Acts 11:26

DISCIPLES AND CHRISTIANS

26. “And it came to pass unto them indeed that they were assembled a whole year in the church and taught a great crowd, and that they first called the disciples Christians in Antioch.” The followers of our Savior were denominated by Himself and others “disciples,” i. e., pupils, learners. After the incarnation of the Holy Ghost in the Pentecostal experience we find the cognomen “Christian” applied to them, thus eventually superseding the former and familiar epithet “disciple.” The Holy Ghost is the Author of every word in the original Scriptures. Each one of His words is inspired, i. e., “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). The verbal inspiration is only in the original language, the transactions only retaining the substantial inspiration. Hence we learn a valuable fundamental lesson in these contrastive words “disciple,” a convert, and “Christian,” a noun derived from Christus, which means “the anointed,” and applied to Jesus after His anointing by the Holy Ghost descending on Him like a dove at the Jordan, having always hitherto been called Jesus, his birth-name, which means “Savior.” The disciple is saved in conversion, but not anointed by the Holy Ghost till he is sanctified in a second work of grace, thus progressing out of mere discipleship into Christianity properly so called. The word “Christian,” which literally means a person anointed with the Holy Ghost, is applicable to none but the sanctified, this being its New Testament meaning. Oh, how woefully has Satan perverted the use of that word! In Palestine, where the natives are Mohammedans and not allowed to get drunk, and the Jews are also abstinent, and all foreigners are denominated Christians, the most indubitable evidence that a man is a Christian and not a Jew or a Mohammedan is to find him so drunk he can not stand on his feet. Good Lord, save us from the popular and blasphemous application of the word “Christian.” It means a person anointed with the Holy Ghost, i. e., sanctified, in contradistinction to a mere disciple in his rudimentary experience. How horrifically and blasphemously inconsistent for people who reject and even preach against sanctification and all the work of the Holy Ghost, not only to claim to be Christians, but even stickleristic in the appropriation of the name. How Satan is delighted when people thus verify his delusions and falsifications!