2.—On Election and on Gifts, as the power of Ministry.
We have already seen, and we have a very striking example of it in the Apostle Paul, that the sovereignty of God is exhibited in ministry as in salvation. “Ye have not chosen me,” saith the Lord, “but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” “He is a chosen vessel unto me,” saith the Lord to Ananias, “to bear my name before the Gentiles,” &c. So that, this sovereignty of God excludes the choice of man, any one who denies the existence of a ministry having diversity of gifts is opposing His sovereignty. But here, on examining the word, we shall find this sovereignty exercised by the Holy Ghost in the midst of the church; we shall likewise find that it is Christ Who gives, and that it is God Who works, all in all.
The first point on which the apostle insists, touching his ministry, as the consequence of his remarkable position, is, that it was neither of men, nor by the medium of man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father.
The objection was often made, that he was not of the twelve—that he was not a regularly appointed apostle. This subject we find frequently discussed in the Epistles to the Corinthians, and to the Galatians. The apostle takes pains to assure them, that his ministry was independent of man: that he had not consulted flesh and blood, but had preached Christ so soon as God had revealed Him in him for this purpose. He founds his authority upon the proofs of spiritual power which he had given. Afterward he confers with the other apostles; he communicates to them his gospel; but he receives nothing. God takes care that unity should exist between Antioch, at that time the center of Gentile evangelization, and Jerusalem, originally, as we may say, the only seat of the church. We see a co-operation, according to existing necessities. Barnabas seeks Paul, who had retired to Tarsus; and Silas determines to remain at Antioch, finding a work to accomplish there. Paul afterward associates with himself other laborers, and desires Apollos to go to Corinth: Apollos refuses. But in all these varied circumstances, Paul most positively repudiates all the pretensions of that Judaism which required, at the same time that it put forth other principles of Judaism (and in order the more easily to give currency to them), a mission from man to authorize his ministry. Indeed it was neither the wisdom nor the arrangement of man, which carried the gospel beyond Jerusalem; it was the dispersion of the whole church, the apostles only excepted. All those that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word; the hand of the Lord was with them, and many believed. Their mission was one which persecution and their own zeal conferred on them.
In truth the church cannot be the source of ministry; for this expression of the power of the Holy Spirit, which ministry is, necessarily precedes in many things the existence of the church: the church is created, called, and formed by means of it. Apostolic ministry, or at least that of the evangelist, precedes necessarily, by the Very nature of the case, the existence of the church (although, after the church is once formed, its members may become evangelists); and the mission of these apostles, or evangelists, must be directly from Christ, and from the Holy Spirit; otherwise it is absolutely null. The twelve apostles had been sent forth by Christ during His life, although they were specially gifted after His resurrection. Paul, as regards his call to ministry, received it from Christ in glory, having seen that Just One, and heard the voice of His mouth; as to his separation to a special work, he had received the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit at Antioch. They went out sometimes from the bosom of a church, as Paul from Antioch. They might report to the church with joy what God had wrought by them, but they held their office from God, and from Jesus Christ. It was in the name and by the authority of God, and of the Lord Jesus, that they acted, and they recognized none other. They could not please men and be the servants of Jesus Christ. Paul did not scruple to say it was a small thing for them to be judged at a man's tribunal: He Who judged them was the Lord. The Pharisees, it is true, called in question the conduct of Peter in the case of Cornelius; but the God of grace had not waited for their decision. The presence of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles had justified the fruits of grace and obedience, in the accused apostle, and stopped the mouths of those who complained of the extent and power of this grace.
I see two things in the exercise of this ministry, in the body of the church: 1st, the whole body of which Christ, the glorified Man, is the head, and hence the position of this body as on God's part in the world, there to represent the glory of its Head; and 2ndly, this body, considered as the body of Christ Himself, the beloved Object of His affections; the bride whom He has loved, for whom He gave Himself, and whom He feeds with His own flesh—the church as the instrument of the glory and power of God in the world; and the church as the beloved object of the affections of Christ.
The gifts bear the characters, as it seems to me, of these two relations. The first of these positions is much more general, and, at the same time, has to do more with the responsibility of the church: in the second is involved that which Christ does, and (as to the substance of it) can never fail to do, for His church, His bride. In both, the oneness of the body united to Christ is continually kept in view. In the latter we have the Lord Jesus, the Head, in heaven, but Who nourishes His body till all come to His perfect stature. In the former, although personally Jesus is necessarily excluded from the ministry, He and the church are nevertheless seen as a whole, wherein God is acting before the world in His name, as it is said (1 Cor. 12:1212For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12)) “So also is Christ.” Accordingly in this case (see the same chapter), the spiritual power of Christianity is contrasted with idolatry. 1st, we have that which distinguishes the Holy Spirit from demons (for the question was concerning spiritual power). The Holy Spirit alone said “Lord Jesus;” and, on the contrary, no one, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said, or could say, “Let Jesus be Anathema.” 2ndly, there were diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; divers services, but the same Lord; divers operations, but the same God, Who wrought all in all. Thus the Spirit, the Lord, and God, are brought forward in connection with the gifts; and it is added, in order that we may see the immediate source of these things in the church, that one and the self-same Spirit divideth to every man severally as He will.
