Acts 8:37

37. By almost universal consent of recent critics, the whole of this verse is excluded from the original text, and should be from all versions. For the reasons on which this decision is based, we refer the reader to "Bloomfield's Commentary" on the passage, "Tregelles' History of the Printed Text," and other critical works.

This verse has been used chiefly for the purpose of determining the confession which was made originally by candidates for immersion. The fact that this is an interpolation must modify the argument on this subject, but does not invalidate it. The fact that such a confession as is here put in the mouth of the eunuch was uniformly required by the apostles, is evident from other passages of Scripture. It is quite certain that it was confessed by Timothy. Paul says to him: "Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life, into which you were called, and did confess the good confession before many witnesses." This confession was made at the beginning of his religious career; for it is connected with his call to eternal life. It is the same confession which is attributed to the eunuch; for Paul immediately adds: "I charge thee before God, who gives life to all things, and Jesus Christ, who bore testimony under Pontius Pilate, to the good confession, " etc. Now, what is here called "the good confession" is certainly the confession that he was the Christ, made before the Sanhedrim, under Pontius Pilate. But this is identified, by the terms employed, with the confession which Timothy had made, which is also "the good confession." Timothy, then, made the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the same attributed to the eunuch. Moreover, this confession was so conspicuous, at the time of Paul's writing, that it was known as the confession, and so highly esteemed as to be styled the good confession.

That Timothy was not alone in making this confession is evident from the following statement of Paul: "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach, That if thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." From this it appears that one item in "the word of faith" which the apostles preached, was the confession of the Lord Jesus with the mouth. Paul assumes that this word was in the mouths and hearts of the brethren in Rome, whom he had never seen, and with whose conversion he had nothing, personally, to do. This assumption can be justified only on the ground that it belonged to "the word of faith" everywhere preached. He argued, from the universal practice of the apostles, to a particular conclusion in reference to their converts in Rome. We have, therefore, both his premises and his conclusion, to sustain us in deciding that this confession was universal in the primitive Church, as a part of the apostolic ritual.

We here have use for the interpolated verse now under consideration. The fact that it is interpolated does not prove that the eunuch did not make the confession. On the contrary, when rightly considered, it establishes the presumption that the passage, as it now reads, is a faithful account of the event. The interpolation is easily accounted for. The text read: "The eunuch said, See, here is water; what hinders me to be immersed? And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water." Now, the object of the interpolator was to fill up what appeared to be a historic blank, so that Philip should not appear to have led the man into the water too abruptly. In doing so, he, of course, inserted what he supposed to be the apostolic custom; and the fact that he inserted this confession shows that he believed that the apostles required candidates for immersion to make the confession. Furthermore, the interpolator would naturally be guided by the prevailing custom of his own day, so that his amendment might be received by his cotemporaries. In whatever age, therefore, the interpolation was made, it indicates both the custom of that age and the opinion then prevalent as to the apostolic custom. Whether these considerations have any force or not, depends upon the proximity of the age in question to the apostolic period. But this interpolation was known to Irenæus, a.d. 170, and this proves that the confession which the Scriptures show to have been universal in the days of the apostles was perpetuated into the latter part of the second century.

Both the custom of confessing Christ, and the formula employed, originated in the most natural way, and without any positive precept. Jesus appeared in Galilee and Judea, proclaiming himself the Christ and the Son of God. As men became convinced of his claims, they would say, " I believe that he is the Christ." Others would say, " I believe that he is a prophet, but I deny that he is the Christ." Thus the confession or denial of this proposition was the first mark of distinction between believers and unbelievers. The Pharisees, therefore, "agreed that if any man did confess that he was the Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue." The confession was, then, all that was necessary to identify one as a disciple of Jesus. Hence, with special reference to this state of things, Jesus said, "He that confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father in heaven; but he that denies me before men, him will I deny before my Father in heaven." After the commission was given, enjoining the immersion of all believers, the confession was still perpetuated, and immersion naturally took position immediately after it.

