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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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The Apostolic Faith |
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Acts 2:22-39 Third
Sunday after Easter April 13, 2008 If C. S. Lewis said The Chronicles of Narnia books are about Christ, then they are about Christ. They are his books, he wrote them, and they mean what he says they mean. This is not just an important fact about literature, it is the foundation of all communication. Words have meaning, thus, I can say a word to you, and, through that word, convey something, convey a meaning, an idea that exists in my mind, to you, and you can understand and grasp my meaning. If this is not true, then communication is impossible. The same is true of God. God can communicate with us, and has done so in ways we can understand. The communication we are most familiar with is in the form of a book we call The Bible, or Holy Scripture. Here, as in the writings of C.S. Lewis, we insist that the words in the book have meaning, that the book as a whole has meaning, and that it’s meaning is designated by God. In other words, it means what God says it means. We in the Anglican Orthodox Church are very intent upon what we call, the “Apostolic Faith.” This is exactly what other Christians mean when they say, “Biblical Faith.” The Apostolic Faith states that God became flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and taught Truth to humanity, and especially to the twelve men He called to Himself and commissioned to act as Apostles. These men heard His sermons, saw His mighty works, received special, private instruction, especially during the forty days between the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, and saw Him dead, buried, and risen again. These men carried on the ministry of Christ, preaching what they had learned from Him, and, later, also recording the faith He taught them in books, which were gathered into a collection we call the New Testament. Thus, the Apostolic Faith has it’s origin not in the Apostles, but in God, and that is the only legitimate reason to accept it. There are some who say the Church actually distorted the teachings of Jesus, and that the doctrines we believe today actually were not taught by the Apostles. Instead, they evolved over a period of centuries, and, in fact, are still evolving. We all know of people who desire to change Christianity to make it more attractive to secular people, saying the Church must change it’s faith or die. But if what we believe is able to be changed to accommodate people, then what we believe is not true. Furthermore, if truth does not come from God, being communicated in a way we can understand and act upon, we have no way of ever knowing the truth. We are cast into the raging sea of relativism, doubt and despair, with nothing but our own minds to judge truth. And truth itself becomes merely a matter of personal opinion, preference, or perspective. Are these people correct? They are legion, and they are found both inside and outside of the organized church. But are they correct? If they are, we would expect to find an evolution of thought in the pages of the New Testament. We should be able to find a “primitive” or original set of doctrines and practices, and we should be able to trace the evolution of the primitive faith into the more complex, and, therefore, distorted faith of later years. But we find nothing of the sort. We find instead an amazing unity of thought throughout the pages of the New Testament, though it consists of 27 different books and letters written by many different people over a period of more than 50 years. One of the very first expressions of the Apostolic Faith was actually a sermon preached by the Apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost. What do we find in it? A primitive doctrine, free of later additions and distortions? No, we find the full and complete Gospel of Christ. Let’s look at some of the elements of the Apostolic Faith we find in Peter’s sermon. Peter taught the Divinity of Christ. Peter started his sermon by saying Jesus was a man approved by God by miracles and signs, “which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know,” (Acts 2:22). Is this an open declaration of the deity of Christ? No. Peter saves that until later in the sermon. But he is laying the groundwork for that conclusion all through the sermon. In verse 22 two things are emphasized. First, Jesus was approved, or proved, by God. This word “approved” does not just mean God liked what Jesus did. It means what Jesus did in the signs and wonders prove something about Jesus. They prove who He is. In fact, God proved who Jesus is through the signs and wonders. Second, Peter says, it was God who did those miracles by Jesus. He does not say that Jesus is God in the flesh yet, but he is leading his hearers, step-by-step toward that conclusion. He continues to build support for this doctrine throughout the sermon, quoting from the Old Testament, and referring to the greatest miracle, the resurrection, in verse 32. But the final argument, and the conclusion of Peter’s argument on the subject is delivered in verse 36, “God hath made this same Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Christ means Messiah. That is important for Peter is saying Jesus is the long awaited Messiah. But, more importantly, Peter uses a word to describe Christ that is usually reserved only for God Himself. He calls Jesus “Lord.” He is equating the Lord Jesus with the Lord God. We can only draw one conclusion from this sermon; Peter believed Jesus was God. This is the Apostolic Faith. Peter taught a real death of Christ. “Him, [Jesus]…ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain,” Peter said in verse 22. Some have suggested that the entire crucifixion of Jesus was a fable. Others have said, “Yes, Jesus was crucified, but did not die. He just fainted away. He lost consciousness on the cross. Then, after three days of rest, with no medicine, no food, and no water, this man, who had been beaten almost to death, hung on a cross with nails through His hands and feet, dehydrated and weak from loss of blood, and stabbed through the heart, regained consciousness, rolled that huge stone away from the entrance of the tomb, and walked away.” No, the Romans knew how to kill and they knew death when they saw it. The spear that pierced the heart of Christ certified that He was dead. Furthermore, Peter knew Jesus really died. He probably watched the entire crucifixion from afar, still hoping Jesus would come down from the cross and show Himself to be the military messiah Peter wanted Him to be. He held that hope right up to the very last breath of Christ. And when Jesus gave up the ghost, Peter gave up hope. He knew Jesus really died. Peter taught a real, bodily resurrection. “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it,” Acts, 2:24). Here again, many have suggested that the resurrection was just a sense of still being connected to Jesus. You have heard people say that a person will never really be dead as long as we hold a place for him in our hearts. But that is not what Peter meant in verse 32. When he said, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses,” he was not saying he still had some nice feeling about Jesus. He was not saying Jesus was still alive in his memory, or in his heart. He was saying the body of Jesus Christ was dead and now is risen and alive. If the Apostles had not believed Christ arose, there would be no Christian Religion today, and Jesus would be just another forgotten messianic wannabe. Peter taught the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ. Peter did not go into detail about it in this sermon. Of course it is possible, even probable, that he said more than is recorded in Acts. But it is clear from what is recorded that Peter believed the death and resurrection of Christ is the ground and means of the remission of our sins by God, if we repent and receive it by faith. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” Peter proclaimed in verse 38. This is the Apostolic Faith. There is much more in Peter’s sermon; the Incarnation, the Trinity, salvation by grace through faith, and many other doctrines. We have just looked at the easy ones this morning, just enough to show that here, at the very beginning of the Christian Faith, we see no truncated, half-baked Christianity. We see no fuzzy outline waiting to be filled in, no undeveloped thoughts waiting to evolve into more complicated doctrines out of some primordial theological slime. We see the full Gospel of Jesus Christ, fully developed and fully believed. It will be explained more fully in later sermons and letters by the Apostles, but it will not be expanded. It will not have more added to it. It was all there on the Day of Pentecost, in the very first expression of the Apostolic Faith. And it doesn’t need to be expanded, evolved, or changed today. Let us pray. Almighty God, who came into this world through Jesus Christ, and by Him gave to your holy Apostles the doctrines and teachings we call the Apostolic Faith, and who caused that Faith to be recorded and preserved for us in the pages of Holy Scripture, grant us grace that we may believe it always and fully. In the Name of Christ. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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