The power of the gift came from the Holy Spirit (comparing the 6th and 11th verses we learn the divinity of the Holy Spirit); but at the same time (the Spirit acting in each with a view to the glory of the Son, as the Son had with a view to the glory of the Father) each became, by his gift, the servant of Christ, as Christ Himself had become a servant in His ministry. The Holy Spirit acts in sovereignty, but ever in the accomplishment of the counsels of God (even as “the Son quickeneth whom He will,” John 5:2121For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. (John 5:21)); and, being a witness of the glory of Jesus, Son of Man, and Lord, each one of those in whom He acts becomes the obedient instrument of the Lord. Such operations are however not secondary, nor of any subordinate spirit, nor of any angel; they are the operations of God Himself, and His servants have to do with Him. Thus the apostle, who was gifted for his apostleship by the Holy Spirit, calls himself an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. He also calls himself the apostle of Jesus Christ, the servant of God, and, speaking generally, “by the will of God.”
In the list which is given to us in chapter xii. of I Corinthians we have, in general, all the gifts which are for the establishment of Christianity, signs to the world, and proofs of the glory of the victory of the Man Christ, and of His rights of government in the church. Evangelists and pastors, that which is now called ministry, are not found there at all. It is rather the aggregate of divine operation and capacity in the body, than the care which Christ takes of the body as being His. Thus, except the gift of teacher, which is connected with that of pastor, all the gifts found here are now lost (at least in their primitive form and character). I speak only of the fact, and leave to others the task of explaining why this has come to pass, and how far it may be justified, or ought to be the case.
This is a very solemn subject for those who value the glory of Christ, and of His church, and who recognize the power of the Holy Spirit.
All these things, although in a certain sense they might constitute a testimony of the love of God, might be exercised without love: the question was, more properly, of power. Accordingly the apostle here shows us a more excellent way. Love or edification ought to have directed the exercise of these things, and at Corinth this was not the case: discipline was needed, as the apostle teaches us in these chapters. The gifts, in themselves, were rather the expression of power. For this reason, the Spirit, as exercising the authority of Christ in the church, regulates and controls the exercise of the gift which He has entrusted to this or that individual; and He even represses it whenever it is not used in love for the edification of the body. This is what we find in the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians, it is not so much God operating in the body as a whole, and employing its members for His service to manifest His power; as Christ Who had ascended into the lower parts of the earth, and then ascended, that He might fill all things, having led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, by which He forms and nourishes His body on the earth. Thus its unity, although essentially the same, is here seen as the result of grace, which calls those who are afar off, and those who are nigh, built together as the habitation of God through the Spirit. It is a unity of relation and blessing: one body, one Spirit, one God and Father of all, &c. But, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, the attention of those Christians is directed to their condition in contrast with their state when in idolatry, while there were many gods, and many lords, and, in reality, many demons. It was now one Spirit Who did all; one Lord; and one God Who wrought all in all. It was not dumb idols.
The Epistle to the Ephesians gives us specially the privileges of the church united to Christ. God is “the God of our Lord Jesus,” and also “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” At the end of the first chapter he prays for the blessings flowing from this title of “God” of Jesus Christ. In the third chapter, having developed the mystery which had been confided to him—namely, the union of the Jews and Gentiles in one body, in Christ, to be the habitation of God through the Spirit, being saved and washed by Christ, and united to Him in glory—he seeks the blessings flowing from the title of “Father” of Jesus Christ, namely, the knowledge of the love of Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost, strengthening the inner man to render him capable of enjoying these things, to the end he might he “filled unto the fullness of God.” Behold the boundless and fruitful sources of blessing to the church, and that to the glory of Him Who “worketh in us,” in the church, throughout all ages, world without end. But until we are perfected, these blessings are accomplished by the Holy Spirit acting in us, in the oneness of the body, according as Christ has received for the members of this body. He, having fulfilled all things, ascended up on high, and received gifts for men; it is He Who has given some apostles, some prophets. We see that the gifts presented here as the fruits of the ascension of Christ are not to be looked at in the light of power acting in the body, within and without, to manifest the glory of God; but that which served to establish and edify the church, as the habitation of God, and the object of the love of Christ, in order that all may come to the measure of his stature.
(To be continued.)