“HAVE you ever heard the gospel before?” asked an Englishman of a respectable Chinaman, whom he had not seen in his meeting-room before.
“No,” he replied, “but I have seen it. I know a man who used to be the terror of his neighborhood. If you gave him a hard word he would shout at you, and curse you for two days and nights without ceasing. He was as dangerous as a wild beast, and a bad opium smoker; but when the gospel of Christ took hold of him he became wholly changed. He is now gentle, moral, not soon angry, and has left off opium. Truly the gospel is good.”
What the gospel evidenced in this man was brought about in those of whom the apostle could speak as now being “the epistle of Christ.”
What had they previously been? Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners. “And such were some of you.”
But the apostle adds, “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
Now they are the living letter of Christ. The world is getting its knowledge of the blessed Saviour from what it sees of Him in the lives of believers. How solemn, then, if we are misrepresenting Him, and those around us are not getting a correct idea of the Lord, but live and die in ignorance and darkness!
What Paley’s “Evidences” could not do in convincing scoffers and skeptics, would be done by the power of Christ as manifested in the lives of Christians, did we but understand what it is to be a living letter known and read of all men.
For nearly 2000 years the blessed Lord in glory (Who never wrote a letter on earth that we know of) has, by His Spirit in the hearts of believers, been writing one long living letter for this world to read. But when read in our lives, is it seen that we adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things?
How this is brought about is clearly seen in Titus 2:1111For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, (Titus 2:11). “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation, to all men hath appeared; teaching us that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” The grace that saves is the grace that instructs, in order that the letter might be free from blots and manifest to all. We are the living epistle of Christ.
In the scripture quoted (2 Cor. 3:33Forasmuch as ye are 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 3:3)) the apostle declares the Corinthian saints were the epistle of Christ ministered by him, “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” True spiritual ministry in the gospel is not merely communicating our thoughts to the hearers; it is not producing by “persuasive words of man’s wisdom” a faith that stands “in the wisdom of men.” It is the Spirit writing Christ on the heart. Hence the apostle adds, “Our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:55Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; (2 Corinthians 3:5)).
Thus we have not only the place where Christ writes, ― “the heart of man,” but Who it is that writes the letter—the Spirit of God. And when this blessed Person has got full and unhindered possession of the heart, then He writes “Christ” upon it. Christ is seen in us and coming out of us, producing the very ways and exemplifying the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The great purpose of this “letter” is publicity. Christ’s letter is not marked “Private.” It is to be “known and read of all men.”
My dear reader, could we but realize in a better way the depths of darkness from which He has delivered us and the height of the glory to which He is raising us, we should enter more fully into those words—
“Join all the glorious names
Of wisdom, love, and power,
That ever mortals knew,
That angels ever bore.
All are too mean to speak His worth,
Too mean to set our Saviour forth.”
Never was there a day like the present when we needed to speak His worth and show our Saviour forth. Let us seek to stir the heart that is all too prone to grow cold, and lukewarm, and silent. Think of His love: think of His grace. “Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor.”
George Herbert quaintly sings of it―
“Hast thou not heard that my Lord Jesus died?
Then let me tell thee a strange story.
The God of power, as He did ride
In His majestic robes of glory,
Resolved to ‘light, and so one day
He did descend, undressing all the way.”
Then he goes on to describe how He disposed of His royal apparel―
“The stars His tire of light and rings obtained,
The clouds His bow, the fire His spear,
The sky His azure mantle gained;
And when they asked what He would wear,
He smiled and said, as He did go,
He had new clothes a-making here below.”
He would be seen in His saints.
Oh think of it again. He Who was the Man of sorrows, He Who knew no sin, was for us on the cross made sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We may well exclaim, What a Saviour!
Reader, trust Him, love Him then show and tell to all around what a blest Saviour you have found. W. N.
The Christian’s Place in the World. ―The world could not understand Christ; but He knew the world thoroughly. He was ever mixing with everybody, but always Himself, and never the world; and we are by rights as much strangers in it as He was. Flesh and Satan and the world always go together; but He was ever drawing round Him everything that was of God, and judging all that was not. If you were a great man you would get a good place in an inn; if you were a little man you would get a little place; but He got no place at all. Have your souls got the thorough conviction that you have none either, and that all that you have to do is to overcome? J. N. D.