THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH

THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH

So far our articles in the work of Jesus as the great Physician have all been selected from the account of His earthly ministry. We are now crossing over into the Acts of the Apostles, and the apostolic letters, in order to look at some illustrations to be found therein, but under new circumstances.

We find ourselves in an entirely new age, but with the same Lord. Mark, at the close of his narrative, in a paragraph, concerning the genuineness of which doubts exist in the minds of some, but concerning which I personally have no question, referring to the period beginning with the resurrection, speaking of the disciples, says:

"And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word by the signs that followed."

We are now, then, in the period when His mystical Body, the Church, had been created as to its beginning. The Church is seen moving out into the world indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and the Lord is seen continuing through the Church and the Spirit His own work.

To use Luke's expression found in the commencement of the book of the Acts, we have been watching Him in things which He began to do and teach. We are now to watch Him still doing and teaching, carrying on His work as the great Physician, but operating by the Spirit through the members of His Body, the Church.

The account of the Ethiopian eunuch is pivotal, because it begins that particular account of the ministry of Christ towards the ends of the earth. He has recorded the fact that our Lord had charged His disciples that they were to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judaea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Thus the ever widening circles of His work were indicated. As we follow through the book we shall find that they are clearly marked. Their work in Jerusalem occupies the first five chapters. Then we see them scattered by persecution, passing out into Judaea, and on through Samaria. Then beyond these circles the first account of the movement towards the uttermost part of the earth is this of the Ethiopian eunuch. We may remind ourselves again in passing that the book of the Acts is evidently an unfinished fragment. It carries us so far as to show us Paul in Rome, a prisoner, but announcing the great message of the Kingdom of God through Christ.

The account of the Ethiopian eunuch is the account of the movement towards Africa. In this movement the instrument of the Lord, a member of His new mystical Body was Philip. It is important that we remember this was not Philip the apostle, but Philip the deacon. He evidently had received the call and the equipment to become an evangelist. It is impossible to be definite, but the probability is that when this call came to him, and he answered it, he gave up his work as a deacon. The last we see of him in the account is that from Azotus he passed on, preaching through all the cities. He, then, is' he instrument through whom the Lord operated in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch. The great Physician is brought into living touch with this man through a member of His Body, the Church, Philip.

Following the custom we have adopted throughout, we will attempt first to see the man. He is described as a man of Ethiopia. The statement is perfectly simple and straightforward, and can mean none other than that he was a Black man. We are then told that he was a eunuch of great authority under Candace, and that his position entailed that of having authority "over all her treasures." We remind ourselves in this connection that Candace may be the name of a particular queen, or it may be a title, as Pharaoh was a title. It is, however, quite definitely established that these people were ruled over by queens, and that in this connection the reigning queen is referred to.

Necessarily the background, then, of the narrative is that of conditions obtaining at the time. Three centuries before Christ, Greek literature and thought had penetrated Africa, and there can be no doubt whatever that at the time a very remarkable civilization existed there. This man, therefore, was an eminent man in his own country, as he held this position of authority at the court of Candace.

A sidelight in the account shows that he was not an uneducated or ignorant man. He was a man of the Ethiopian race, but when we see him we find him with a Hebrew scroll in his hand. I do not mean that it was necessarily in the Hebrew language. In all probability it was a copy of the Septuagint Version which was then being used. Moreover, he was reading this scroll, and reading aloud, all which, as we have said, proves that he was an educated man.

At this point one is tempted to turn aside, but it must only be for rapid reference. Ethiopia today is admittedly the home of a backward people. Let us never forget that when that fact is in mind, that it has been the place of great and remarkable civilizations; and, moreover, history shows that it became the home of a remarkable branch of the Christian Church. As we face these facts we are inevitably compelled to ask wherein lay the cause of this appalling failure? I reply without any lengthy argument to that question by declaring that the Church of God failed in Africa because it did not give its members its Holy Writings in their own language. Wherever that has been the case, the testimony of the Church has failed. That necessarily is an aside, but it is an arresting fact.

Looking, then, at this man we see him a man of education, a man of eminence, but we see more. He had come to Jerusalem to worship. Out of that African civilization, with all its wealth as it existed at the time, and all its civilization, this man had been to Jerusalem for the distinct purpose of worship. What may lie behind that statement who can tell? Certainly he knew of the Hebrew religion, for he had not only gone to Jerusalem to worship; he took with him, or had obtained there, a copy of at least a part of the sacred writings of the Hebrew people. The possibility is that he was a proselyte which means necessarily a proselyte of the gate only. He could not be received into full standing of the Jewish nation by reason of the fact that he was a eunuch. That excluded him from full communion with the Jewish people. Nevertheless he had been to Jerusalem to worship, and one can easily imagine the one thing that had attracted him to the Hebrew religion. They were the people of one God, and that fact was always an attractive one to sincerely seeking souls.

