, in connection with the earthly circumstances of God's earthly people; but Christianity was totally and completely distinct from all that went before. Eternal life was presented perfectly in that blessed Person Himself here; look at that blessed One down here in this world, the blessed Son of God who came down to be a man, and look at the eternal life there in His own Person. Mark what it says in 1 John 1, "That which was from the beginning;" from what beginning? from the moment of His manifestation on earth in time as man; there He was, the eternal life. And mark, beloved friends, when we speak of Christianity, you cannot separate from Christianity the eternal life, the Father and the Son. You get all these things, connected with it, they are especially and peculiarly belonging to Christianity as such. There I get the Son, here as man, come down in manifestation upon this earth; I have the Father, the Father's voice greeting Him when. He was here; the Holy Ghost descending upon Him as a dependent man when He was here; I find Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I get the eternal life presented in Christ's own blessed Person, the eternal life that was promised before the world began manifested in His own Person here in time. But observe this, not a single individual could have, a place in that Christianity until after His death and resurrection from amongst the dead. Our place in it, our portion in connection with it, our title to it, awaited his death and resurrection, awaited the cross as the great upholder and vindicator of all God's holy attributes and righteous claims, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ out from amongst the dead, to take a new place as man, mark you, to be set as man in that new place, as the risen man who was to take, relations as such with others brought into that place by virtue of His victory and triumphs — all that is connected with Christianity.

Having learned the meaning of the type, let us now see its blessed fulfilment in the antitype as given in Acts 1 and 2. There Christ is risen from the dead, gone into heaven, God accepts Him for His people, and the Holy Ghost comes down and falls on the one hundred and twenty gathered believers, and then adds to them three thousand new-born souls, and thus that day for the first time was constituted the Assembly of God. The start of the Church is intensely interesting, as showing how the saints were drawn together. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1). The nucleus of the Church was small indeed, but from that day a deeper and larger work was to go on, in which Christ is to see of the travail of His soul. His Assembly by the descent of the Spirit of God was formed; and therefore, again, I say assuredly that the day of Pentecost was the birthday of the Church of God, because it had never existed before. From Abel downwards individual saints and servants of God had existed, but they were not in the Church. John the Baptist, and the thief on the cross, died before the Lord Jesus was risen to be the Head of it, or any one could be united to Him. It was due to Christ, who had so glorified God in death, that there should be an adequate answer to His sorrows and sufferings; and He finds that answer in the Assembly, which is His body, as she is also His Bride, the new Jerusalem.

Here, then, we see it is not the Messiah coming to reign, but Jesus and the resurrection. For the vision of glory, of manifested glory in the world, the time has not yet come. No; it is the same person, but He was refused. He is despised and rejected, and most of all by the Jews. It was they who led the Gentiles on to put Him to death. The resurrection and the resurrection alone, is that which ushers in the blessed and wondrous development of divine truth we commonly call Christianity. It is based on the death of Christ, and it is displayed in His resurrection. And then the person! Think of Him that was God, not the man that is become God, but God who became man that He might die for men. What is the effect on us? Uncertainty? Think of WHO He is. Would God send His only-begotten Son into this world to become a man and die as a substitute for sinners, leaving the blessed effect uncertain after such a cost? Even on the ground of reason is there anything so absurd, if you believe there is a God at all? He that is the true God and eternal life came into this world and died; and the object of that death was not a mere exhibition of love, but, on the contrary, that He might for us bear the judgment of God — the judgment of God due to us as hell-deserving sinners — the judgment of God on Him as the sacrifice for sin. Is it not clear that this, and this alone, explains the death of the Lord Jesus Christ? Could anything in fact be less trustworthy, if you leave out the atonement and make it merely to be love? Why, now and then a mere man has died for a friend; and many a believer has died the most cruel death for the truth, full of joy, full of confidence. Did such an one cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Certainly not. Christ did, and they in no case.

Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, are the great facts or foundation truths, of the church — of Christianity. Incarnation was necessary to crucifixion, and both to resurrection. It is blessedly true that Christ died on the cross for our sins, but it is equally true, that the believer died in His death. (See Rom. 6; Col. 2) The Christian's life is life in resurrection. The church is built on the risen Christ. No truths can be more blessed and wonderful than incarnation and crucifixion but the church is associated with Him who is risen and glorified

But further, this principle decides its place in another way; for, properly speaking, Christian ministry began with Christ's ascending up to heaven. He designated apostles while He was upon the earth; He sent out seventy persons with a last message to Israel; but the same New Testament which tells us these facts declares that, when He ascended up on high, He gave gifts. Both facts are true; they are not to be arrayed one against another, which is what infidelity does, though sometimes well-meaning ignorance does so too. But if we do not know, we should seek to learn; for ignorance in divine things often exposes souls to the assaults and influence of infidelity. Though far from being the same thing, we should bear in mind that ignorance of the mind of God does expose to the inroads of the enemy, who takes advantage of it.

However this may be, we see what a place Christian ministry has. It began when Christ had done with the earth, consequent on the accomplishment of redemption. He had come down to the earth, but it was to test man. A man, He lived among men here below, manifesting the Father in the midst of darkness; but it too surely proved that man would not have Him — yea, hated both Him and the Father. The end of that was the cross. Risen from the dead, He acts in power — not merely in testimony, but efficaciously; and this too, not only in power over the body, but in full delivering energy, first for the soul, by and by for the body, conforming it to Himself in the glory of resurrection. Meanwhile, exalted above, He works by the Spirit of God sent down to maintain His glory and give effect to His grace. In the practical working out of this He gives gifts as He will, and these constitute the ground of true Christian ministry. When He rose from the dead, He commenced a new thing; as it is said — "Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead." At the right hand of God He inaugurates an entirely new work, and in connection with this work He provides a fresh and suited instrumentality. The operation of this instrumentality is Christian ministry.

The Church began at Pentecost with Jewish believers and later Gentiles were added to it (Acts 10), both being reconciled unto God in one body by the cross and the twain made one new man (Eph. 2:14-16). True, this was not all revealed at once and the distinctive truths of the Church were only brought out later by Paul, the special apostle to the Church, in his prison Epistles, but the Church of the living God began at Pentecost just the same. The book of Acts is a transition period from Judaism into the liberty and fulness of Christianity. These Jewish believers could not be taken all at once from Judaism into the full teaching of the Church, so these great and wonderful truths of the Church were gradually revealed and fully brought out at the proper time during Paul's imprisonment.

These words explain the situation with divine precision and unspeakable grace. It is not yet to be the displayed kingdom which belongs to the age and world to come. Now it is a question of testimony in the power of the Holy Ghost, with Whose mission and presence it is bound up. They were to be witnesses of Christ, not yet reigning with Him, but His witnesses, as rejected yet risen, despised of men, especially of the Jews and Jerusalem, but on the point of being exalted of God in heaven, and witnesses of Him — for all is of grace — both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Compare with this beginning of the Acts the end of Luke's Gospel, where the risen Saviour commands that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem: 'And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.' It is not baptism here, but vital blessing, repentance to life and remission of sins sealed with the Holy Ghost. All has its place and propriety, but the better thing it was the lot of the beloved physician to indite under the inspiring energy of God, Who was (in honour of His Son's person and work) giving life and liberty with the Spirit's seal to all that believe the gospel: its source the grace of God, its righteous foundation the cross of Christ, its character of life His resurrection; its formative object His heavenly glory; and its power the Holy Ghost sent from above.

Christianity is built upon the twofold basis of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The apostle makes this abundantly clear in 1 Cor. 15:3-4 in his rebuke to certain speculative brethren in Achaia. The death and resurrection of our Lord are not mere "spiritual ideas," but sober historical facts. So well authenticated are these facts that if they may really be doubted we cannot reasonably believe anything outside the range of our immediate observation.

A living, risen Christ—that is the starting-post of vital Christianity! Christ risen from the dead, having annulled the power of death and the grave, having broken the power of Satan and made atonement for sin—that is its mighty foundation!

150 Except the corn of wheat fell into the ground and died, it abode alone. When Christ had died - had gone up on high - the great foundation was laid for all blessings, and in particular for the church. And the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, came down according to promise; and the assembly, the church, was formed; and the Lord added daily to the church such as should be saved (the residue); Acts 2:47. That was the way He now disposed of them, though His promises to Israel remained sure. The doctrine of the church, however, was not taught as far as Scripture informs us. The Christians remained strictly attached to Judaism, zealous of the law; priests were obedient to the faith, nor seem to have ceased to be priests. Peter never even teaches that Jesus is the Son of God; his doctrine is, "Him whom ye have crucified, God hath exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins": God had made Him both Lord and Christ.