p. 1 | Christ's Ministry

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 30, 1866

Christ's Ministry.

He who will have man's praise, must make up his mind to be man's servant. This is not the way of human nature. As Luther said, human nature would be glorified first without being crucified. It needs to be learned that there is but one way to the crown, namely, the cross; and that through tribulation, self-sacrifice, and self-denial, in Christ Jesus, we must attain the kingdom of Heaven.

Now it is remarkable that society, depraved as it is, responds most nobly to this text. It is a fact evolved in history, and illustrated in the experience of us all, that the man who has had great power, but turned that power to a malignant purpose, has either ceased to be remembered at all, or his name, if remembered, is now shrouded in infamy or discredit. The Domitians, the Neros, the Attilas, the Hilderbrands, provoke no gratitude by the recollection of their names—they are only remembered to be execrated; and the good would not register their names at all, if it were not essential to the continuity of the history of mankind. But, on the contrary, is it not the fact that the discoverer of the cure of some malignant disease, or of some alleviation of the sufferings and agony of the human frame, is mentioned with gratitude and esteem wherever his name is known?

The discoverer of that which makes the mariner's path more certain, and the mariner's shipwreck less disastrous, is recollected with grateful thanks. The philosopher who strikes out in his study a plan for quickening and multiplying the social intercourse of nations and mankind, is still revered. The soldier who turns away the battle from the gate, and risks his own life that its sacrifice may be the broad shield of the country that he loves, is still spoken of with great veneration. The writer of a book that lives where so few live, and that conveys instruction, comfort, delight, and edification to mankind, is still remembered with respect, gratitude, and esteem. Depraved as society is—sadly so, terribly so,—it has yet appreciation enough to see where true dignity is, and gratitude enough to erect monuments and memorials to illustrious worth, whose greatest and chiefest distinction it was, that it was unprecedented usefulness to mankind.

Thus we find, then, that the greatest benefactors of the world, have always been its greatest servants. They are admired by so many, just because they helped so many. The weight and splendor of their fame, is in the ratio of the amount and extent of their usefulness to mankind. It is the illustration of the statement, "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister." Let him catch the spirit, as he wears the mantle and treads in the footsteps, of the great Redeemer, who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many."

And if it be so in the broad field of the world, it is no less so in the narrower but consecrated field of the Church of Christ. The greatest in the history of the Church have invariably been the most useful. They reap, after they are gone, the most splendid harvests of fair renown, who strewed the path on which they trod with the seeds of beneficence, virtue, and love. The servants of to-day will be the masters and models of to-morrow. They who suffered to make men wiser in one age, will be found and recognized as the most illustrious, and the most entitled to renown, when other ages have dawned upon us.

What a beneficent law is this—what a beautiful law! that the man who wants to be great, must reach his greatness through being little; that the man who desires to be famed, must reach the high pedestal of great renown through the strait, the thorny, the arduous, and yet the blessed path of beneficence, and virtue, and love! Does Napoleon, the scourge of nations, stand on the same pedestal, or occupy a parallel niche, with Howard, the philanthropist of humanity? We know he does not. The very names, when sounded in our hearing, provoke conflicting echoes in our hearts. We lament the transit of the one as that of a wild meteor that awed, or of the lightning-flash that smote, mankind. We remember the other as a bright and beneficent visitant, who made earth's weariness less, and life's load lighter; and he has reached so great renown because he descended so deep, and sacrificed so much, in benefiting and blessing mankind.

If, then, my dear friends, we leave this place this night with this great lesson impressed upon your hearts, it will not be in vain that you have come here—that the way to be great is to do good, that the way to be strong is to bear other's burdens, that the way to increase is to scatter, that the prescription for being rich is, largely and liberally to give; and all experience will testify in the future, what all history demonstrates in the past, that they who have done much, and suffered much, and sacrificed much for mankind, have not been without the sweet reward of satisfaction and repose within, nor altogether without those laurels which grow green and beautiful around the brows of him who has put himself to trouble that others, who deserved it not, might have greater happiness.

Having seen this truth enunciated as a great proposition, we have it embodied and illustrated in the most noble Personation of it—"Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." He came not to be ministered unto. He left a throne of inconceivable glory, and came down to a grave, in the world's judgment, of unutterable shame. He left the anthems and the worship of cherubim, for the execration, hatred, and anathemas of the scribes, the Pharisees, the priests, and the multitude of the Jews. In the language of Scripture, "He humbled himself; and though in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, yet he took upon him the form of a servant." None went so low as the blessed Jesus; therefore none have ascended so high. The depth of his descent is the measure of his grand exaltation. It was because he endured such a cross, that he now wears so brilliant and imperishable a crown. It was because he was the greatest minister of all, that he now receives in Heaven the richest hallelujahs and adorations of all. He came not, it is said, to be ministered unto; and yet he might have demanded it. If any one might have exacted homage, surely it was the blessed Jesus. He consented to degradation—he consented to be a man of sorrows; and, having so consented, he might have demanded upon earth the homage that was due to so vast a humiliation. But, instead of summoning angels from the skies to precede his beneficent march, he was satisfied with John the Baptist. Instead of asking the cherubim and seraphim of the universe to come and attest the greatness of his beneficence, and the splendor of his miracles, he made the dead that he quickened speak for him, and the dumb whose lips he had unsealed, praise him, and the deaf whose ears he had unstopped, listen to him, and the lame whose withered limbs he had restored, leap before him as the roe, and all exclaim, with simultaneous and unmistakable emotion, "Truly this is the Son of God!" One would have thought that when he came to creation, it would have shone perpetually with the light of Tabor, and that some mighty and majestic testimony would have been given to him at every stage,—that an aureole of brightness would have been around him,—that some shekinah, some pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, would have constantly preceded him; or that, having made so great a sacrifice, flower, and fruit, and tree, and all bright and beautiful things, would have formed themselves into a couch for so great and illustrious a visitant. But, instead of this, whilst the foxes of the earth had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, He who had thus humbled himself had not where to lay his head.

