CHRIST'S EPISTLES

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 2, 1880

CHRIST'S EPISTLES.

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 they see in Christians, but they have authority so to do. The Lord himself consented that they 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 shop-mates. In 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 fulfill such a function? The solution is, It is the Lord's own method. He has chosen earthern vessels in order that the glory may be to God.—Christian Weekly.