A 04 - The Commission in Exercise

Ryder PLHC: 04 The Commission in Exercise IV THE COMMISSION IN EXERCISE And He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:... that we may grow up in all things into Him, which is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:11-12; Ephesians 4:15-16.

I HAVE seen a picture in the Ducal Palace in Venice which commemorates the triumph of Venice in the battle of Lepanto in the seventeenth century. The leading thought in the picture is most impressive. At first the only thing which you can perceive is a magnificent figure of our Saviour, arrayed in royal robes, sitting crowned, with His sceptre in His right hand and the orb in His left, while above Him and around Him extends the blue expanse of heaven. As you draw nearer, you gradually begin to see next in order two kneeling figures, one being that of the Doge of Venice, the hero of Lepanto, the other that of the victorious general who was killed in the battle. Be hind them stand the naval commanders, the troops, the captives. The spoils of war and captured treasures are heaped in the rear. This mode of pious commemoration was doubtless suggested by that passage in the Psalms (Psalms 115:1) "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory" which was the war-cry of the Venetians in the Crusades. It is most suggestive that the attitude which commends itself to this most Christian city in the hour of its greatest glory is that of the deepest humility. The truth is forcibly taught that it was in the name of Christ that they fought, they conquered, they died. The service only was theirs, but the glory was His alone.

I have often thought that the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is very like that painting. It, too, places most conspicuously the majestic form of the Risen and Ascending Christ amid the clouds of heaven, uttering his parting commission "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." The Risen and Ascending Christ, sending down power from on high, occupies the whole field of the volume, and all that follows only fills in the details. The passage before us says, "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." He gave the precious assets of gifts of the Spirit, and the Spirit inspired men. The words of the text are emphatic, " And He Himself gave (kai autoj edwketouj men apostolouj)." Thus what ever theory we hold, the authority is theocratic. The power and qualification come from above. There are two truths, both necessary, both complementary, and mutually corrective. It is true that the com mission was given to the Ecclesia as a whole. It is also true that it was given from above given by Christ through the Holy Spirit. But it was a charismatic ministry. Function and not office is what is spoken of in the passage before us. The candid student will remember that the Church was built on the foundation of the prophets as well as of the apostles. These were Christian prophets, as is evident; for St. Paul in the previous chapter says, "as it hath now been revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit" (Ephesians 3:5).

These Christian prophets occupy a most important place in the Didache; cf. xiii. 4, " Every first-fruit of the produce of thy oxen and thy sheep thou shalt give to the prophets, for they are thy high priests." The apostles themselves were prophets, the earliest but not the last of the holders of the primitive charismatic gifts. Their source of success was Christ; their power was through the Spirit. The object of the present lecture is to trace in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of St. Paul, in a few important moments, the Ecclesia in the exercise of its divine commission. There is no foundation for the notion that our Lord gave special unrecorded instructions as to the organisation of the Church during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. The recently discovered Testament of our Lord purports to give in detail the things which He spoke concerning the kingdom (cf. Acts 1:6). It has been shown to be a book written in Asia Minor in A.D. 350, containing obsolete customs. But from internal evidence we can see that it is apocryphal, for it does not correspond to the facts.

We are met on the threshold of the Acts by the earliest instances of ecclesiastical appointment in the orphaned Church. To fill the vacancy caused by the defection of Judas the disciples, to the number of one hundred and twenty, were gathered together. The whole body of disciples put forward two names, that of Barsabbas and Matthias, as those of men suitable for apostleship. The prayer was offered, " Thou Lord, who knowest the hearts, show of these two men whom Thou hast chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship." Two tablets, one bearing the name of Matthias, the other the name of Barsabbas, were placed in a vessel. The name on the tablet which first leaped to light was to be accepted as the name of the man chosen by God. The main body of the disciples nominated. God was asked to choose. It is very noteworthy that this system of election by sortilege is not again mentioned. It occurs significantly between the Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples were orphans. Stier regards this election premature and un warranted, the outcome of St. Peter’s impetuosity. He holds that St. Paul was the true successor of Judas, chosen, like the other apostles, by our Lord Himself. On the other hand, St. Luke, the beloved friend of St. Paul, endorses the election; for though he speaks of the eleven apostles before the election " Matthias was numbered with the eleven " (Acts 1:26) he speaks of the Twelve after the election at the appointment of the deacons " The twelve called the multitude unto them " (Acts 6:2). I refer to this incident to note that thus early in the history of church organisation does the main body of Christians obtain a certain recognition in the Ecclesia. The Day of Pentecost was the birthday of the Ecclesia in its full powers. The promise was, " Ye shall receive power (dunamij, vital power) after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." That power is still unexhausted. The fire fell; the flames died away; the voices ceased. But a life was quickened. The Ecclesia was sent on its way conquering and to conquer. Of that life we are all heirs. Of that Ecclesia we are all members. The recipients of that gift were not the apostles only, or the one hundred and twenty only, but all the believers in Christ then assembled for the season of the Feast in Jerusalem. The apostles received the Holy Spirit, not as representatives of the Ecclesia, but as fellow recipients with the assembled disciples. The gift of tongues was not the permanent acquisition of new languages, but an ecstatic utterance perhaps unintelligible to the speaker himself. For there was the separate gift of interpretation of tongues. St. Peter identified the earlier and later glossolalia. At the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10:46) the centurion and his household spoke with tongues. St. Peter compared this incident with Pentecost (Acts 11:15): "And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them even as on us at the first." The gift of tongues was, after Pentecost, granted to St. Paul and others. It was given at Pentecost to all the disciples present, for St. Peter recognised it as a fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh. This administration of the Holy Spirit was the basis of difference between one Christian and another in the Early Ecclesia. It was not office that imparted function, but function that led to office. This is evident in the case of St. Stephen. Dr. Harnack says the appointment of the Seven "is the earliest datum of ecclesiastical organisation." In that incident we observe the recognition of the main body of the Ecclesia. The name in the Acts seems to be to plhqoj, "the multitude." What St. Cyprian calls "plebs Christiana" St. Luke calls to plhqoj. The Twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, "Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good repute filled with the Spirit, whom we may appoint over this business." The saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen and the others, "whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them."