Again, though he came not to be ministered unto,

yet our sense of his visit as creatures capable of being redeemed by him might have suggested a better reception. But Pilate, instead of using his power to protect him, gave him up to the scribes and Pharisees. The priests, who sat in Moses' chair, instead of recognizing him of whom Moses wrote, shouted, "Not this man, but Barabbas." And the Jews, his own, to whom he came that he might emancipate them from a real yoke, and invest them with a true freedom, rejected, despised, and crucified him. He received no ministration—He came not to be ministered unto as his errand, but the very opposite: in the language of himself, he came "to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Now, if you will look at the history of our blessed Lord, you will see that his whole life was a ministry, and his death itself only a sublimer, grander, and, if possible, a more precious one. If you look at his life, here he feeds the hungry by a special miracle of beneficence and power; there he opens the eyes of the blind, restores the withered limb, unstops the ears of the deaf, unties the tongue of the dumb, and gives to all the hope of the restoration of humanity to all its lost prerogatives, glory, and perfection. There, again, he raises a widow's only dead son, and here he quickens the sister's only dead brother. His whole life, a ministry of love—every day, a service and sacrifice for man. On another occasion, he stills the winds, and lays the waves, and gives the earnest to mankind of that day when all winds shall be hushed, and all waves shall be laid, and the earth shall shine again in the splendor of its first dawn. On another occasion, in the hour of his trial, when one would have thought that his only cares would be about himself, he pleads only for his disciples: "Let these go away." And on the eve of his own crucifixion, when the agony of to-morrow must have lain heavy and painful on his heart, he so truly came not to be ministered unto, that he asks no consolations from the height or from the depth; and so truly to minister, that he institutes that beautiful celebrity, the Communion Table, for the consolation of all them that believe. And when he hung upon the cross, in his last agony, so little did he seek to be ministered unto, that, with the exception of the utterance, "I thirst," he sought no relief for himself; and so truly did he come to minister, that, beholding his weeping mother, he bids John take charge of her—not as a goddess for adoration, but as a suffering widow and a childless mother, for comfort and for protection. And in the agony of his last crucifixion, when one would have thought that that grief that was more than any man's, and that sorrow that was bitterer than any one's, would have so overwhelmed him, that he could have no thoughts about any one around, he spoke to the thief upon the cross, and proved the majesty of a present God amid all the suffering of poor man, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." And when he rose from the dead, so little did he come to be ministered unto, that his first anxiety seems to have been, "Go and tell the disciples,"—and because there was one among them that needed the first comfort, because he had been guilty of the greatest offence, he adds, "and Peter,—that I am risen from the dead." And just before he ascended into Heaven, so little did he seek ministration from any, so truly was his life a ministry to all, that he institutes baptism, gives the ministerial commission, "Go and preach the Gospel to every creature," and appends the sustaining and precious promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." We have thus, then, his life, his death, his resurrection, his presence upon earth, all one grand ministry of service to mankind. If, therefore, you wish the lesson I have taught to be consecrated by the noblest precedent, here it is. Let us follow his example; for he has left us that example that we should follow his steps.

But to crown his ministry with its most precious and triumphant feature, he gave his life "a ransom for many." He lived, a ministry to us; he died, a ministry for us; and whether he lived, or died, he "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Now, having noticed his life, what are we to understand by the expression, he died "a ransom for many?" Surely, not a mere example. He was a meek and a patient sufferer; but it was not necessary that a God should become incarnate, that man might have a precedent how purely he should live, and how constantly and meekly he should die. Nor did he give his life as a mere martyr. Many a martyr has suffered great agony, and died most triumphantly; and if we wish to know how martyrs can die for Christ's sake, every Martyrology records illustrious and noble instances. Jesus did live an example, Jesus did die a martyr; but he did more; he lived a prophet, and he died also a sacrifice, or ransom for the sins of mankind.