Again, looking at him before Philip joined him, we see a man questing after truth, and yet conscious that he had not grasped it.

When at this point Philip said to him, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" he replied:

"How can I, except someone shall guide me?"

He was a man of remarkable intelligence, and that is revealed in the fact that in his reading in the prophet Isaiah, he found himself face to face with a definite difficulty.

I pause here to remark that it is a remarkable illustration of his intelligence that he was perplexed at that particular point. The question he asked was:

"Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself, or of some other?"

The arresting fact in this man is that this is a question even now being debated in what are called scholarly circles. Men of investigation,—I speak with great respect for them,—along critical lines, and sometimes in the atmosphere of a naturalistic philosophy, are still making that same question. Sometimes the answer is given that the prophet was referring to himself, and others suggest his reference was to Jeremiah. We find as we read on that Philip had no doubt about the matter. Our point at this point, however, merely is that this man was sufficiently intelligent to feel he could not grasp the significance of that tremendous passage revealing someone, some servant of the Lord, suffering on the way to triumph.

Thus, when we look at the Ethiopian eunuch, dismissing for the moment all the things we referred to at first as to his position and scholarship, we see a man who was a seeker after truth, a man evidently dissatisfied with everything he had so far found, even though he was a worshipper at Jerusalem; a man who was returning from that visit to Jerusalem still searching.

Now we turn to watch our Lord's dealing with this man through Philip who was a member of His Holy Body the Church, and who was operating under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

We are first of all arrested by the man who thus became the instrument of Jesus. In the sixth chapter of the book of the Acts we find that he was one of those elected to the diaconate, and of them it is said that they were to be "full of the Spirit and wisdom." The description unquestionably, therefore, applies to Philip. The description in itself is valuable. The two things forever go together, fullness of the Spirit and fullness of wisdom. Whereas wisdom may mean much more, it certainly does mean among other things, commonsense and tact. It must be admitted that we have heard people claim to be full of the Spirit whose activity towards others was utterly foolish. Philip because of this equipment, was a fitting instrument for the Lord Himself, and thus knew how to handle a human soul.

Moreover, as we first see him we see an evangelist engaged in a great and mighty work in Samaria. His preaching there had stirred that capital of the Northern Kingdom. Multitudes had gathered round and listened, and believed. Observe carefully that as the instrument of his Lord, while in the midst of this most successful work, he was suddenly commanded to leave Samaria. Much of the man is revealed in the fact that he immediately obeyed. The command gave no program, and declared no ultimate purpose. It was simply, "Arise, and go toward the South." He was told to travel by the way of Gaza, and the way is described in the significant words, "The same is desert."

Thus Philip is seen as a member of the mystical Body of Jesus, in such close and happy fellowship with his Lord, that he yielded immediate obedience, although the command contained no word of explanation as to its meaning and issue. Therefore he left the busy and populous center, and the rejoicing crowds to follow the lonely trail across the desert, with no apparent objective.

Now let us carefully observe that before we see him in contact with the eunuch there was a preparation for that contact. There was the preparation of the eunuch. There was the preparation of Philip. The preparation of the eunuch is discovered in the fact that as he travelled back to fulfill his duties in the place of responsibility which he held, he was studying the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. In the possession and the reading and the pondering of that writing we see the preparation for all that was to follow. The fact of preparation is still further emphasized by his honest sense of ignorance and incompetence to understand the things he was reading. If a man possess these writings, and gives himself to their study, it is a great thing when he recognizes his own inability, without a guide of some kind, to interpret to him the meaning of the things read. That sense of inability is in itself a preparation.

Now as to Philip, what was his preparation for his meeting with this man? He also had the prophetic writings, but he had more. He knew their historic fulfillment. Possibly he had been brought into contact personally with Jesus, but even if that were not so, spiritually he had knowledge of the One referred to by the prophet in his great foretelling. He knew Who it was Who had been wounded for our transgressions. The eunuch was prepared by the foretelling of Isaiah. Philip was prepared by the fulfillment in Jesus. In the eunuch the sense of ignorance was preparation. In Philip the Spirit of knowledge and understanding was preparation.