We next learn the truth that as to the higher order, that of presbyter, it is to the synagogue, and not to the temple, that we must look if we wish to understand the duties, the status, the office of the Christian presbyter.

Such an examination will reveal the fact that the ministerial office possessed no spe cial sacerdotal associations in the Primitive Ecclesia. In the earlier chapters of the Acts we read of Jewish elders or presbyters. The accusers of Stephen in the sixth chapter stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes. But in Acts 11:30 the title is next assigned to officers in the Christian Ecclesia. The disciples sent relief for the brethren in Judea to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Paul. We read in Acts 14:23 that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in every ecclesia (in Lycaonia).

Bishop Lightfoot remarks on Acts 11:30: Now at all events we read for the first time of presbyters in connection with the Christian brotherhood in Judea. The Christian Church was regarded in its earliest stage by the Jewish people as nothing more than a new sect springing up by the side of the old. The sects in the Jewish Church were not, properly speaking, nonconformists. Each sect could have its own synagogue. The Christian congregations in Palestine long continued to be designated by the name of "synagogue." St. James says, "if there come into your synagogue a man with a gold ring" (St. James 2:2). But the name of "ecclesia" took its place from the very first in heathen countries. With the synagogue itself they would adopt the normal government of the synagogue. A body of elders or presbyters would be chosen to direct the religious worship, and partly to watch over the temporal well-being of the society.

Hence the silence of St. Luke. When he first mentions presbyters he mentions them without preface, as though the institution were a matter of course.

Two persecutions, of which St. Stephen and St. James were respectively the chief victims, mark two important stages in the diffusion of the Gospel. They were also connected with the internal organisation of the Church. The first resulted from the establishment of the lowest order in the ministry, the diaconate. To the second may be ascribed the adoption of the next higher grade, the presbyterate. The later persecution was the signal for the dispersion of the Twelve on a wider mission. Since Jerusalem would be no longer their home as heretofore, it became necessary to provide for the permanent direction of the Church there. For this purpose the usual government of the synagogue was adopted. From this time onward all official communications with the mother church were carried on through their intervention.

Jewish presbyters existed already in all the powerful cities of the Dispersion. Christian presbyters would early occupy a not less wide area. In the apostolic writings "presbyter" and "bishop" are only different designations of the same office. The term "bishop" is used only of the office among Gentile Christians, as a synonym for "presbyter." At Philippi, in Asia Minor, in Crete, the presbyter is called "episcopos."

St. Clement, voicing the Greek Church at Rome, used the title when writing to the Greek Church in Corinth: "And our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the bishop’s office" (St. Clement, xliv.). The word is Hellenic. Directors of religious and social clubs among the heathen were properly so called. Gentile Christians and Gentile heathens would naturally give this name to the presiding members of the new society. The infant Church, which appeared to the Jews as a synagogue, would be regarded by the heathen as a confraternity. When the term "bishop " was appropriated to a higher office in the Church, " presbyter " became again, as it had been before, the sole designation of the Christian elder.

I desire to emphasise that the words for ministerial office in the New Testament are "president," "overseer," "pastor," "elder," "minister" ("those that have the rule, those that labour") but never iereuj, whereas iereuj and ierateuma. are used of the main body of Christians considered as the ideal Israel. The only priesthoods known in the Christian Ecclesia in the New Testament are the priesthood of all Christians and the priesthood of Christ.

