1 Corinthians 9:16; Colossians 2:1-3
Here we get two sights of the Apostle Paul, one exhibiting him as the evangelist, the other as the pastor and teacher, and it is my earnest desire in drawing your attention to these Scriptures that our hearts may be affected by them. There is ever in the human mind a tendency to go to extremes and become unbalanced, and this has been seen, alas in pitting the evangelist against the teacher, and the teacher against the evangelist. Both are gifts from an ascended Lord, and it is a very great help to see that both gifts were combined in the Apostle Paul, and when you think of the Source from which these two gifts come, even from the Lord in glory, the great Head of the Church, His body, it would give us to see that you cannot divert or divorce them the one from another, if you are to be in the mind of the Head.
We need to look high enough. We, too, often look at the channels and get occupied with them, and forget the source of it all—the blessed heart of the great Head of the Church, who has carried captivity captive and given gifts to men.
The very manner of the conversion of the Apostle Paul accounted for the gifts which he possessed. Gift has been described happily as “the expression of an impression, ” and the deeper the impression the greater the expression. See the deep impression made upon the Apostle Paul as he traversed the Damascus road, bent upon driving the name of Christ from off the face of the earth, in his mistaken zeal thinking he was doing God’s service. Stricken down by “a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, ” he heard a voice from the glory, saying, “Saul, Saul, Why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 26:14). In an instant, his natural eyes blinded by the intensity of the glory light, the eyes of his heart were opened and two very deep impressions were made.
What a revulsion of feeling; what a revolution of the whole man! In a moment his whole mind and being were changed. He had hitherto believed most sincerely that Christ was an imposter, and he was doing God’s service in stamping that blessed name from off the face of the earth; now he knew in his inmost being that the humbled Christ on the cross, dying in apparent defeat, was indeed the glory-crowned Christ of God—the long-promised Messiah—that He had gained a mighty victory over sin, death, and hell, and that He was risen and ascended to the right hand of God. In a moment he was changed from the apostle of hate into being the apostle of love. His whole mind and being bowed to Jesus and henceforth he loved to describe himself as “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.”
Henceforth, he became the prince of evangelists. He speaks of “the glorious gospel of the blessed God” being committed to his trust (1 Tim. 1:11). He tells us he was “called to be an apostle, SEPARATED UNTO THE GOSPEL OF GOD” (Rom. 1:1), and he tells us this glorious gospel is “concerning His Son Jesus Christ” and twice over in the Roman epistle he calls it “My gospel” (Rom. 2:16, and Rom. 16:25).
Behold him preaching this gospel spite of persecutions even to chains. With the very chains on his wrists he poured it forth in the ears of the astonished Agrippa. Nothing could stop his lips “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34).
Behold this beloved servant writing to the saints at Corinth, “Woe is me, ” he exclaims, “if I preach not the gospel.” Christ in glory, a risen triumphant Saviour, was his theme, and it took possession of him. This was one great impression he received on the day of his conversion. Would that we were more like him in the measure in which he was like His Master, from whom he received all that made Paul Paul.
But was he one-sided? Behold him on his knees in great conflict in agonizing prayer for the saints. The prince of evangelists was the greatest church-man, if he received a deep impression of Christ in glory, which found expression in devoted service in the gospel of the glory, there was another deep impression made at that time. The voice from the glory had said, “Saul, Saul, Why persecutest thou ME?”
Notice the difference between this and Matthew 25:40, “And the King shall answer and say to them, Verily, I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it UNTO Me.” Here it is the King and his subjects, who are his ambassadors. Receive the ambassadors, you receive the King; refuse them, you refuse Him. There it is “Unto Me.”
But in Saul’s conversion there was something closer than this. It was the first intimation “of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began” (Rom. 16:25). It was not His message as King here, but as the glorious Head of His body, His members being here on this earth. Saul got a deep impression that memorable noonday. “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?” revealed to him that those despised and humble Christians, outwardly ordinary men and women, were members of Christ’s body—part of Himself—most precious to His heart and He showed His care for His body when He struck down the arch-persecutor and turned him into a vessel for the unfolding of this great truth, and implanted in his heart a deep care for His saints.
Look at him on his knees in this agony of conflict, praying for saints he had never seen, and who were the fruits of another man’s labour. May the Apostle’s tears affect us He bade the Ephesian elders on the seashore of Miletus on the occasion of that memorable journey to Rome, “remember that by the space of three years he ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears” (Acts 20:31). Tears on the cheeks of the teachers would go far to affect the saints—not the mere emotionalism of the natural man, but the deep concern of the spiritual man.
I confess that Paul’s tears affect me, and my great desire for our young brethren is that they may affect them. I cannot in sight of those tears treat the truth of the Church lightly.
In Colossians 2:1-3, we read, first of all, that Paul prays that the hearts of the saints might be comforted. We often say people do not get converted when they have cold feet, so saints need to be comforted in their hearts, that is happy quiet and undistracted in their affections. When saints are troubled by difficulties and harassed by Satan’s onslaught they are not in that frame of mind to receive these great communications.
