Sermons for the Day

by Edward Hoare

I verily believe that the fact of this Divine appointment of the ministry is too often forgotten; and that thereby God’s people—and more particularly God’s faithful ministers—often miss the great encouragement to be derived from it. There is a tendency in some minds to suppose that God gives a special blessing on irregular efforts, and that the stated ministry of God’s word in church is not accompanied by the same blessing as the preaching of laymen in town-halls, iron-rooms, and theatres. God forbid that I should speak with the smallest disrespect of these irregular efforts, for I rejoice in the zeal of those who make them, and I firmly believe that in many cases God has greatly blessed them; so that, if only these gentlemen would but be content to act with God’s appointed ministry, instead of taking their own course entirely independent of it, I believe we might, with great advantage to ourselves and our people, avail ourselves of their devotedness and power. But it would be a sin to believe that God’s blessing is limited in any way to that which is irregular; that the only fleece on which the dew fails to distil is that which He Himself has placed to catch it. If He Himself has given us our ministry, if He has made us overseers of the flock, it would be doubting the fundamental principles of Divine fidelity to believe that having called us, having placed us, and having Himself given us our great commission, He would leave us to struggle on alone, untaught, unaided, and unblessed by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. We may apply to the ministry what St. Paul says to the Christian,—“Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it;” and all of us, whether ministers or people, while we look for great gifts, great blessings, and great results, may rest assured that God is faithful, and will never leave those whom He Himself has appointed for His work.

II. This then being, I trust, clear, our next subject will be the object of the ministry; and this is taught very clearly in the words,—“The ministry of reconciliation.” The reconciliation of the sinner to God is the great result, to attain which God founded the ministry. The question has been raised whether, by the reconciliation here mentioned, is meant the reconciliation of God to the sinner, or the reconciliation of the sinner to God. Surely both are included. In our guilty and ruined condition there is a double enmity. Man, through his corruption, is at enmity with God; and God, through His righteousness, is at enmity with rebellious man. And as there is a double enmity through sin, so, likewise, is there a double reconciliation through Christ. God, His law being satisfied, is reconciled to the sinner; and the sinner, his heart being changed, is reconciled unto God.

The reconciliation of God to the sinner has been wrought out for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the great work of God incarnate, and He wrought it alone, in His great sacrifice of propitiation. Of this part of the work, therefore, the Apostle says,—“To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”

This, then, is the mighty work of God in Christ: and this passage proves its nature; and shows that it consists, not in the change of disposition in man, but in the non-imputation of sin on the part of God,—“To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” You observe that the words teach that there were trespasses and real guilt: such trespasses that, if they were imputed, or allowed to stand for the condemnation of the sinner, there could be no reconciliation, and the sinner must die. But God in Christ does not impute our trespasses unto us: and, therefore, the barrier is removed; and in Him there is complete reconciliation. But we have not yet done with the subject; for the question arises, How is it consistent with the righteousness of God, that He should thus not impute trespasses to those who are really guilty? What has become of His government, if real guilt is not reckoned to the real sinner? The question is answered in v. 21: for we are there taught that guilt is not imputed to us, because, in the marvellous counsel of God, it has been imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ in our stead: for look at his words,—“For He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” There is no explanation of this passage, except that He who knew no sin was reckoned sinful, in order that we, who are deeply sunk in sin, might be reckoned righteous. Sin is not imputed to man; because the Lord Jesus Christ became our substitute; and it has been imputed to Him in our stead.

Now all this is complete—it is finished; it was a Divine act, and man can add nothing to it. But, notwithstanding all this boundless mercy, man remains unchanged—a sinner still, and an alien from God. Though by atonement God is legally reconciled to him, he remains, through ignorance and hardness of heart, unreconciled to God; as far from life, therefore, as if nothing had ever been done for his salvation. And now you see at once the office of the ministry. The minister of reconciliation is to be the bearer to his fellow-sinners of the great reconciliation wrought out for us in Christ Jesus. He is employed by the Holy Ghost as a human instrument for bringing those who are still unreconciled into the sacred privilege of reconciliation with God. Sinners reconciled to God, therefore, are the great result of the ministry. It is very delightful to see a full church and attentive congregation; very encouraging to see large schools well taught and well filled—a very great cause of thankfulness to see kindness and good feeling prevailing in a parish. But all these things fall short of the great result. The real result is the reconciliation of precious souls to the Lord Jesus Christ by the blood of atonement shed for their sins on the cross. The real result is conversion to God, a new birth by the power of the Holy Ghost; and if that be wanting, though all beside seem prosperous, the minister of reconciliation should be brought on his knees with great searching of heart, and never rest till he can look on precious souls reconciled to God, to whom he may say, as St. Paul did to the Corinthians, “Such were some of you: 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.”

III. But our third question still remains,—“In what way, or by what means, is this great object to be attained?” I am, of course, speaking of the human instruments, and not of the sovereign power of God the Holy Ghost, without whom nothing is strong, and nothing holy.

