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Own blood'. In the early church there were also many who held Arian and Socinian views who would have
exposed the alteration in one of their writings or controversies. If Theou, `God', was the original word, Alford says:
`But one reason can be given why it should have been altered to Kuriou, and that one was sure to be operated.
*
It would stand as a bulwark against Arianism , an assertion which no skill could evade, which must therefore be
modified. If Theou stood in the text originally, it was sure to be altered to Kuriou'.
Further, there is no other instance in the writings of Paul, where he speaks of the `church of the Lord', whereas
the title the `church of God' is frequently used. We have already demonstrated that Paul's speech recorded in Acts
20 abounds in Pauline expressions, and this fact has some weight with us now. It is unsettling for the English reader
to be told in the margin of the R.V. about `many ancient authorities'. It might mean much or little, but inasmuch as
the Revisers themselves failed to find sufficient evidence to make an alteration, the marginal note seems to us a
disturbing intrusion. We would also mention for what it is worth that the finding of the `Numeric Version' favours
the A. V. in its translation of the title.
Believing, then, that the original text read `church of God', we meet a very extraordinary statement.
`The church of God, which He (i.e. God) hath purchased with His (i.e. God) own blood'.
This has not been allowed to pass unmodified. There is no manuscript evidence for adding the word hiou, `son',
after Tou idiou, `His own', but Dr. Hort was an adept, to use his own language, `in the art of conjectural
emendation'. Speaking of this mischievous practice, Dean Burgon commenting on Acts 20:28, says:
`We charitably presume that it is in order to make amends for having conjecturally thrust out To pascha (the
Passover) from S. John 6:4, that Dr. Hort is for conjecturally thrusting into Acts 20:28, Hiou (after Tou idiou), an
imagination to which he devotes a column and a half, but for which he is not able to produce a particle of
evidence. It would result in our reading, "to feed the Church of God, which He purchased" - (not "with His own
blood", but) - "with the blood of His Own SON": which has evidently been suggested by nothing so much as by
the supposed necessity of getting rid of a text which unequivocally asserts that CHRIST is GOD'.
The unusual expression haima Theou (blood of God) met with in Ignatius, who wrote to the Ephesians, and its
equivalent in the Latin of Tertullian Sanguine Dei (blood of God) seem to demand Acts 20:28, as its warrant. The
word `purchase', peripoieomai, was to be used in writing to this same assembly (see Eph. 1:14) where peripoiesis is
used for `the purchased possession'. Such a church, purchased at such a price, demanded the utmost care on the part
of its overseers, and the very strangeness of the apostle's wording but strengthens his appeal. Wolves were to take
advantage of the apostle's absence, and enter in, and `out from' their own selves, self-seeking and ambitious men
would rend the church.
Paul had experienced the power of `perverse things', for we meet with the word diastrepho in Acts 13, where
Elymas seeks `to turn away' the deputy from the faith, and where Paul charges him with `perverting' the right ways
of the Lord. He uses the word also in Philippians 2:15, where he speaks of a `perverse' nation.
For the space of three years the apostle had not ceased to warn every one night and day with tears, but that
witness now drew to its close. What could he do more? However faithful a testimony may be, it is marked with
mortality, and by the transient nature of all flesh. But if Paul must cease, God abides, and so the apostle points them
away to the one and only source of all grace and ground of all hope, God and His Word.
`And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to
give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified' (Acts 20:32).
Paul's influence upon Luke is evident in the record of Acts 14:3, where we read:
`Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the Word of His grace,
and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands'.
*
Named after Arius, of the 4th century, who taught that the Son was created by the Father.