Now, is it possible to attach any other meaning to such language as this, "He bare our sins?" I am surprised how anybody can read the Bible, and come to the conclusion that Christ's death was nothing more than the death of a transcendently good man, or, as the Pantheists would say, of an unprecedentedly great man, showing constancy and pureness in life, and constancy and faithfulness in death. If this were all, then apostles preached and evangelists wrote in order to deceive mankind. If they understood their own language, and wished to convey to a Jew by the most unmistakable and expressive phrases, that Jesus died a Sacrifice, they could not have selected more definite, unequivocal, and unmistakable expressions. What am I to understand by this, "He bare our sins?" Just think what the Jew did. He laid his hand upon the head of the victim, and the victim was slain bearing his sins. Would not every Jew understand by the expression, "He bare our sins," the sacrificial relationship and character of Christ's death? And again, when John said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," that does not carry to us the vivid associations it conveyed to a Jew. When the Jew heard that, he instantly thought of the morning and the evening sacrifice, and he recollected the passover lamb, whose blood, you remember historically shed, sheltered from the destroying angel, and gave protection to the consecrated and happy sons. And besides, I believe that when John pointed to Jesus, it was the hour of the day when the Levites were leading the lamb for the morning sacrifice; and thus, John, seeing the typical lamb led to the altar, and seeing the true Lamb standing beside him, said to the Jews, "Turn your backs upon the type; it is the shell, the kernel is not there; it is the shadow, the substance has come. Look not at that lamb any more; but behold Jesus of Nazareth, the Lamb of God, who alone taketh away the sin of the world." Again, what am I to understand by such phraseology as this? "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." And again: "He is the propitiation for our sins." And again, as the apostle says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean," that is, sacrificial animal suffering or death, "sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh," so that I can have admission into the outer temple of David, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge," not the outer man, which the blood of animals did, but "your conscience," the inner man, which the true Sacrifice does, "from dead works to serve the living God?" that is, to be a Levite in the house not made with hands, instead of being consecrated merely to be a Levite in that temple, which was soon to be pulled down, and not one stone to be left upon another.

But if I look at other aspects of the death of Christ, I must conclude that it was different from any other in the New Testament. First, the death of Christ is the burden of all ancient prophecy. You do not read in Isaiah of the death of John the Baptist; there is no prediction of the martyrdom of Paul; but from the first promise that sounded amid the wrecks of Paradise, "The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head," to the last promise in Isaiah, "He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," we have one death singled out and made prominent, and preached, and pressed upon man. Can that death belong to the category of common deaths? Was this the death of a great martyr or a good apostle only? Are we not rational, do we not interpret honestly, when we infer that it was not the death of an illustrious martyr, but of the only Sacrifice for the sins of all them that believe?

Again, this death, here called "a ransom for many," excites the greatest possible interest in Heaven. It is said that angels desire to look into it; and John opens the door that leads to choirs of the blessed, and enables you to hear the anthem peal that ever swells and never ceases, and in that anthem you ever hear, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." And again John says, "I beheld a Lamb just as if he had been slain." Can that, then, be the death of a mere good man, or a great example, that stirs the hearts of ancient prophets; that sweeps, like the breath of heaven, over the hearts of the redeemed; that constitutes the burden of prophecy in the past, and that will be the key-note of the songs and adoration of the blessed, when time shall be no more?

And again, this death of Christ is the substance of all apostolical preaching. Why is it that we are called "Christians," and not "Paulites," or "Peterites?" The answer is plain, Did Paul or Peter die for you? What does Paul say? "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." And again, "I preach Christ crucified." This inexpressible magnificence attached to the death of Christ, takes it out of the category of the greatest and the noblest; and it was something so unique, and without parallel, because it was nothing else than what we believe, a ransom for the sins of them that believe.

And then, if you will read the concomitant circumstances of the death of Jesus, you will find something very peculiar. The earth split, the rocks rent, the dead rose, angels came down and returned, and came and returned again. All nature seemed struck; all creation shuddered to its core. This never happened at any other death. Why was this? Because all these things were meant to mark out distinctly that the death of Jesus was not that of a patient martyr, but of an atoning victim for the sin of mankind.

What a blessed thought, that we are justified, not by anything done by us, but by something done for us; that we have not to work our way to Heaven, but to accept Heaven already paid for; that we are ransomed, if we are believers! The Devil, sin, the world, have no right to us. We are ransomed; the price has been paid for us; the mark of God is on our brows; the seal of his adoption is on our hearts; the mortgage is gone; the slave is freed. Jesus gave his life a ransom for all that believe.

Thus then he illustrates by a precious truth the obligation he has stated in connection with another. Thus he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister unto us in his life, and to die a ransom for all that believe. How great are our obligations to the Son of God! You are not your own; you are bought with a price. How great, I say, are our obligations to him, who redeemed us not with gold, or silver, or any such corruptible thing, but with the precious blood of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.

What are you doing for him? If he has thus ministered to us in life and in death, the least that becomes us is to minister to him. But our ministry is first ourselves. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." And next, wherever you can minister to them that are his, do not do it as a duty, still less as a penance, but do it as a pleasure in responsive gratitude to him who ministered his life and his death to you, that you might live and be happy forever.—Scripture Readings.