Next, he prayed that they might be “knit together in love.” Look at the dear old grandmother knitting placidly at the fireside. How closely related the one stitch is to the next. How they follow one another in uniformity. God would have the hearts of His people knit together in love. Brethren, we want more of this. Is it not true that if we do not see eye to eye coldness often comes in, distance, suspicion? This is not the way to settle things. The tears on the Apostle’s face are better than that. What produced those teats? The love of the Spirit. Let us bear with each other. Ephesians 4:2-3, says, “With ALL lowliness and meekness, with LONG-SUFFERING, forbearing one another IN LOVE; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Thus the Apostle besought the saints to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they were called. May our spirits be saturated in this.
And all this—their hearts comforted and knit together in love was “unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God.” How the Apostle piles up the language. The situation demands it. The scene of ineffable glory, purposed by the blessed God in the past ages of eternity, all held in the pierced hand of the risen Christ, and shortly to be manifested in all its fulness, is a theme before which language is struck dumb. Here we have “full assurance of understanding to the full knowledge of the mystery of God” [N.T.]. May we let our little vessels dip into this mighty ocean.
The mystery of God! All has now been revealed. We find this mystery covering every other mystery. We have the “mystery of God’s will” (Eph. 1:3), which is to “head up all things in Christ, who is Head over all things to the Church which is His body, the fulness of Him which fills all in all” (vv. 22-23).
We have “the mystery of the Christ, ” in which earthly calling is set aside for the moment in favour of a heavenly calling, and Gentiles—ourselves—are brought in in blessing to “be fellow-heirs and of the SAME body and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. 3:6), as much as the Jew is who responds to the gospel in this dispensation.
Then there is the mystery—the hope of all, being changed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” when Christ shall present to Himself “a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Eph. 5:27).
Time fails to enlarge upon the entrancing scene. No wonder Paul spoke of himself as a steward of the mysteries of God.
And yet there is another “mystery of God” mentioned by John in Revelation 10:7, when judgment shall come to its climax and the way made clear for the manifestation of Christ and His bride.
No wonder Paul speaks of “the mystery of God”—the full all-embracing view of it as containing “all the riches of wisdom and knowledge.”
And do we want to know the moving spring of all this? We get it indicated in type in the first mention of love in the Bible. You remember, when Abraham was bidden to offer up Isaac, God said, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest” (Gen. 21:2). It has often been said the first mention of anything in the Scripture gives us in few words the very heart of the thing. What does this instance set forth? “The love of the Father to the Son.” That is the moving power of everything. God’s gospel is infinitely more than meeting our needs, great and pressing as they were, but it is “concerning HIS SON.” What a lofty and elevated plane this lifts everything upon! We are blessed according to the Father’s love to the Son and not according to our needs.
The next mention of love is Abraham sending his servant to seek a bride for Isaac, and when the servant is successful in bringing the bride to Isaac, we read, “And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her” (Gen. 24:67). Here we get typified Christ’s love to the Church, but what moved Abraham to send the servant to Mesopotamia? It was the father’s love to his son. Does it not bring forcibly the verse before us, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand” (John 3:35)?
Beloved friends, in conclusion, I should like to show some practical everyday working out of this as seen in Acts 2:41-42. You remember how the Holy Ghost came down on the day of Pentecost, forming the disciples into one body in Christ. What was the first effect? Men of every nation under heaven heard the gospel preached in their own tongue. The Church was evangelical. But did it end there? No, the converts were baptised. By faith, or through the Spirit, they were vitally united to the Church of God; by profession, in baptism they were outwardly connected with the House of God on earth.
What then? “They continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship.” There is only one Christian fellowship in Scripture. “God is faithful, by whom ye were called to the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9).
Next, “They continued steadfastly. … in breaking of bread.” The Lord’s Supper is in consonance with this fellowship. It is not the badge of membership with a party or with any particular views. It sets forth “the communion of the blood of Christ. … the communion of the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16). In eating we express our fellowship with the fellowship that subsists in the Spirit.
Next, “They continued steadfastly. … in prayers.” We cannot insist too much on the importance of prayer. The devil cannot succeed with a praying people. When we cease to be a praying people we shall go to pieces.
Let us then be a loving company, a steadfast company, a praying company, a reading company. Then the question of fellowship will be easily solved.
And let us not strive to set up anything perfect down here, we can never do that; but let us aim at perfection. That will be arrived at when the Lord calls us home as His bride. But let us meanwhile seek to advance on those lines, loving each other, long-suffering with each other.
I trust these two pictures of the Apostle Paul—it is not the man we set before you, but the grace of God seen in God’s vessel of testimony—may stimulate each of our hearts.
The Church is the product of the gospel, and when the gospel shall have done its glorious work, the Church will remain to the glory of God and for the joy of our heavenly Bridegroom.
Beloved, the nuptial day is soon coming, everything around us declares this, and then we shall all be together with Him and like Him—His bride-throughout eternity. Till then may we be kept steadfast, and let there be no divorce between the truth of the gospel and that of the Church, for they are indeed one—indissolubly joined together in the wisdom of God.