We shall next inquire who were present at, and took part in, the deliberations of the First Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15:1-41.

Dr. Hort says, " It can hardly be doubted that the Ecclesia at large was in some manner present."

St. Irenseus says, "Cum universa ecclesia convenisset." The apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter. When there had been much questioning (pollhj de zhthsewj) St. Peter arose. The word zhthsij, says Grimm, from "examining" came to mean "mutual questioning, disputing, discussion." This indicates the possibility of different views and opinions, not only of the apostles and elders, but of the multitude. When Paul and Barnabas spoke all the multitude kept silence (Esighse de pan to plhqoj). We may infer from the words "all the multitude kept silence," as compared with the previous statement, that there was "much questioning," that lay members of the Church (the plhqoj) had not only been pre sent, but had taken part in the discussion. To this may be added what has often been forgotten that light is thrown on this meeting in Jerusalem by the Epistles of St. Paul, in which subjects of the deepest importance are referred to the whole body of the Ecclesia to search out and judge the utterances of truth.

St. James, brother of our Lord, and mentioned by Eusebius as first Bishop of Jerusalem, took part in this debate. The very exceptional nature of the conference and its early date lead us to believe that his position was that of an honoured counsellor. Alford says: " There does not seem to be in St. James’s speech any decision ex cathedra either in the hear me (akousate mou) at the beginning or in the I judge (egw krinw). The decision lay in the weightiness, partly of the person speaking, but principally of the matter spoken by him. St. James was the representative of the strictest adherence to the pure standard of legal morality. He, as guardian of the traditions of the house of Israel, cast his influential vote on the side of liberty. His opinion was specially valued in this discussion. The sense of ego prinw is, ‘This is my vote; I for my part thus judge (sic censeo).’ When his judgment, as well as that of Peter, was given in favour of the freedom of the Gentiles, the disputers even of the Pharisaical party are silenced. May we conjecture that he answered (apekriqh) the objections of the laity, who were always, as in the time of Cyprian, adverse to change or to leniency, and favourable to the side of strictness? For in the announcement of the decision there is no mention of St. James. * Then it seemed good to the apostles and elders with the whole Church (sun olh th ekklhsia) to choose men out of the company to send to Antioch/ The salutation in the letter is very remarkable: ‘The apostles and elder brethren unto the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, greeting.’

While the Ecclesia is not specially mentioned, there is the unusual phrase "the elder brethren." Such is the correct reading and punctuation. Alford says: "In this, the first official mention of presbuteroi, it is very natural that the import of the term should be given by attaching adelfoi to it."

Thus this reading would mark a transition stage between the name "brethren,” given to all Christians, and the distinctive title of "elders" attached to Christian office-bearers. Those who held office were but elder brethren in the great family of brethren. The letter concludes: "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay on you no other burden than these necessary things."

We infer that in this binding and loosing by the first Council in Jerusalem there was a substantial share given to the main body of the Christian Ecclesia. The presence of laity in councils was decidedly primitive. No one who reads the Epistles of St. Cyprian, written in the year A.D. 250, can be ignorant how constantly he recognises the share of the "plebs Christiana" in the power of the Church. "From the beginning of my episcopate," he writes, "I have resolved to do nothing without your counsel [he is writing to the presbyters and deacons of Rome] and with out the consent of the lay people." The clergy of Rome write back, "In so great a matter [that is, the question of the lapsed] the same thing approves itself to us, viz. that an exchange of counsels be made with the bishops, presbyters, and lay people who have not lapsed (pariter cum stantibus laicis)."

Cyprian desired some of the penitent lapsed to be restored to church membership. The laity objected. Thus we often read that he gained his point with difficulty (vix extorqueo) owing to the opposition of the laity (plebe obnitente),

