2.02.02. Epistles of Christ

EPISTLES OF CHRIST.

’’Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”— 2 Corinthians 3:2-3. FROM the example of the Master, Paul had acquired the habit, in his teaching, of gliding softly and quickly from a common object of nature to the deep things of grace. In his conversation with the woman of Samaria, for example, Jesus led his scholar, ere she was aware, from the water of Jacob*s well to the water of life. In like manner, the apostle of the Gentiles was accustomed to make any common topic that arose the stepping-stone by which he carried his pupils over into the concerns of the kingdom of God. In this case, the question concerned the testimonials which a minister or missionary might present when he reached a new sphere. The practice of asking and obtaining certificates seems to have been introduced at a very early period into the Christian Church. Already, in Paul’s time, some abuses had crept in along with it. A minister of very moderate gifts, or even of doubtful soundness, might carry in his pocket a voucher signed by some great names. We may gather from this epistle that some very well recommended missionaries had been spoiling Paul’s work at Corinth.

Virtually challenged to exhibit his own certificates, he boldly appeals to the profession and the life of those who had been converted through his ministry. He does not need to present letters of recommendation to them when he comes to Corinth, or to request letters of recommendation from them when he goes away: “ Ye are our epistle.” The work which God had done by him is evidence that God has sent him to work. He will not deign to submit any other proof of his call. But Paul always reckons himself a small subject. Although compelled sometimes to introduce it, he will not dwell on it. The conception of the disciples being an epistle to recommend him is no sooner brought in than it is abandoned. He glides instantly into a greater thing. The Christians are an epistle of Christ. Their lives are a letter in which men may learn the Lord.

Regarding these living epistles of Christ, consider, I. The paper, or material, on which the marks are made. — Many different substances have been employed in successive ages of the world to receive and retain a written language; but one feature is common to all, — in their natural state they are not fit to be used as writing materials. They must undergo a process of preparation. Even the primitive material of stone must be polished on the surface ere the engraving begin. All the rough places must be made smooth, otherwise the writing would not be legible. The precious stones containing the names of the twelve tribes, and together constituting the high priest’s breastplate, were not capable of taking the engraving on when first the Hebrews found them. Much labour was expended ere all the sharp comers were rubbed off, and a glassy polish imparted to the surface. The reeds, and leaves, and skins, too, which were used as writing materials by the ancients, all needed a process of preparation.

Therein they are like the living epistles of Jesus Christ, who must be renewed in the spirit of their minds ere they can show forth the Redeemer’s likeness in their lives. But the preparation of modern materials for writing, although it was not before the apostle’s mind when he wrote this text, contains, in fact, more points of likeness to the renewing and sanctifying of believers than any of the ancient arts.

Although Paul does not here directly refer to paper — a substance not invented when he wrote — there is a remarkable likeness between the method employed in its manufacture and that work of the Spirit by which a human life becomes fit to receive and exhibit an epistle of Christ.

Filthy rags are the raw material of the manufacture. These are with great care and labour torn into very small pieces and washed very clean. They are then cast into a new form, and brought out pure and beautiful, ready to get a new meaning impressed on their smooth, bright breast.

Paper from rags is, in an obvious and important sense, a Tiew creature. It has been cleansed from its filthiness.

There is now no spot nor wrinkle upon it, nor any such thing. A similar process takes place every time that a writing material is prepared for receiving an epistle of Christ. You might as well try to write with pen and ink upon the rubbish from which paper is made, as to impress legible evidence for the truth and divinity of the gospel on the life and conversation of one who is still “ of the earth, earthy.” The paper manufacturer is not nice in the choice of his materials. He does not reject a torn or a filthy piece as unfit for his purpose. All come alike to him. The clean and glancing cloth from the table of the rich, and filthy rags from a beggar’s back, are equally welcome. The clean cannot be serviceable without passing through the manufacturer’s process, and the unclean can be made serviceable with it. He throws both into the same machine, puts both through the same process, and brings out both new creatures. The Pharisees were scandalized on observing that publicans and sinners came in streams to Christ, and were all accepted. “ This man receiveth sinners,” they complained.

Yea, receiveth them: sinners are taken in between the wheels at the commencement of this process; but at the end of it saints in white clothing are thrown out, fit for the kingdom of heaven. Go ye into the highways and hedges, and as many as ye can find bid to the marriage.

Christ does not find any pure on earth; he makes them.

Those that stand round the throne in white clothing were gathered from the mire. They were once darkness, though they be now light in the Lord.