A confession thus necessarily originating from the grand issue that Jesus presented to the world, and involving the earliest distinction between his friends and his foes, could not fail to have an important position in the formation of those friends into a great organization. The Church of Christ, like every other useful organization, is created and sustained by the obligations of some truth. This truth may be properly styled the foundation of the organization, because it is that from which it springs, and without which it could not exist. The truth declared in the confession, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is beyond controversy, the foundation of the Church of Christ, and is so declared by Jesus himself. Without it no Church of Christ could possibly exist. It had to exist as a truth, and be demonstrated to men as such, before the Church would begin to be. The truth itself, however, and the confession of it, are two things entirely distinct. The former is the foundation; the latter, a means of building on it. There is no way to build an organization of men and women on a truth, except by a mutual confession of it, and an agreement to live together according to its obligations. When individuals, believing that Jesus is the Christ, mutually confess it, and agree to unite in the observance of its obligations, the immediate and necessary result is a Church. In this way the confession became an organic element in the ecclesiastical constitution.

Inasmuch as some have conceived that Jesus in person is the foundation of the Church, it may be well to observe here that there is no way in which an organization can be built on a person, except by believing something in reference to him. It is not the fact that there is such a person as Jesus, but that that person is the Christ which gave existence to the Church.

Inasmuch as members of the Church are built upon the true foundation, in part, by a mutual confession of its truth, the confession, formally made, is both an acknowledgment of the obligations which the truth imposes, and a pledge to all the duties of a member in the Church. It is true, that the confession, like immersion, and eating bread and wine, may occur amid the careless scenes of a wicked life, without any religious import. But this is only to say that the specific acts which God calls upon us to perform in religious ordinances may be performed by wicked men without religious intent. And this, again, is only to say, that, in adapting his institutions to us, instead of inventing new and unheard-of performances, he has lifted up certain actions and words already familiar, into association with religious truth and obligation. This arrangement is a proof of his wisdom; for by it the mind is averted from the mere physical act, which might otherwise have usurped too much consideration, and is compelled to associate the value of the deed with the thoughts which surround it. Such is pre-eminently the case with the confession, which, though a very simple declaration of faith, is a formal assumption of all the obligations of a Christian life.

The kingdom of Christ is not limited to earth, but was designed to bind together, in one harmonious whole, God, angels, and men. God himself was the first to present himself for this great union. Over the bank of the Jordan he made the same confession which is required of us, and thereby not only bore testimony to the fact that Jesus was his Son, but, also, voluntarily placed himself before the universe in the attitude which the incipient mediatorship required him to occupy. By this formal confession he pledged himself to accept the mediation of Christ, just as we, by the same confession, pledge ourselves to accept the blessings which that mediation procures for us. If God had never confessed Jesus, in this or some equivalent manner, we would have no direct assurance from him that he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Like men on earth, the angels in heaven passed into the privileges of the kingdom of God, by making this same confession. When Jesus ascended up on high, the Father said to him, "Sit on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool." Then he "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God," and God said, "Let all the angels of God worship him." Then were fulfilled the words of Paul, "God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." The angels all confessed the good confession, receiving Jesus as their Lord, and rendering thus their first act of worship to the Son of Mary. The one identical confession, therefore, has brought together, in one harmonious whole, God, angels, and men; the latter being pledged by it to eternal worship, and the former pledged forever to accept their grateful homage through Christ.

That this confession was the only one required of candidates for immersion by the apostles, is universally admitted by those who are competent to judge. It is likewise admitted that they regarded it as a sufficient confession. This fact alone should teach men to be satisfied with it now. He, indeed, who is guided by the Bible alone, can not require of men any other confession than such as he finds authorized by Bible precedents. Neither is it possible that he who implicitly follows the apostolic precedent can be misled, unless the apostles, the Holy Spirit, the New Testament, can mislead them. Fidelity to the word of God, therefore, binds us to this confession alone, and, in clinging to it, we have every assurance which inspiration can give that we are right.

Departure from apostolic precedent is never justifiable, except when the precedent itself was the result of circumstances peculiar to the apostolic age. The primitive practice of washing the feet of brethren who came into the house from the highway, was an accidental, and not a necessary result of the law of hospitality. Growing out of the peculiar habit of wearing sandals, it ceased to be a matter of duty as soon as the circumstances which gave rise to it disappeared. If a similar change of circumstances has taken place in reference to the confession, rendering it insufficient for our times, then we are no longer bound by the precedent. That such is the case is affirmed by many of our cotemporaries, and we must extend these remarks sufficiently to consider the reasons offered in support of this opinion.

