The Church Visible and Invisible.
The sight of the united body of Christians has led us to speak of what are called the visible and the invisible Church, in what seems an unscriptural way. The word Church, applied to the body of Christians in this world, means but one thing in Scripture a visible body invested with invisible privileges. Scripture does not speak of two bodies, one visible, and the other invisible, each with its own complement of members.
I. The Church of Christ, as Scripture teaches, is a visible body, invested with invisible privileges. Take the analogy of the human body by way of illustration. When the soul leaves the body, it ceases to be a body, it becomes a corpse. So the Church would cease to be the Church did the Holy Spirit leave it; and it does not exist at all except in the Spirit. Very various things are said of the Church; sometimes it is spoken of as glorious and holy, sometimes as abounding in offences and sins. It is natural, perhaps, at first sight, to invent, in consequence, the hypothesis of two Churches, as the Jews have dreamed of two Messiahs; but, I say, our Saviour has implied that it is unnecessary; that these opposite descriptions of it are not really incompatible; and, if so, what reason remains for doing violence to the sacred text?
II. Take (1) the objection that bad men are in the visible Church; what does it prove? Is a dead branch part or not part of a tree? You may decide this way or that, but you will never say, because the branch is dead, therefore the tree has no sap. It is a dead branch of a living tree, not a branch of a dead tree. In like manner, irreligious men are dead members of one visible Church, which is living and true, not members of a Church which is dead. Because they are dead it does not follow that the visible Church to which they belong is dead also. (2) Now to consider a second objection that is urged, viz., that "there are good men external to the visible Church, therefore there is a second Church called the invisible." In answer I observe, that as every one who has been duly baptised is, in one sense, in the Church, even though his sins since have hid God's countenance from him; so if a man has not been baptised, be he ever so correct and exemplary in his conduct, this does not prove that he has received regeneration, which is the peculiar and invisible gift of the Church. The essence of regeneration is the communication of a higher and Divine nature; and sinners may have this gift, though it would be a curse to them, not a blessing.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iii., p. 220. 2 Timothy ii., vers. 20, 21
Vessels of Gold and of Earth.
The "great house" is the external institution of the Church, the "vessels" are its members. Some of them are precious, and used for high purposes, some are cheap and common. A man can settle to which of the classes he belongs. If he belong to the one, honour, if he belong to the other, dishonour is his portion.
I. First of all note the two classes. There is gold and silver plate set out upon the high table where the lord of the house sits, or ranged in glittering rows upon some buffet or sideboard. There are pots and pans in the scullery fit only for base uses. And, says Paul, there is as much difference between different sets of people who are joined in the same Christian community, as between these two sets of vessels. Now, of course, we are not to suppose that the distinction which he here draws is the vulgar worldly one, according to natural gifts and capacities. Men put shining faculties and talents in high places, and lowly or moderate ones in the background. That is not the way in which God classifies vessels in His house. The difference points to a thing within our own power, viz., the difference in maturity of Christian character, in fervour and earnestness of Christian devotion. It is this, and only this, and not the vulgar distinctions of temperament or capacity, which lie so little within our own power, that determines the hierarchy of excellence and the aristocracy and nobility in the Church of Christ. The graces of a Christian character are the gold and silver. The "earth" is the tendencies of the desires, or the selfishness of our own nature.
II. Note, again, the possibility and the method of passing from the lower class to the higher. "If a man purify himself from these." The thesethere evidently means, not ones which the Apostle has been specifying, but the whole class of commoner and viler vessels of which he has been speaking. (1) The cleanness of a man's heart and life determines his place in the Christian Church. (2) It is a man's own business to make himself clean.
III. Note the characteristics of the more precious. The vessel unto honour is (1) sanctified. Consecration is indispensable if we are to be of any use to Jesus, or precious in His sight, (2) "meet for the Master's use," or, as it might perhaps be rendered even more accurately, simply "useful to the Master." You cannot make man-of-war's masts out of crooked sticks, and no man is meet for the Master's use except on condition of devotion and purity. (3) The last characteristic is that of readiness for all sorts of service. The figure of the cup is abandoned here. There should be many-sided alacrity. The calls to "good works" often come suddenly, and if we are not living with our loins girt, the opportunity may pass before we have pulled ourselves together.
IV. Note the honour to the vessel. The true honour is service. Reputation and other consequences of service are desirable, but nothing is greater, more ennobling and blessed, than the service itself. Can any of us have any higher honour than to be of use to Jesus Christ? The King's servants are made nobles by their service, as was the case of old in England.
A. Maclaren, The God of the Amen,p. 198.
Reference: 2 Timothy 2:20; 2 Timothy 2:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiii., No. 1348.