Christ Greater than the Church.
I. Looking first at the things essential in the structureof the Church, I shall show what Christ is in relation to these. The essential things in the structure of the Church are: (1) The plan. The plan of the Christian Church is that of a temple. Christ, before the Church, was the Dwelling-place, the real Shechinah, the true primal home of the light which is to enlighten the world, the very, the incarnate Temple of God upon the earth, in His twofold nature and one Divinely-human personality; He was the very plan, pattern, and idea of the temple which the Christian Apostles proclaimed. (2) The foundation. The foundation of the Church is more than apostolic testimony, more even than inspired truth, more than any event, however supernatural or sacred. The foundation is Christ Himself. He is the Gospel, the Cross, the Resurrection. He is God manifest, God near, God showing mercy, God rising from the dead, God offering life and peace and resurrection to the world. (3) The materials of which it is composed. Christ is the life whose life is in every stone of the temple. There is nothing mean or small or trivial among these materials which make up Christ's house, because His worth ennobles the whole.
II. Consider the Lord's greatness in relation to the functions of the Church. These are: (1) Culture. By this we understand its internal growth in Christian excellence. Christ is everything to the Church in this process. He is the Truth, that liberates, purifies, and elevates. (2) Conquest. The power by which the Church operates is not her own, but Christ's. The commission of the Master contains the assertion of His pre-eminence. The presence which accompanies and cheers the messenger is the presence of Christ Himself. "Lo, I am with you alway." (3) Worship. The Church is a "spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God." The Church lays on the altar her thoughts, prayers, affections, capacities, gifts, achievements, the entire life of her whole membership of every individual; and she offers up these as sacrifices; but the soul and inner life of these sacrifices is thankfulness for Christ. This is the deepest fact in Christian worship.
A. Macleod, Days of Heaven upon Earth,p. 140.
References: Matthew 12:1-14. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 88. Matthew 12:3-7. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxv., No. 1503.Matthew 12:6. Ibid.,vol. xxii., No. 1275; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 292; J. B. French, Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 269. Matthew 12:7. J. P. Gledstone, Ibid.,vol. xxi., p. 301.