John William McGarvey · 8 of 38
Acts II · Part 4
By the expression “singleness of heart” is meant the concentration of their affections and desires upon a single subject. This devotion and concentration of thought could but result, as it did, in giving the disciples “favor with all the people,” and causing daily additions to the Church.
Those added to the Church daily were not “such as should be saved,” as rendered in the common version, but tous sozomenous, the saved. In what sense they were saved, is a question of some importance. Dr. Hackett says: “The doctrine is that those who embrace the gospel adopt the infallible means of being saved.” This is, undoubtedly, true doctrine; but it is not what is taught in the passage; for Luke speaks not of those who daily embraced the means of salvation, but of those who were saved. The view expressed by Alexander, that “men are said to be saved, not only in reference to the final consummation, but to the inception of the saving work,” is a nearer approach to the true conception, but still falls short of it. It is not an inception of the saving work, of which Luke speaks, but the salvation referred to is complete; the parties spoken of being called “the saved.” Both these learned commentators, by keeping their minds fixed upon a future state as offering the only fulfillment of the word “saved,” have failed to discover the exact sense in which it is here used by the historian. Primarily, the term save means simply to make safe. In the religious sense, it means to make safe from the consequences of sin. If men had never sinned, they could not be saved, seeing they would be already safe. But having sinned, they are saved when they are made safe from the consequences of their sins. This is done when their sins are forgiven. At the moment a sinner obtains pardon, he is, so far as the past is concerned, completely saved. It is in this sense that the parties in this case added to the Church are called “the saved.” Paul uses the term in the same sense when he says of God, “According to his mercy he saved us, by the laver of , and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
The fact that the Lord added the saved, or pardoned, to the Church, two conclusions: first, That men are entitled to membership in the Church the moment they are pardoned; second, That men should join the Church, not as a means of obtaining pardon, but because they have already obtained it. The former conclusion shows that it is unscriptural to admit, as some parties do, that certain persons are pardoned, and yet refuse them Church-fellowship. The latter condemns the practice observed by others, of received persons to membership “as a ;” i. e., as a means of obtaining pardon.
