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CHRISTIANS ARE EPISTLES OF CHRIST
HATEFUL and detestable as boasting is, there are occasions whereon it may be proper, and even necessary. As far as a man’s own reputation merely is concerned, he need not be forward to vindicate himself from false accusations: if he be a holy and consistent character, he may safely leave himself in God’s hands, indifferent about the censures of an ungodly world: but where the honour of the Gospel is at stake, and there is danger of its influence being undermined by the falsehoods that are circulated, it is by no means unworthy even of an Apostle to refute the calumnies that are raised against him. There were at Corinth false teachers, who sought by all possible means to destroy the character of the Apostle Paul, and who even denied his claim to apostolic authority. In answer to their malignant accusations, St. Paul, in his former Epistle to the Corinthians, says, “Am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not you my work in the Lord? If I be not an Apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord [Note: 1Co_9:1-2.].” Thus, in this epistle also he vindicates himself as ministering, not like the false teachers, who corrupted the word of God, but with a holy integrity befitting his high office [Note: 2Co_2:17.]. Yet apprehensive lest he should be misunderstood, as though he felt a need of such commendations either from himself or others, he appealed to his converts themselves as proofs sufficient of his apostleship, even such proofs as carried, to the most thoughtless beholder, their own evidence along with them: “Ye are our epistle, &c. &c.:” that is, ‘I need not epistles from men, since ye yourselves are epistles from the Lord Jesus Christ, testifying that I am his servant, and that the Gospel which I preach is the very truth of God.”
In further considering these words, we may notice from them,
I. The character of all true converts—
Christians are epistles of Christ, written for the instruction of the whole world. Epistles from man to man, such as were those which the false teachers carried with them as letters of recommendation from Church to Church, were written with ink; but Christ’s epistles are written with the Spirit of the living God; and not, as the law of the ten commandments was, in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart; to which God alone can have access, and on which God alone can make any valuable impressions. Ministers indeed are used by him as instruments, as the word also is; but these can effect no more than a pen or ink can without the hand of a writer: “Paul may plant, and Apollos may water; but it is God alone who can give the increase [Note: 1Co_3:5-7.].”
By these epistles the Lord Jesus Christ teaches men,
1. What is that change that must be wrought on every child of man—
[Christians once walked after the course of this world, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were children of wrath, even as others [Note: Eph_2:2-3.]. But a great change has been wrought in them: they have been “turned from darkness. unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God.” They are become “new creatures:” their views, their desires, their pursuits, are all new. The change that has taken place in them is not unlike that of a river, which, from flowing rapidly towards the ocean, is arrested in its course, and made by the refluent tide to return with equal rapidity towards the fountain-head. Thus are these turned “in the spirit of their minds,” the whole bent of which was formerly after the things of time and sense, but is now directed to the service of the living God [Note: 1Th_1:9.].
These being still in the world, though not of it, are living instructors to all around them: they are epistles “known and read of all men.” From the Scriptures men will turn their eyes; but from these epistles they cannot: they are constrained to see the truths recorded in them: and, however they may hate the change which they behold, they are compelled to acknowledge it: and they are admonished by it, that, without such a change, they themselves can never be partakers of the kingdom of heaven. In a word, by every true convert, Christ speaks to all, as once he did to Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.”]
2. By what means that change is to be effected—
[However the followers of Christ may differ from each other in minor points, they all agree in founding their hopes of salvation entirely on his atoning blood, and on the effectual operation of his Spirit within them: the declaration of every one amongst them is, “Surely in the Lord, and in him alone, have I righteousness and strength [Note: Isa_45:24.].”
These things then does the Lord Jesus Christ proclaim to the world by them. By them he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” “There is no other name but mine given under heaven whereby men may be saved;” “nor is there any other foundation whereon any man can build” his hopes. ‘And, as they look to me for their acceptance with God, so must they also do for the gift of my Spirit, who alone can begin, or carry on, or perfect, a work of grace in their souls.’ It is in reality this testimony which so offends the world. If they were taught to rely on their own merits, or to depend on their own arm, they would extol the persons who thus distinguished themselves by their superior attainments in holiness: but, when they are told that all their hope must be in the righteousness of another, and in strength communicated from above, they pour contempt upon it all as foolishness. Nevertheless such are the lessons which Christians teach to all around them; and such are the instructions which Christ conveys by them to a benighted world.]
