I. The Church is the union of believers, outwardly manifested by the sacraments, but having its essence in the personal union of each believer's soul with Christ. I see the gates of the New Testament open outward. That life which had been taking shape within the little world which the New Testament enclosed, goes forth so quietly, so simply, to meet the larger life of the world. It is Peter coming down from the housetop to go to Cornelius at Caesarea. It is Paul crossing over from Troas into Macedonia. I see the history that has come since. And all bears testimony to the naturalness of the New Testament process by the way in which it has possessed the world. This Jesus must be a true Lord of men.
II. The Church exists before the ministry. There are disciples first, and their discipleship lies behind their apostleship to the end. There is only one place for the ministry to hold. If it is not the master, it must be the servant of the Church. If it is not set to rule, it must rejoice to obey; to know the Church to be greater than it, and not its creature; to accept it as its highest duty to help the Church to realise itself, and to grow into the full power of the Divine Life of which it, through the relation between Christ and the souls of its individual members, is perpetually the recipient. Ruler or servant, which shall it be? Strange how from the first the very name by which the successors of the apostles have been called has seemed to answer the question for itself. They have been ministers, and ministersmean servants.Strange that, with words like those of the text written in the very forefront of its shining history, the Church should have so loved the other notion of the rulership of the clergy, the dominion of the priest; and monarchies, splendid with pomp, or subtle with intrigue, but always bad with tyranny, should have so filled the story of the Christian ages.
III. There are three possible calls to every minister, the call of God, the call of his own nature, and the call of needy men. May not one almost say that no man has a right to think himself a minister who does not hear all three vocations blending into one and marking out his path to walk in past all doubt? And these three come in perfect union in the soul of him who hears the Father call one of His children to serve the rest in those great necessities which belong to them all. The Church of the millennial days shall be nothing less, nothing else than a regenerated and complete humanity. There all shall be ministers, for all shall be servants; all shall be people, for all shall be served. In these imperfect days, let us watch and wait for those days of perfectness. Let us do all we can to help their coming. Let us count no condition final till they come. Let us live in, and live for, and never despair of, the ever-advancing, ever-enlarging Church of Christ.
Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World,p. 199.
I. The subject-matter of the Apostle's ministry was Christ Jesus the Lord. Wherever he went he preached nothing else but Christ. It was always one and the same gospel. He (1) preached Jesus as the Messiah whom the Jews were taught to expect; and also as the desire of all nations. He showed how His atonement was a sacrifice for sin. (2) He preached Him as the Prophet, Priest, and King of the Church. (3) He preached Him in the dignity of His person, not only as man, but God. (4) He preached Him in the grandeur of His miracles. (5) He preached Him in His wondrous atonement. (6) He preached Christ Jesus in all the purity and power of His righteousness. (7) He preached Him as the Lord of the conscience. We preach Him then as Lord in every sense of the term, in the highest sense, in the most extreme sense the Lord over the body as well as the soul; the Lord over our conscience, over our property, of our hopes, of our love and desire the Lord of our future, and the Lord of our confidence here; our Lord in times of prosperity and in times of trial, in times of joy, in the dying moment, at the day of judgment, and in the endless ages of eternity; our Lord for ever and ever. We preach Jesus Christ the Lord.
II. The manner or mode of the preaching of Paul. It was one of the most remarkable features of the apostolical ministry that the Apostles really exercised self-denial. They thought not of themselves but of their Master. Paul preached himself as the servant of the Church. The minister of religion should give to the Church, first of all, the entire use of his time. There are a variety of ways in which a man may preach himself. He may preach to show his learning, or for pecuniary advantage, or to exercise authority over men, to head a party. A minister should give to his church all his ability, and also be with his people in times of trial and especially in times of affliction, and his great motive of action must be love to Christ, and "for Jesus' sake."
H. Allon, Penny Pulpit,No. 3252.
Christ as Lord.
What is the substance of the message which a Christian preacher has to bring? "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord."
I. First of all, we preach the Divine personality in Christ. Man's great need, after all, is to see God. Life can yield only limited pleasures, and we wait for a sight of the great continent of eternity. All biblical history is a series of pathways leading through the tangled perplexities of man's ignorance back to God. Christ may remain unknown as God to many, but that does not alter His Divinity. Still He is Divine. When the sons of Jacob first went to Egypt they received corn and kindness at the hand of Joseph, but they did not know Joseph to be the son of Jacob, their father. So our systems of thought and our best activities are filled with Christ's spirit today as the sacks were filled with corn, and men do not know how Divine is the hand that gives them all things. But then comes a day of revelation. Just as Joseph was made known to his brethren, so Jesus is made known to His Church. Love is the great revealer: Jesus is known to His people; God is manifest in the flesh.
II. We preach the Divine propitiation through Christ. "Mercy" is a very humbling word, a very crushing word to our proud minds and hearts. Yet, when conscience is awake and conviction has been brought home to us that we are guilty, it is the one word out of God's rich vocabulary that we most of all need. We preach Christ Jesus as Lord.
III. We preach the Divine sovereignty in Christ. Christ is Saviour in order that He may be King. He saves us first, because it is the only effective way of ruling over us. It is love that rules and love that changes. When St. Peter's was built at Rome, its soaring vastness and overtowering greatness and grandeur seemed man's homage to Christ's greatness; and on the granite obelisk opposite St. Peter's was written in Latin: "Christ conquers; Christ rules; Christ is Emperor; Christ delivers His people from every evil." It was a worthy sentence, but that it may be realised and fulfilled it must be approved by every heart and must be written in the history of every sanctuary.
S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiii., p. 360.
References: 2 Corinthians 4:5. Homilist,vol. v., p. 73; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 376; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 32; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 321; Harris, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 13. 2 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Corinthians 4:6. S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Sermons,vol. i., p. 94.