It is often argued that, in the days of the apostles, the moment men became convinced that Jesus was the Christ they were ready to submit to his service; but now, every Church is surrounded with men and women who are convinced of this fact, but still persist in wickedness; hence some more effectual test should now be applied. This argument is based upon a false assumption in reference to results of primitive preaching; for we read of many rulers of synagogues who believed in Jesus, but would not confess him for hear of the Pharisees; of Joseph of Arimathea, who, though a disciples kept it secret; of Felix, who trembled under the preaching of Paul, but said, Go thy way for the present; and of Agrippa, who was almost, though not altogether, persuaded to be a Christian. If these men in high stations were deterred by fear, or by worldly lusts, from making the confession, how much more the common people, who had much more to fear! Witness the parents of the blind man who had been healed by Jesus, who gave evasive answers in the synagogue for this very reason. There is no evidence that men were more prompt to yield to their convictions then than they are now.

Sometimes it is argued, quite inconsistently with the above, that the danger of being known as a Christian in those days rendered the simple confession a sufficient test of a man's devotion; but now, when Christianity is popular, it is entirely insufficient. It must be granted, that sometimes it was dangerous to property and life to become a Christian, yet it was true then, as it is now, that many insincere persons found their way into the Churches. Jude complains that "ungodly men, turning the favor of God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," had "crept in unawares." Paul echoes the same sentiment in reference to "false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage." There are those "who went out from us because they were not of us," and there was Demas, who forsook Paul in the hour of danger, "having loved this present world." And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Simon the sorcerer, of Alexander the coppersmith, of Phygellus and Hermogenes, of Hymeneus and Alexander whom Paul delivered over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme, and of many others who proved insincere in their confession, or false to its obligations. Surely, if a test of sincerity which could let into the fold such wolves as these was sufficient for the inspired apostles, we may be content with the same, unless we affect a wisdom and a zeal superior to theirs.

But the most popular argument against the present sufficiency of the good confession is this: that the immense multiplicity of doctrinal errors now prevalent requires a severer test of soundness in the faith than was used by the apostles before these errors had an existence. Unfortunately, however, its historic assumption is as baseless as that of the two we have just considered. For not only were the Churches surrounded with most pernicious errors in doctrine, but were sickened by the poison of those errors within their own bosoms. Pharisees in Jerusalem crept in to spy out the liberty of the new covenant, and bring the brethren back into bondage to the law; and there were Sadducees in the Church at Corinth who denied the resurrection. There were philosophers, such as "Hymeneus and Philetus, who concerning the faith have erred, saying that the resurrection is already past, and overthrow the faith of some," and there were transcendentalists, who denied that "Jesus Christ had come in the flesh," having speculated his bodily existence into the essence of moonshine, or something equally unreal. James had to warn some against being deceived into worship of the heavenly bodies, by assuring them that "every good gift comes down from the Father of lights," and not from the lights themselves; while Paul fights many a hard battle against brethren who were disposed to openly countenance fornication, incest, and the sacrificial banquets of heathen worship. Under the pressure of all this influx of falsehood and iniquity, why did not these inspired men see their mistake, and, discarding the simple confession, draw up a masterly catechism, which would shut out every error, and guard the purity of the Church? How sad the reflection, that men so ingenious in other respects, were so stupid in this! And how fortunate for us, that the wiser heads of Rome, Geneva, Augsburg, and Westminster have supplied this deficiency in the work of the apostles!

We have thus far argued upon the broadest assumption in reference to the inefficiency of the good confession in guarding the purity of the Church. We might retort upon the advocates of creeds and catechisms, by showing that these devices can not be, and have not been, any more efficient; but we prefer to show the real exclusiveness of the good confession. It is certainly exclusive enough to keep out the pagan, the Jew, the Mohammedan, the atheist, and the infidel; for none of these can honestly make the confession. It will exclude the Unitarian and the Universalist; for while they are willing to confess that Jesus is the Christ, in the next breath they deny him, by contradicting some of his most emphatic declarations. It will also exclude the wicked and impenitent; for it is offered only to penitent believers. If this is not considered sufficient, we may advance still further, and say that it will exclude the Roman Catholic, who persists in having other intercessors in heaven, besides "the high priest of our confession. " It will exclude the devotee of the mourning bench, who waits for an operation of the Spirit before he comes to Christ. It will exclude the pedobaptist, who is satisfied with his sprinkling; for it requires an immediate immersion. None of these characters can scripturally make the good confession without some specific change in views or in character. Lest the tune of the objector should now be changed, and he should cry, "Your confession is too exclusive," we add, that it receives all whom the apostles would receive, and excludes all whom they would exclude.