Whilst they thus speak from Christ they give us just occasion also to notice,
II. The honour they reflect on the Gospel of Christ—
They are all not merely epistles from Christ, but witnesses also for him. As the Jews were witnesses for God to all nations of the earth, since no other god could ever have effected what he had wrought for them [Note: Isa_43:10-12.], and as all the persons whom Jesus healed were witnesses for him as the true Messiah [Note: Mat_11:25.], so are all true converts witnesses,
1. Of the truth of the Gospel—
[What other system ever wrought as that has done? Look at all the means which men have devised for obtaining reconciliation with God; and see if they have ever operated so powerfully, and so beneficially, on the souls of those who have embraced them, as has the simple doctrine of the cross? No: by no other doctrine did God ever work, nor by any other doctrine will he ever work, for the sanctification and salvation of a ruined world. Go to any place under heaven where Christ is not exalted as the only Saviour of the world, or where the Spirit of the living God is not honoured as the only source of all real holiness of heart and life, and see what the state is of those who are so taught: will there be found among them any work like that on the day of Pentecost? Will the word preached there be quick, and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword? Will “the weapons used there be found mighty to pull down the strong holds” of sin and Satan, and to “bring men’s thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ?” No: God does not, and will not, work by any thing but a simple exhibition of Christ crucified. It is the Gospel only that is “the rod of his strength,” or that will ever prove “the power of God to the salvation of the soul.” But where that is preached, these effects are wrought; multitudes are “brought out of darkness into marvellous light,” and are enabled to shew by their works the reality of their faith; and thus they give undoubted evidence, that the Gospel which is ministered unto them is the true Gospel. As Christ said of the people whom he had healed, “The works that I do, the same bear witness of me,” so may we say of these persons, that they are “seals,” whereby God himself attests the mission of his servants, and the truth of the doctrine which they deliver.]
2. Of the efficacy of the Gospel—
[It is not a mere external change which the Gospel effects, but a change of the whole soul, from sin and sorrow to holiness and joy. The “peace” which it introduces into the troubled mind, “passeth all understanding:” and the “joy” to which it elevates the repenting sinner, is “unspeakable and glorified.” In respect of sanctification, it does not produce absolute perfection; for “there is not a man on earth that liveth and sinneth not;” but it transforms the soul in a very wonderful manner, and changes it progressively, if not perfectly, “into the very image of God, in righteousness and true holiness.” In short, it brings the Lord Jesus Christ and the believer into so near an union with each other, that they are one body [Note: Eph_5:30.], and “one spirit [Note: 1Co_6:17.],” partakers of the same blessings in this world [Note: Joh_17:13; Joh_17:22-23; Joh_17:26.], and heirs of the same glory in the world to come [Note: Rom_8:17.].
What other doctrine ever did, or can, effect such a change as this? Not even God’s law, which he wrote in tables of stone, could operate to such an extent as this: the Gospel alone is competent to such a task: as St. Paul has said; “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, did; that is, he condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit [Note: Rom_8:3-4.].” Moreover, it is not on those only who are of a better and more pliant frame of mind, that the Gospel thus operates, but on the vilest of the human race; as indisputably appeared in the Corinthian Church [Note: 1Co_6:9-11.] — — — The instances too of such efficacy are not rare, but frequent. On one day were three thousand such converts made; and in every age from that period to the present has the same power been exerted to change the lion to a lamb, and “a desert to the garden of the Lord.” Such converts “shine as lights in a dark world,” and, by “holding forth the word of life” as epistles from Christ, they shew that “the minister has not run in vain, nor laboured in vain [Note: Php_2:15-16.].”]
Address—
1. Seek to have the mind of Christ more fully inscribed upon your hearts—
[Beloved brethren, let not a day pass without your having some divine lesson written more clearly and more legibly upon your souls. Bring your hearts daily to the Lord Jesus Christ, and present them as a tablet to him, that he may write upon them something which they have not hitherto contained. And when you come up to the house of God, come, not to gratify curiosity, or to perform a duty merely, but to spread your hearts again before the Lord, that, by the instrumentality of his minister, and the operation of his word and Spirit, he may inscribe on them some further lesson, which shall attract the notice of an ungodly world, and constrain them to acknowledge that God is with you of a truth. If there be a blot upon your hearts, entreat him to erase it: and whatever is but indistinctly written, entreat him to trace it over again and again, till it shall appear in characters worthy of the Divine Author, and convey to all who behold it a decisive proof of its divine original. And, at the close of every day, examine the contents of the epistle, to see what progress has been made, and what yet remains to be added for its perfection. Nor ever forget by whom the characters must be inscribed: it is “by the Spirit of the living God,” and by the Lord Jesus Christ through him. If you look to any other quarter, you will be disappointed: but, if you go to Christ for the gift of his Spirit, and desire really to have his whole mind and will written upon your hearts, it shall be done; till you are “changed into his image from glory to glory by the Spirit of our God.”]
2. Endeavour to exhibit the whole mind of Christ to a careless and ungodly world—
[Let there not be seen in you those tempers and dispositions which dishonour the Christian profession, and make the Gospel a stumbling-block to the world. In too many professors of religion there is little seen but pride, and forwardness, and self-confidence, and loquacity, and uncharitableness, and a disputatious temper, and a party spirit. But are these the characters inscribed by Christ? No: but by that wicked one, who counterfeits the hand of Christ, on purpose to bring him and his Gospel into general contempt. Whatever there is of such dispositions within you, get them obliterated without delay; and all the graces of humility, and meekness, and love, inscribed in their place [Note: Col_3:12-13.]. People will judge of our ministry by the lives of those who attend it; and will impute to our doctrines every evil which they can find in you. This is unreasonable indeed: but they will do so; and we cannot prevent it; and if they see in you what is odious, they will represent it as the necessary fruit of the system you profess. Take care then that “the way of truth be not evil spoken of through you.” Endeavour rather so to “make your light shine before men, that all who behold it may glorify your Father which is in heaven:” yea, “let it shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.”]