III. The Christian is Christ’s servant, not by hire, but by purchase.—This is a circumstance which claims our most thoughtful consideration. In the case of a servant who is hired there is a limitation of the master’s right, by the terms of the agreement, in respect to the kind and amount of labour to be exacted. There is also a definite term, at the expiry of which the right of service ceases, and the remuneration of the service is exigible by law. There is a vast difference in the case of a purchased servant, or, as otherwise expressed, a slave. He is his master’s property, to be treated entirely according to his master’s discretion. There is no limitation either to the amount or nature of the work which he may exact. The period of service is for life, and no remuneration can be claimed for the labour, howsoever heavy and protracted. Our servant-condition in relation to Christ is of this character: He does not hire us but has purchased us—purchased us by His blood, and made us His property, to be used according to His sovereign will. But this is far from being all. Our gracious Master often sinks, as it were, the consideration of His past services—His humiliation, His privation, His wounds and agony by which He saved us from punishment and woe—and reasons and deals with us as if we were hired servants and could merit something at His hand, animating us in our work by exhibiting to our hope that crown of glory which He will confer on all who are faithful unto death. Blessed servitude—the servitude of the Christian! Servitude of peace! Servitude of honour! Servitude of liberty! Servitude of victory and everlasting glory! 1. The Christian, as a servant, submits his mind to the authority of Christ—submits it to Him in respect of his opinions; at the utterance of His Word renounces its own judgments and prejudices, and turns away from the teaching of the world’s philosophy and priesthood in scorn, saying, “You have no part in me. Christ is the Lord of my conscience; I will listen to Him.” 2. As the servant of Christ, the Christian subjects his body to His control and regulation in the gratifying of its appetites, and in providing for its comfort and adornment; his lips in what they speak; his hands in what they do; his ears in what they listen to; his eyes in what they read and look at; and his feet in all their journeying and movements. 3. As the servant of Christ, he regulates his family according to his Master’s mind and law. 4. As a servant of Christ, he conducts his business according to Christ’s law, with the strictest honesty, and for Christ’s end, distributing his profits in a proportion—I shall say a large proportion; nay, I shall say a very large proportion—to the maintenance and education of his family, and some provision of an inheritance for them, and even a considerable proportion for the gratification of his own tastes. Is not that a large allowance for a slave? But oh, some of you! you seize on all—wickedly appropriate all to yourselves, or part, and that with a grudge, a murmur, and a scowl, with but the smallest fraction to the Master’s poor and the Master’s Church! Slaves indeed! Slaves of Avarice and his daughter, Cruelty! 5. As a servant of Christ, the country of the Christian is Christ’s, to be regulated, so far as his influence and vote may extend, by Christ’s rule, for Christ’s ends.—W. Anderson, LL.D.
Vers. 11, 12. The Gospel and the Call to preach it.
I. It is necessary that men should be assured and certified that the doctrine of the Gospel and the Scripture is not of man but of God.—That the Scripture is the Word of God there are two testimonies. 1. One is the evidence of God’s Spirit imprinted and expressed in the Scriptures, and this is an excellence of the Word of God above all words and writings of men and angels. 2. The second testimony is from the prophets and apostles, who were ambassadors of God extraordinarily to represent His authority unto His Church, and the penmen of the Holy Ghost to set down the true and proper Word of God.
II. It is necessary that men should be assured in their consciences that the calling and authority of their teachers are of God.—To call men to the ministry and dispensation of the Gospel belongs to Christ, who alone giveth the power, the will, the deed; and the Church can do no more than testify, publish, and declare whom God calleth.
III. The Gospel which Paul preached was not human—he did not receive it, neither was he taught it by man; and preached it not by human but by Divine authority. 1. Christ is the great prophet and doctor of the Church. His office is: (1) To manifest and reveal the will of the Father touching the redemption of mankind. (2) To institute the ministry of the Word and to call and send ministers. (3) To teach the heart within by illuminating the mind and by working a faith of the doctrine taught. 2. There are two ways whereby Christ teaches those who are to be teachers. (1) By immediate revelation. (2) By ordinary instruction in schools by the means and ministry of men.
IV. They who are to be teachers must first be taught, and they must teach that which they have first learned themselves. They are first to be taught, and that by men where revelation is wanting. This is the foundation of the schools of the prophets. All men should pray that God would prosper and bless all schools of learning where this kind of teaching is in use.—Perkins.
The Gospel a Divine Revelation.
- It is not constructed by human ingenuity.—“The gospel which was preached of me is not after man” (ver. 11).
- It derives no authority from man.—“For I neither received it of man” (ver. 12).
- It is not acquired by mere mental culture.—“Neither was I taught it.”
- It is a direct and special revelation from heaven.—“But by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Apostolic Assurance of the Supernatural Character of the Gospel.—1. It is the custom of the adversaries of the truth, when they have nothing to say in reason against the doctrine itself, to cast reproach on those who preach it, and to question their call and authority to preach, that so they may indirectly at least reflect upon the doctrine. 2. As none may take upon him to dispense the Word of God publicly unto others without a call from God, so there are several sorts of callings: one of men and ordinary when God calls by the voices and consent of men; another of God and extraordinary, the call of the Church not intervening. 3. It is required of an apostle to have the infallible knowledge of the truth of the Gospel and this not wholly by the help of human means, as we learn at schools and by private study, but mainly by immediate inspiration from the Spirit of God. Paul shows that the Gospel was not taught him of man; and this he saith, not to depress human learning, but that he may obviate the calumny of his adversaries who alleged he had the knowledge of the Gospel by ordinary instruction from men only, and so was no apostle.—Ferguson.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 13, 14.