Acts 4:12

Acts 4:12

I. St. Peter here makes a positive assertion. He says that Jesus Christ His name that is, Himself, brings salvation. It is natural for us to ask, What kind of salvation? Salvation was already a consecrated word in the language of Israel. It meant very generally the deliverance of Israel from outward and inward enemies; it meant very frequently the deliverance of Israel as a whole; it meant especially national salvation. The political salvation implied, as in the last result it always does, a moral and spiritual salvation. The outward deliverance necessitated an inward one, and the only Saviour who could deal with the thoughts and wills of men, who could begin really from within, was He who had just now, though invisibly, healed the cripple. Israel must be saved by Him, or it would perish. And thus we are led on to perceive an unspeakably deeper sense of the Apostle's words. Salvation really means here it can mean no less the saving from moral ruin and death of the separate souls of men.

II. Salvation in this sense was, it is plain, no monopoly of Israel. What in the world was Israel that it should claim the whole power of the saving name? The final, the absolute religion, could not but be it lay in the nature of things universal. The question of the Gentiles had not yet been raised as it was raised a few years later, but there was behind the Apostles the broad commission of Christ to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. And in this sense the word "salvation" has all the meaning for you and for me that it had for St. Peter and the first Christians.

III. But the Apostle adds, "Neither is there salvation in any other." When we affirm that Christianity alone can save, we do not deny that other agencies beside Christianity may improve mankind. But such influences are bounded by the horizon of time; they have no effects in the great hereafter. At least, they do not save us. They are not opponents of the Church of Christ; they are not even her rivals. They move in a totally different sphere of action. They only embellish our outward life; they leave our real soul, our real self, untouched. The question which will alone interest every one of us a short century hence, when other human beings have taken our places, and we have passed away, will not be whether, during this short span of life, we have been improved, but whether we have been saved. There can be no doubt that this conviction was in the first days of Christianity, and has been since, a great motive power in urging devoted men to spread the religion of their Master; a motive only second in its power to the impulsive force of the love of Christ.

H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,No. 658.

There are four things in the text commanding attention

I. Salvation. To be saved from ignorance, folly, vain imaginations, an evil heart, a rebellious will, an evil conscience, a damaged character, the dominion and presence of sin, the position of the guilty, and from the punishment of evil-doers; to be sustained in this life's sorrows, and to have them sanctified; to be able to triumph over death and the grave; to be forgiven restored, regenerated, and sanctified; to escape perdition, and to inherit heaven is, so far as words can reveal it, the whole of salvation. This God promised at the beginning, this God has provided, and this we offer you in the preaching of the Gospel.

II. Salvation in a Person. To be saved by a Saviour. (1) This shows our weakness, and in our weakness we see our wretchedness. The evil which afflicts us is such that we require a personal Redeemer. (2) This arrangement removes all cause of boasting from the saved. (3) This arrangement places the redeemed under special obligations. (4) It renders the actual work of Salvation a service of sympathy and love.

III. Look at Salvation in a Person made known. God has given this name of Jesus given it in writing to be read, given it by preaching to be heard, given it Himself that it may never be forgotten and that it may be above every name, given it among men that men may read, hear it, learn and repeat it, and incorporate it with their prayers and their songs, and that it may become as familiar in their mouths as any household word.

IV. Look at the fact that the dispensation of salvation is limited to that Person. It would be interesting to inquire into the causes of other names and things being put forward. Perhaps the chief cause is pride. We shrink from the practical acknowledgment of entire and absolute dependence upon the grace of God for our redemption; we despise the simplicity of faith, or we are not prepared to follow after holiness. But, however that may be, "neither is there salvation in any other."

S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass,p. 225.

References: Acts 4:12. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iv., No. 209; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 159; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons in Marlborough College,p. 352; Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 108; S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass,p. 194; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College,p. 352.