One thing is perfectly clear. It is not done by the offering of any fresh sacrifice. This was the chief duty of the Jewish priests, but it forms no part of that of the Christian minister. From one end of the New Testament to the other you can find no allusion to any such thing as a Christian sacrifice for sin. The one sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was once and for ever, final, complete, and sufficient for all the sins of the whole world. The work of sacrifice is finished, as we are taught in the words, “To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself;” and if there can be no sacrifice, it is perfectly plain that there can be no sacrificing priest. Nor can the idea be gathered from the Prayer-book any more than it can from the New Testament. There is not an allusion there, either to a sacrifice or a sacrificing priest, except where it says, in Art. xxxi., “The sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” There is no Christian sacrifice recognised by the Church of England but the thankful dedication of heart and life on the part of those who have been saved by the sacrifice of the Lord. But this sacrifice requires no priest to offer it. It may rise at any moment, and from any place, from the depths of any thankful heart. Thus, according to our Communion Service, all offer it together, and the whole congregation having together met around their Father’s table, and together tasted the joys of their Father’s love, together bring their sacrifice, and say, “Here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

Again: it is not the office of the minister to forgive sins. If our Lord, in His words of John xx. 23, had really connected such a power with the ministry of reconciliation, it is most extraordinary that in all the many portions of the New Testament which relate to the ministry there is no allusion to it. There are three whole Epistles directed exclusively to the chief pastors of the Church, besides several addresses to presbyters both in the Acts and Epistles; and is it not a most remarkable fact, that there is not a single allusion in any one of these passages or epistles to the forgiveness of sins, as forming a portion of the ministry of reconciliation? There are full directions respecting preaching, praying, reproving, instructing, and behaviour to all the different classes of the flock, but of forgiveness of sin by the minister, not one word can you find anywhere; and yet forgiveness itself is the great subject of the whole New Testament. But it is always traced at once, without any intermediate mediation, to the Lord Himself. It is always ascribed to His blood, His redemption, and His grace, and is never once connected in any way with any power of forgiveness bestowed by a priest. I am not now dwelling on any one particular passage, but rather on the omission of the whole subject from the word of God; and I cannot but think that that omission is a proof, beyond contradiction, that the Apostles, writing by inspiration, did not understand our Lord as teaching in these words that the forgiveness of sin by a priest formed any part of the ministry of reconciliation.

But I do not deny that the text is one of considerable difficulty. The first great difficulty is to ascertain to whom the words were spoken. From Luke, xxiv. 33, we find that the persons present were “the eleven, and them that were with them;” and there is nothing in the record to decide whether the words were addressed to the eleven Apostles separately, or to the whole company—including, of course, laymen and women. My own belief is, that they were addressed to the eleven separately, and conveyed a special judicial power to these inspired men. That they possessed such a power is clear from history; for when Peter retained the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, God ratified his decision by their death; and when St. Paul passed sentence on the incestuous person at Corinth, he clearly claimed a supernatural power of judgment when he said (1 Cor. v. 3–5), “For I verily, as absent in body but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” So when he remitted the same sentence he clearly claimed special right to do so; as he said, “If I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it, in the person of Christ.” But if this were the case, and if the power was given to the Apostles as a part of their apostolic office, it follows that with the Apostles it must have ceased for ever. Accordingly, in our Lord’s words there is not the smallest hint at transmission; and as for the idea that the Apostles could transmit it to the Bishops, and the Bishops to the Presbyters, it is altogether without foundation in the word of God. In fact, the case of the Corinthians proves clearly that it was not so transmitted. There cannot be a doubt, that when the epistle was written there were Presbyters in the Church of Corinth; and it is clear that Titus had just been there on a special mission, for he it was who brought to St. Paul the tidings of the repentance of the Corinthians (2 Cor. vii. 6, 7, and xii. 17, 18). But yet none of these persons appear to have had a transmitted power. It was necessary to refer the case to St. Paul himself. He retained and he remitted; and he did both “in the person of Christ.”

But our Lord’s words may have been addressed to the whole company; and if so, the laity, and even the women, had as great a share in them as any others. Now, no one supposes that every Christian has the power of forgiving sin; and the only way of understanding our Lord’s language is to regard His words as conveying to His Church the power of Christian discipline. It is clear that such a power is essential to the well-being of the body; for the Church would cease to be a Church if its most sacred privileges were open indiscriminately to all kinds of characters. There must be the right of excluding the wicked, of admitting converts, of excommunicating those who disgrace their profession, and of restoring such persons when the Church is satisfied respecting their repentance. But this authority, if it is not given here, is given nowhere. When our Lord said, as we read in Matt. xviii. 18, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;” He gave His disciples the power of regulating Church order; and it is reasonable to suppose that in these words He gives a similar authority with reference to persons, for in the one passage it says “whatsoever,” and in the other “whomsoever.”