Its ministry partakes of a twofold character. It is, firstly, the “ministry (or ministration) of righteousness” (2 Cor. 3:99For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. (2 Corinthians 3:9).) and secondly, the “ministry of reconciliation” (ch. v. 18.). In its former character it appears especially in the Epistle to the Romans, and in the latter, in the second Epistle of the same Apostle to the Corinthians. The great gospel Epistle begins, as does the great gospel prophet of the Old Testament, with man's utter ruin, and then presents God's perfect remedy through and in Jesus Christ. As said before, Job's question “How should man be just with God?” finds its full and complete answer in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, where “every mouth is stopped and all the world become guilty before God, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
But the effect of sin, as seen already in Adam, is not only guile, or the attempt to cover over and to conceal oneself, but distrust and positive enmity against God. “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat” says Adam, laying his sin at God's door. Man has not only become a sinner, but an enemy of God. God, when beginning His work in the soul of a sinner, begins with the conscience, the Holy Spirit in His convincing power bringing home to the conscience the convicting power of the word written by Himself. Is it not the same amongst men? Suppose your neighbor has grievously wronged and offended you, would you care for his coming the next morning into your presence holding out his hand and wishing you good morning, as if nothing had happened? Certainly not! You would expect to see some exercise of conscience at least, if not of heart, and consequent acknowledgment of his wrong, before treating him on the old terms. It was just this boldness that characterized Cain's approach to God in professed worship. The effect of the written word of God when brought home by His Spirit to the sinner's soul is just this: it takes, two-edged sword as it is, in its searching and judging power, the conscience right into the presence of Him with Whom we have to do,” and unto Whose “eyes all things are naked and opened.”
Take the case of a young man, sent by his father to the university, who has got into bad company and
been led astray by his boon companions. One day he receives a letter from his father. The very sight of it makes his heart smite against his ribs. His first thought is: “Should my father have heard of my ways?” He opens the letter and sees that the father knows all about it, reprimanding his son for his disgraceful conduct. What would be the effect of the father's “written word” upon the son? Why, he feels as if his father stood before him, as if his father's eyes were upon him, and his voice speaking to him. In short, he would feel himself, as it were, in the presence of his father, face to face with him, so to speak.
Such, then, is the effect of Holy Writ, when applied by the Holy Spirit to the sinner's conscience. It brings him face to face with a thrice holy, sin-hating God, exposing him to the all-searching light of His holy presence.
And it is well worth noticing how both the chief apostle of the circumcision and the great apostle of the Gentiles, the former in the preaching of his first gospel at Pentecost, and the latter in his gospel Epistle to the Romans, guided by the Holy Ghost, take care, as mere mouthpieces of God, to let the written word do its own work of divine power in the souls of the hearers or readers—for those at Jerusalem, in bringing home to their consciences their guilt in having rejected and crucified their Messiah, and in the Epistle to the Romans quoting alike from the psalms, being that portion of Holy Writ so especially adapted for dealing with both consciences and hearts. The searching power of the passages quoted from the psalms in the third chapter of Romans appears strikingly adapted for dealing with consciences.
And hear, let me add, appears to be one chief cause of the falling off in the power and effect of the gospel preaching at the present day. The conscience is little dealt with, and the religious sentiments of the natural heart appealed to and wrought upon instead. True gospel preaching always begins with “Repent.” for its keynote, be its preacher John the Baptist, or the Lord Himself, or His apostles. “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” was the burden of the forerunner's preaching (Matthew 3:22And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 3:2)). “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” the Master Himself preached (verse 17). And as to His apostles, “They went out and preached that men should repent,” (Mark 6:1212And they went out, and preached that men should repent. (Mark 6:12)). At the close of the first transitional gospel at Pentecost, the agonized inquiry of the Jews: “Men, brethren, what shall we do? is again answered by: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” And even after the gospel of grace, peace and glory, as preached by the apostle of the Gentiles, had assumed its full Christian character, Paul was “testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:2121Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21).
Where the wound has been but slight, there can be but a slight sense of God's healing grace, and the heart thus not being established in grace, the feet of such a lamb of Christ's flock will soon betake themselves again to the going astray. Where there has been a real conversion, God will not fail, in His grace, to deepen, sooner or later, by way of discipline, the sense of the solemn nature of sin and of His grace in those who are His. But the spiritual father of such a convert might have saved to his child in the gospel a good deal of sorrowful and humbling discipline, if his ministry in the gospel had been more effective there where God begins, viz. in the consciences of his hearers. Antinomianism must be the natural result of such sadly defective revival preaching, followed by hardening of conscience and a Christ-dishonoring walk.
But in every real conversion, God works in the heart as well as in the conscience of the sinner. There is not only a blinded and hardened conscience to deal with, but also a blinded, hardened, and impenitent heart, filled with distrust and enmity against God. What does God, Who “is love” no less than “light"? He “commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The same Spirit of truth who convinces the conscience of sin and guilt, draws as the “Spirit of love” the burdened conscience and contrite heart toward God, Who had been so grievously sinned against. “For Thy name's sake, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great,” pleads the psalmist. He pleads what, for a human judge, would have been the very reason for condemning him. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions,” says the same psalmist. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” prays the publican in the temple.
