III. —ON THE POWER OF MINISTRY, AND ON ITS
RESPONSIBILITY.
Having thus briefly considered the question of the source of ministry, which connects itself with the very first principle, and with the existence of Christianity; and which has its being in the activity of the love of God; let us examine the power which works in this ministry, and under what responsibility it is exercised by those to whom it is committed.
1.—Power of Ministry.
The third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians indicates its general character. It is the ministry of the Spirit.
There are two grand features, which characterize the work of Christ in the world. He is the Lamb of God Who takes away sin, and He baptizes with the Holy Ghost. I pass by the first point, however full of interest, as not belonging to our subject, save so far as it is an object about which ministry is occupied. I rest on the second of those things, by which John the Baptist describes the work and the glory of Christ. “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost;” a point which is evidently of the utmost importance, and the spring of all the power and spiritual energy which is to be found in the church. And truly a spiritual energy is needed, that Satan may be combated with success, and that these poor bodies, the flesh being mortified, may become the vessels of testimony and of the power of God.
This power of the Holy Ghost in Man is a most important truth. Jesus Himself was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power. “How,” said Peter to Cornelius, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.” This was not spoken of His divinity (for He was God before the foundation of the world), nor of His perfection as man (for as born of the Virgin Mary His flesh was holy). He was the Son of God not only when He created the world, but also in the world, as the man born of this same Mary by the power of the Holy Ghost. He had the consciousness thereof when He answered His mother who sought Him in the temple: “Wist you not that I must be about my Father's business?” Neither does it refer to His love: His mere presence in the world was love itself. But in addition to this, John the Baptist sees the Holy Ghost descending like a dove, and remaining upon Him. “God had anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power;” and then, for the first time, filled with the Holy Ghost, He begins His ministry, acts officially as Son of Man in the world, and endures the temptations by which the second Adam was to be tried, in order that He might assert His title beyond the power of Satan; while on the contrary the first Adam had fallen under that power. Then it is that we see Him casting out demons by the Spirit of God, and saying to His mother, “What have I to do with thee?” His whole life was the power of the Holy Ghost in ministry. By the Holy Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God. He was much more than man; and yet was He a man—this Jesus of Nazareth “whom God had anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.”
Our part in all this has another and different element. In Him it was man, the second Adam on earth, Himself accomplishing, in the face of Satan, all that the spiritual man could offer to God in His life. His voice was not heard in the street. He must needs be perfect, and as man overcame Satan in that world in which man had failed, and in the very circumstances in which man found himself in consequence of his fall. This is what that precious Savior has perfectly accomplished.
Up to this time, however, He had not become the commencement of a new order of things.
The first Adam failed in the garden of Eden, in the very place where he was surrounded by blessings. It was when driven from it, that in his fallen state he became the head of a fallen race, in this world of sin and rain. Jesus, the second Adam, must needs first be perfect, and, personally, gain the victory over Satan in the midst of the ruin: a victory, so complete, and so perfect, that, having bound the strong man, He could spoil his goods; and that His name, in the mouth of those whom He sent, sufficed to cast out demons. But to commence a new world of glory and of blessing, to redeem His church, and make her like unto Himself, according to the power by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself, it was necessary that He should overcome Satan in the last strong hold in which he held men captive, by the judgment, and under the sentence, of God Himself; that is to say, in death. It was necessary, that He should undergo, to the full, the last effect of sin, as the result of the wrath of God, and of the power of Satan, as well as of the weakness of man. This He did.
Thus, the wrath of God having taken its course (except as to those who reject Jesus); all the power of Satan being destroyed in the very seat of that power, as regards man; death being overcome, his gates of brass burst open—Jesus, the second Adam, Victor over Satan and death, Heir, as Son of man, and by the righteousness of God; upholding all things by the word of His power; the image of the invisible God, and the expression of His glory—Jesus, conformably to the counsels of God concerning Man, begins to act as the Head of a new world, and of a new creation. Nevertheless, although He had abolished all that was against us, although He had triumphed over Satan on the cross, and led captivity captive, the time for the deliverance of creation had not yet come. The present was only the period for the witness of the power of Jesus, in the midst of a creation still in its fallen state, and from whence Satan was not yet expelled. It was the time for gathering the church of His elect out of the world, that He might nourish and cherish them, until they should be presented to Himself in glory; that is, in a word, for making the church on earth the receptacle of the power possessed by the Son of Man at the right hand of God. He, Who now filled all things, having first descended into the lower parts of the earth, and then again ascended up far above all heavens—He had received gifts for men. Eph. 4:8-108Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesians 4:8‑10).
The day of Pentecost was neither a moral change of the affections, nor the breath of life from the risen Jesus—all this had already taken place. The disciples were waiting at Jerusalem until they should be endued with power from on high. Having been endued therewith, no doubt this acted powerfully on their affections, because it revealed Jesus with power. But the life and affections were already there, even as, in a still higher sense, the life and affections of the Son of God were in Jesus before the Holy Ghost descended upon Him as a dove. Jesus took His place, according to the counsels of God, with the faithful in Israel, in the baptism of John “fulfilling all righteousness;” and was then anointed for service among them. By virtue of His death and resurrection, He placed His disciples in the same relation with God, in which He Himself stood, going to His Father and their Father, and to His God and their God. And He baptized them with the Holy Ghost, as the witness of His glory in heavenly places, and the power which identified His disciples with Himself in this glory. It is very certain from the words of Jesus Himself (Acts 1), that the gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and that nothing which the apostles had previously received was the fulfillment of this promise; for, He says to them, “Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”
The Gospel by Luke, of which the Acts of the Apostles is only a continuation (the Acts taking up the subject in almost the same words as those of this Gospel), presents to us the Lord Jesus specially as Son of man; Head of a new order. That Gospel presents this truth morally; the Acts exhibits it in power.
The Gospel by John, although touching the same subject, presents it under another form. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, Advocate or Comforter, sent by the Father in His name or by Jesus Himself from the Father. He guides into all truth, shows things to come, and gives them to know that Jesus is in the Father, the disciples in Jesus, and He in them. If I were considering the scriptures relating to the Holy Ghost, I should have to speak of the close of this Gospel, where He is seen as the Spirit of Truth in the midst of the saints, witnessing against the world by His presence, and guiding believers into all truth. It would be necessary to consider all those passages where He is presented to us as the seal of redemption, the earnest of the inheritance, and the Spirit of adoption; such as 2 Cor. 1, Gal. 4, Rom. 8, and many others. But I am reminded that, if the thought of the presence of the Holy Spirit, that mighty Comforter, draws the heart in that direction, our subject is MINISTRY—a subject the consideration of which is sufficiently important to magnify the Spirit.