Let no man think he can go into heaven because he is good; but neither let any one fear he will be kept out of it because he is evil. Him that cometh, the Lord will in no wise cast out. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool. The blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin. Not on tables of stone, like those on which the law was graven, but on tables of flesh, must the mind and likeness of Christ be written. Give him your heart. Surrender it to him, that he may blot out its stains and mark it for his own. The Lord hath need of epistles to recommend his grace in this world: Lord, here am I; use me.

II. The writing or the mind and meaning which is fixed on the prepared page.— It is not Christianity printed in the creed, but Christ written in the heart. When that writing is fixed on the heart, it shines through every opening of the life, and conciliates favour for the Lord.

It is well understood that a person’s character may be very well gathered from his letters. These seem to be windows in his breast through which you can read his true character. How eagerly the public read the letters of a great man, if they are printed after his death! People expect to learn better by these than by any other means what the man really was. As our Lord left no monument of himself in brass or marble, so he left no letters written by his own hand. He did not write his mind on tables of stone or on sheets of parchment. Even Rome, with all her rage for relics, does not pretend to show a specimen of his hand-writing. Yet he has not left himself without a witness. He has left letters behind him which truly reveal his mind. “ Ye are epistles of Christ.”

Disciples, when he desires to let the world know what he is, he points to you. Nay, more, and further, when he would have the Father to behold his glory, he refers him to the saved: “ Father, I am glorified in them.” It is not only that the world, in point of fact, judges of Christianity by what it sees in Christians, but it has authority so to do. The Lord himself consented that it should read him there. So Jesus sends a letter to the world — sends many letters — sends a letter to every city, and every street, and every house. A merchant who is a disciple of Christ goes to India or China. He sells manufactured goods; he buys silk and tea. But all the time he is a letter, a living epistle, sent by Christ to the heathen. A boy becomes an apprentice in a warehouse or factory; but before he was bound to a master on earth he has been redeemed by a Master in heaven. He is now, therefore, a letter from the Lord to all his shopmates. Li his truth, and love, and gentleness, and fairness, and generosity, they should learn the mind of Christ.

I confess that this thought is fitted to make us afraid.

How shall we fulfil such a function? The solution is — it is the Lord’s own method. He has chosen earthen vessels in order that the glory may be to God.

III. The writer, — This letter is written by the Spirit of the living God. Some writings and paintings look well for a while, but are easily rubbed off by rough usage, or grow faint with age. Only fast colours are truly valuable.

Human art has found the means of making them lasting. The flowers and figures painted upon porcelain, for example, are burned in, and therefore cannot be blotted out. As long as the vessel lasts the painting remains bright.

How shall we get a writing or a likeness made durable in a human heart? One thing we know, — many features which people admire are blotted out in the wear and tear of life. Lessons which human hands lay on are not able to stand the rough usage of the world. The education which can be obtained at schools is not sufficient. Its fair characters may soon be stained by evil passions from within, or scratched by cruel treatment from without. We cannot make the writing deep enough on those mysterious tablets.

We cannot warrant the colouring. No writing on a human spirit is certainly durable, except that which the Spirit of God lays on. The process is in one aspect like writing; but in another it seems rather a species of printing. The meaning is in the Scriptures set up like types — once for all. Then the Scriptures are impressed on the heart, as the types are applied to the page.

It is when divine truth, taken off the divine Redeemer, is pressed on the human heart by the Spirit of God, that one becomes a new creature. Old things pass away, and all things become new. Henceforth the Christian bears about on his character the likeness of Christ. And there is also a kind of burning to make the writing durable. In conversion there is a sort of furnace through which the new-born pass. We must take up our cross when we follow Christ. We must part with all that crucifies the Lord, although it were dear as a right arm or a right eye. Through such fire and water the Spirit leads us; but he brings us into a wealthy place. It is gladsome, as well as safe, to pass from death unto life in conversion; but there is something to be stripped off*, and something to be put on, in the passage, which you will never forget. In the wide-spread religious activity of the day some marks are made on the people, — not made by the Spirit of God. A cry; a swoon; a fear of wrath; an imagination of the judgment-seat; a gift of prayer; a profession of faith, — may be shown by the event to have been only marks on the surface made by some passing fear or nervous sympathy. The writing made by the Spirit does not go out again. This baptism is a baptism of fire as well as of water — it not only washes off the old; it also bums in the new.

IV. The pen. — In writing the new name and new nature on the tables of the heart, the Holy Spirit employs an instrument. It is expressly said in the text that Paul and the younger evangelists who assisted him had a hand in the work. The terms “ministered by us” poiat to the presence of man in the work of conversion and sanctifying.