The evangelist who keeps on hammering on the conscience with verses 3 and 5 of John 3, having very little to say to the heart about verses 14 and 15, and still less about verses 16 and 17, produces but a kind of legal mulatto Christians: sorry fruits of the gospel of grace, peace, and glory.
Whilst, then, in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans where we have man in his total sinful ruin brought before us, and God's wondrous way of justifying the ungodly by faith in Christ Jesus, the gospel appears rather in its character as “ministry of righteousness,” though even there its character of reconciliation is not lost sight of (Rom. 5): it is in the second Epistle of the same apostle to the Corinthians (chap. v.) that the “ministry of reconciliation” is prominent. “Knowing the terror of the Lord” the apostle persuades men “to flee from the wrath to come;” but the “love of Christ” constraining him, he beseeches them to be reconciled to God.
If in man's hostile heart there had been any response to God's heart so full of love, mercy, and goodness, it must have come out when “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” — “God was manifest in the flesh.” The Man Christ Jesus, the only Mediator between God and men, had been in this world, going about and doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, giving sight to the blind, healing the broken-hearted, speaking words in season to the weary, blessing their little ones, setting at liberty the captives of Satan, and preaching the gospel to the poor. At Cana, He rejoiced with them that did rejoice; at Bethany, He wept with them that wept: wherever there was sorrow and misery, Jesus was near and ready to remove it.
But man's heart was like an instrument which is out of tune. Let the most perfect master put his hand to it, it only utters an unharmonious sound in reply, because it is out of tune. There was the “mourning” in John the Baptist's days, but there was no “weeping.” “He hath a devil” was their reply. Then there was the “piping” in the days of the gracious and accessible One, and they answered: “Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, friend of publicans and sinners.” It was the final burden of Stephen's sermon (before they stoned him and sent him after his Master with the message that they would not have Jesus to rule over them), that whatever God had sent in grace, they had rejected, but clung to that which God had rejected. True, they had hung on His lips like bees, drinking in the honey of the gracious words of Him Who spake as never man spake, when He preached His first gospel in the synagogue at Nazareth, pronouncing those sweet words of His prophet, about the preaching of the gospel to the poor, the healing of the broken-hearted, the preaching deliverance to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, the setting at liberty them that are bruised and the preaching the acceptable year of the Lord. The “little book” was sweet in their mouth, like honey. But when the gracious but holy and true One began to speak about the widow of Sarepta and Naaman the Syrian, and brought their true condition home to their consciences, His words proved bitter to the belly. The same evil one, that acted later on in the consciences and hearts of Stephen's hearers, was at work in the consciences and hearts of the audience at Nazareth; and they arose, and thrust Jesus out of the city, to cast Him down from the brow of the hill.
Men would not be reconciled to God by the life of Jesus, by Whom not only grace, but grace and truth, came into this world, the very reason why they hated Him without a cause. “They had both seen and hated both Him and the Father,” until the only response to all that grace and goodness, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” arose in the streets of Jerusalem, and around the cross Jew and Gentile stood united in common conspiracy against the gracious, holy, and true One, who was the express image of the invisible God.
Then God says, as it were, “you would not be reconciled by the life of my Son: will you be reconciled by His death? Can you doubt my love to you, poor fallen sinners and enemies, when you see Him, the rejected Son of man, as the Lamb of God, the Lamb of My own divine provision, bleeding and suffering upon the cross? The same precious blood of My dear Son, which is the proof of your consummate guilt and enmity against Me, is the proof of Mine and His redeeming love to you, and at the same time the means and the only means, to cleanse you from all sin. And from the same glory, whither you have sent back My Son rejected and crucified, I have sent down My Spirit, to announce to a dying perishing world of guilty, and yet hostile sinners, through My ministers of the gospel, a full free pardon and forgiveness of sins, through that same blood; and not only full pardon and forgiveness, but justification from all you have done and from which you could not be justified by the works of the law. And not only pardon, forgiveness and justification; but the very One rejected by you and crucified, to be righteousness, even Mine own righteousness for you. For He, who knew no sin, has been made sin for you, that you might be the righteousness of God in Him. I, then, not only invite, but beseech you, through My ambassadors who pray in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.' “
Wondrous ministry of righteousness! Still more wondrous, “ministry of reconciliation!” Worthy of Him, who giveth divinely, and forgiveth divinely, and saveth divinely, ever worthy of Himself!
“ Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things, to Whom be glory forever. Amen.”
May He who is our Head, once crowned with thorns, and now crowned with honor and glory, in His rich grace enable those of His servants whom He has entrusted with the blessed message of the gospel, to be able and faithful messengers, applying the word, which “is truth” and also the “word of grace,” with equal power to consciences and hearts of poor sinners, and, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, to minister the word in its own authority and simplicity, empty and dependent instruments in the Master's hands, and able ministers of the gospel, both as the “ministry of righteousness” and the “ministry of reconciliation.”
In the next paper, the Lord willing, a few words on the character of the evangelists as “Ambassadors for Christ.”