“Thus did Job continually.”—Job i. 5.
“Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”—1 Cor. x. 18.
“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”—Jer. vi. 16.
“And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”—St. John xx. 22, 23.
SERMON I.
Treasure in Earthen Vessels.—Faith, not Sight, the Recogniser of the Priesthood.
2 CORINTHIANS iv. 7.
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
The words rendered “in earthen vessels,” are easy enough as to their general sense. Ἐν ὀστρακίνοις σκεύεσιν, (the Apostle says,) where σκεύος may stand for any kind of utensil or household stuff. It is the word used in St. Matthew, “How can one enter a strong man’s house and spoil his goods;” [1] any of his household stuff or possessions; whilst ὀστράκίνοιν, (the same word which gave its name to the well-known Grecian ostracism, from the mode of voting,) signifying in its first sense that which is made of shell and therefore brittle, is often used in a derived sense for anything frail and liable to break, and when broken not to be re-joined. Therefore, again, it represents anything poor and mean, as compared with other stronger or more precious material. Thus, in his second Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul uses the very same word to denote those inferior vessels which are made for less honourable use: “But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth; ὀστράκινα;—and some to honour, and some to dishonour.” [2a]
We cannot, then, err as to the general meaning of the text, if we take it to express the fact that great gifts of God—treasure—may be, and are, according to His will, and for good and wise reason, lodged in weak and frail tenements, giving little outward sign of that which is hid within: great riches enshrined in poor and mean caskets, even as the soul of man dwells in the earthy tabernacle, (that red earth or clay which gave its very name to Adam,) when “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” [2b]
But St. Paul’s application of the figure here is somewhat different from the illustration just used. It is not life, or an immortal soul shrouded in a mortal body, of which he speaks, but some special gift or gifts of God for the use of His Church and people, which he declares had been entrusted to vessels of little “form or comeliness.” And it will be of much interest and importance both to trace out what this treasure is, and what are the vessels in which it is placed, as well as to insist upon the fact that the treasure is not the less, because thus shrouded or obscured; and that it gives no cause to deny the existence of the treasure, that those who bear it seem either so like other men as they do, or so little worthy in themselves of what they bear.
Now, to see what the treasure is, we need turn back but a little way. In the preceding chapter, speaking of himself and others charged with the ministry of the Gospel, the Apostle says, deprecating all high thoughts in those so honoured: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament;” and then, after thus disclaiming all personal merit or glory, he goes on immediately to contrast the glory of the Gospel with the glories of the earlier dispensation. “For if the ministration of death,” he says, “written and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.” [3a] Pursuing this thought a little further, and enlarging upon the glories of the ministration of the Spirit of the Lord which giveth life, he comes back; at the opening of the fourth chapter, more closely to the subject of his ministry, and says: “Therefore, as we have received this ministry, we faint not;” [3b] and after a word on the effect of the Gospel which he preached, that it led to the “renouncing the hidden things of dishonesty;” [4a] and another, as to its being sufficiently manifested to every willing heart, and so, if hidden, hidden only “to them that are lost, whom the God of this world hath blinded;” [4b] he returns once more to what it was which he preached, and declares how this great treasure,—“the unsearchable riches of Christ,” as he elsewhere describes it,—was entrusted to poor and weak instruments; “for we preach,” he says, “not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,” (that is, in the natural world when He said, “Let there be light:”) “hath shined in our hearts,” (that is, in the new creation of the spiritual world,) “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.” [4c] And then, in the text, he seems to meet an objection, that if his call and ministry in the Gospel were of so glorious a nature, the instruments thereof would bear more or higher marks of glory themselves, he adds the words of our text: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” [4d]