It is not a high place that the human ministry occupies; but it is the right place, and it cannot be wanted. In photography it is the sun that makes the portrait.

There is no drawing of the outline by a human hand, and no shading of the figure by the rules of the painter’s art. The person stands up in the light; and the light lays his image on the glass. Yet even in this there is room and need for the ministry of man. Without the ministry of man the work could not in any case be accomplished. A human hand prepares the plate and adjusts the lens.

Although in the real work of making the picture the artist has no part at all — although he has nothing more to do in the end than stand still, like Israel at the Red Sea, and see the work done by the sun — his place is still important and necessary. A similar place is assigned to the ministry of men in the work of the Spirit. God does not send angels to preach.

We learn the gospel from men of flesh and blood like ourselves. Cornelius and his house will be saved; but for that end Peter must go from Joppa to Caesarea, and there declare the way of life. The Ethiopian treasurer will find the Saviour whom he seeks; but not until Philip is sent from Samaria, a skilful evangelist to guide the earnest but ignorant African. It is thus that the Lord employs parents, teachers, pastors, at the present day, as instruments to break hard hearts and bind up broken ones. This is the most interesting and honourable employment in which any human being can be engaged. Whether he be a ministering child or a ministering man, the agent who stands between the living and the dead — a channel through which the light of life may run — occupies the most honourable place and discharges the greatest function competent to any creature.

Here above me is the depending extremity of the wire whose upper end is dipped in heaven— dipped there in everlasting love — dipped in God, who is love; and here beneath me, within reach, is a brother “ dead in trespasses and sins.” I grasp with one hand the conducting rod, and with the other the cold, stiff hand of my brother •, then, not from me, but through me, the light of life flows from its eternal fountain into the empty soul. Here is an example of the first resurrection. The living is now an epistle of Christ, written indeed by the Spirit, but yet “ ministered by us.”

Printing nowadays is done by machines which work with a strength and regularity and silence that are enough to strike an onlooker with dismay. Yet even there a watchful human eye and alert human hand are needed to introduce the paper into the proper place. Agents are needed, even under the glorious ministry of the Spirit — needed to watch for souls.

V. The readers, — They are a great number, and of various kinds. The terms of the text have a wide ransre “ known and read of all men.” The writing is not sealed, or locked up in a desk, but exposed daily, and all the day, to public view. These living epistles walk about upon the streets, and mingle with the crowds in the market-place.

Every one may read them at will.

Some who look on the letters are enemies, and some are friends. If an alien see Christ truly and clearly represented in a Christian, he may thereby be turned from darkness to light; but if he see falsehood, and anger, and selfishness, and worldliness in one who is called a Christian, he will probably be more hardened in his unbelief. Those who already know and love the truth are glad when they read it clearly written in a neighbour’s life; are grieved when they see a false image of the Lord held up before the eyes of men.

Here, however, in justice I ought to say that many readers fail to see the meaning of the plainest letters.

None so blind as those who will not see.

Every one’s life is an open letter. Every man, whether he is a Christian or not, is written and is read. Some are epistles of Christ; some are epistles of vanity; some are epistles of covetousness; some are epistles of selfishness; some are epistles of the wicked one. The main features of the father of lies are written largely on the life of some of his followers. The spirit that reigns within is more or less visible in the outward conduct. In some countries the master’s name is branded in the flesh of his slave, so that, if the slave should run away, every one should know to whom he belonged. The captive may, indeed, be bought with a price; and then he receives the mark of his new master. Thus, whether we like it or not, people may read in our lives, with a considerable degree of accuracy, whose we are and whom we serve. The surest way to appear a Christian, in all places and at all times, is to be one. The surest way to make people, when you go out, take knowledge that you have been with Jesus, is really to be with Jesus.

Considering how defective most readers are, either in will or skill, or both, the living epistles should be written in characters both large and fair. Some manuscripts, though they contain a profound meaning, are so defectively written that none but experts can decipher them. Skilled and practised men can piece them together, and gather the sense where, to ordinary eyes, only unconnected scrawls appear. Such should not be the writing on a disciple’s life. If it be such, most people will fail to understand it.

It should be clear and bold throughout, that he may run who reads it.

Benevolent ingenuity, in our day, has produced a kind of writing that even the blind can read. The letters, instead of merely appealing to the eye by their colour, are raised from the surface so as to be sensible to touch. Such, methinks, should be the writing of Christ’s mind on a Christian’s conversation. It should be raised in characters so large, and sharp, and high, that even the blind, who cannot see, may be compelled, by contact with Christians, to feel that Christ is passing by.