Then we observe the contact, and in doing so we mark carefully the method of Philip's approach. First he saw the man driving in his chariot, and then he heard the command of the Spirit, "Join thyself to this chariot." His response was immediate. He "ran to him." One may reverently imagine that the chariot was travelling faster than he, but he was determined to make contact. As we watch this man we see, then, a member of the Body of Jesus through whom the Lord was acting, and all that happened was the result of this action of the Lord Himself through Philip.

He began by asking him, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" It must have been a somewhat strange if not startling experience to this nobleman of Ethiopia thus to have an unknown man approach his chariot and ask him a question like that. The word rendered "understandest" is the word ginosko. We might render it with perfect accuracy, Do you know what you are reading? The word "understandest," however, is preferable, because it reveals the true value of reading. The word for reading is, in itself, a. remarkable one, for it simply means, knowing again. All reading should be of that nature. Something has been written, because someone knew it. In your reading you are finding that knowledge, you are knowing again. The question Philip asked this man was, therefore, almost a play upon words; do you know what you are knowing again? It is a simple but a vital question. How often in our reading we have found that having read a paragraph or a page or a chapter, we suddenly discover we do not know what we have been reading. If, therefore, it be true that that is the secret of all reading, it certainly applies to the reading of the Holy Scriptures. It was, indeed, a simple question, but a most profound one. Approaching this man of eminence and learning, Philip asked him if he really knew what he was reading, if he understood. It was a question, therefore, which reached the very center of the man's intellectual life. It was a question characterized by great wisdom; and this, as we have seen, was the result of the fact that he was full of the Holy Spirit; and consequently was an instrument of the great Physician, Whoever knows what is in man, and needs that none shall tell Him. Thus through Philip, that Physician was handling the soul of this black nobleman.

Then it was that the eunuch said:

"How can I, except some one shall guide me?"

In this question he recognized the depth of the thing he was reading, and with an honest and magnificent confession of ignorance he revealed a profound necessity. The words he used to describe that necessity were "Someone shall guide me." The word he used means, quite literally, someone who knows the way and can lead. He had the scroll in front of him. He could read it, but he needed someone to interpret.

Then he told Philip the point where his intellectual power had broken down. He could not understand to whom the prophet was referring:

"Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself, or of some other?"

We remind ourselves for a moment of the poignant power and pathos of the things he had been reading.

"He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;

And as a lamb before his shearers is dumb,

So He opened not His mouth;

In His humiliation His judgment was taken away;

His generation who shall declare?

For His life is taken from the earth."

The eunuch was seeking to know who it was that was thus described. I think we may fairly assume that he was familiar with the movement of the prophetic writing. He had seen the figure of a servant of Jehovah who was to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and then he had reached this chapter, with its revelation of travail, leading to triumph, and he said, who is this?

Then, beginning at that Scripture, "Philip preached unto him Jesus." For the man there was a great hiatus, a sense of lack, and consequently a quest that only left him in an agony of suspense. The answer to all these things was found in Jesus. Philip would tell this man the account of Jesus as we know it, the account of the life and death and resurrection and ascension of the Lord.

The eunuch heard, and it is quite evident that he had under­stood, and far more, that he had yielded himself to the One Who fulfilled the prophetic foretelling. Moreover, it is evident that

Philip had told him of the necessity for making confession of his submission. Therefore, at his own suggestion, he proposed to make that very confession as he said:

"Behold, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?"

Philip responded, and the two passed down into the water, and the eunuch's confession was made in the act of baptism. That was then, as always, an outward and visible sign that this man was also baptized by the Holy Spirit into living membership with the living Lord.

The end of the account is full of beauty. Philip was caught up of the Spirit, and the eunuch "went on his way rejoicing." We are utterly interested in what is said about the eunuch. Philip had gone. The Spirit needed him in some other place. The eunuch, however, was not depressed because Philip had departed. He had found Philip's Master. He had made contact with the great Physician Who had answered all his questions, and satisfied the deepest desire of his heart.

Thus we have a glorious unveiling of the victorious Christ in the new age, still carrying on His healing work. He is seen using His own man, Philip, to run on His errands, to deliver His message, to fulfill His purpose. The whole thing speaks to us of the responsibilities of those who are members of the Church of God. They are forever to be ready to obey, and as they do obey they become the media through which the great Physician deals still with the spiritual and moral necessities of the soul of man.