Eusebius (H. E. v. 16) says: "For the faithful held frequent conversations in many places throughout Asia, and examined the novel doctrines and pronounced them vain, and rejected their heresy; then they were expelled and prohibited from communion with the Church." The faithful thus decided, A.D. 180, on the question of the Montanists. This points to the inclusion of the laity in the primitive Councils. It is this majestic con sent, this universal adhesion, which gives to the Creeds of the first four Councils their full, grand, and irresistible authority. In St. Paul’s discourse to the elders of Ephesus summoned to meet him at Miletus he said, "Take heed unto yourselves, and to the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." No one now doubts that the overseers and presbyters referred to here are the same persons under different titles. He uses the word eqeto ("placed") of the Holy Spirit. He repeats this word twice when comparing the Ecclesia to a human body: "But now hath God set (eqeto) the members each of them in the body" (1 Corinthians 12:18). In ver. 28 he speaks of the Ecclesia, "And God set (eqeto) some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets." This points to functions per formed by all the parts of the body, and not to ecclesiastical office. The salutation in Philippians is unique: "to all the saints, with the episcopoi and the diaconoi." It may be used in a general sense: "To all the saints, with those that superintend and those that serve." Elsewhere the salutation is "to all the saints," except in the Pastoral Epistles. The expressions, "take heed unto the flock," "act as shepherds to the ecclesia," point to a shepherd’s duties. The relation between people and ministers is best described by the word "pastor." It comes from the shepherd life in Eastern and Southern Palestine, in which a shepherd wandered with flocks of almost innumerable sheep over almost boundless tracts of undulating moorland. The fundamental idea is that of tending, guarding the strong, healing the weak, binding up the wounded, bringing back those wanderers who had gone astray. The records of the New Testament give us no ground for the association of sacerdotal ideas in connection with the titles of Christian ministers. With the exception of the Epistle to the Philippians and the Pastoral Epistles, St. Paul addresses his letters to the whole Christian community in each city. To the Romans the salutation is, "to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints." St. Clement, A.D. 95, voicing the Roman Church, begins in the same grand style: "The church of God dwelling in Rome to the church of God dwelling in Corinth, elect and consecrate." In Corinthians the salutation is still more striking. It is a definition of the Church. In apposition with the singular "ecclesia " comes the plural "sanctified persons." "Unto the church of God which is in Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." In 1 Corinthians we read of a grievous moral sin which the Corinthian Church was tolerating in one of its members. Here surely we might expect either that the apostle would deal with it autocratically or delegate the punishment of it to the local leaders. Instead of either of these methods he writes to the whole body of believers in Corinth. While he is insistent that the incestuous person should be excluded from the community, he is equally determined that it shall be the act of the entire Christian ecclesia in Corinth: " Put away that wicked man from among you " (1 Corinthians 5:13). In this early case of binding and loosing the whole ecclesia is called upon to act: " Ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus " (1 Corinthians 5:4).

It is interesting to note the Greek in 2 Corinthians 2:6. " This punishment, which was inflicted by the many (h epitimia auth h upo twn pleionwn) " is by some explained as the sentence passed by the votes of the majority. Alford, however, thinks it means that the guilty person was shunned by the greater part of the church. When giving directions as to the Lord’s Supper St. Paul’s words are addressed to all the brethren. It is, to say the least of it, significant that all reference to the celebrant is withheld: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come" (1 Corinthians 11:26).

It is the whole church that offers and officiates: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? Seeing that we who are many are one bread, one body, for we all partake of one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:16). In Didache ix. directions are given to the whole body of believers as to the form of celebrating the Eucharist: But as touching the Eucharistic offering, give ye thanks thus: We give Thee thanks, O Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou didst make known to us through Thy Son Jesus Christ. As this broken bread was scattered on the mountains and being gathered together became one, so may this thy Ecclesia be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom.

"And after ye are satisfied thus give ye thanks [a beautiful Form of Thanksgiving is prescribed]. But permit the prophets to offer thanksgiving as much as they will."

Two other general directions are noteworthy: "Thus baptize ye," "Appoint for yourselves overseers and ministers worthy of the Lord, for they perform for you the service of the prophets." In early liturgies, as we shall see, and in our Book of Common Prayer reference is made to the whole body of Christians as making offerings at the Eucharist. "Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee."

St. Paul makes a distinction between the Jewish altar and the Christian Lord’s Table: "Behold Israel after the flesh. Have not they which eat the sacrifice communion with the altar?" (1 Corinthians 10:18). He then speaks of idol sacrifices: "Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of devils." He purposely avoids calling the Lord’s Table of the Christian Eucharist an altar. Bishop Westcott, on the Epistle to the Hebrews, xiii. 10, on the words "we have an altar," says that never until the time of Cyprian (A.D. 250) is qusiasthrion used of the Lord’s Table. He explains the passage as meaning our altar is the Cross; or if it means an enclosure for worship, as it frequently does, it means here the Christian congregation assembled for worship. Polycarp calls the Order of Widows the altar of God, because they receive the alms of the faithful and lead lives of prayer. St. Ignatius says of the arena where he was about to die, "My altar is now ready."

Bishop Westcott concludes a lengthened examination in these words: "In this first stage of Christian literature there is not only no example of the application of the word qusiasthrion to any material object, such as the Holy Table, but there is no room for such an application. Not until the time of Cyprian, and from that time on ward, does the phraseology of the Levitical law become transferred to the Christian institutions so carefully do the New Testament writers and Early Fathers avoid any suggestion of sacerdotal ideas. On the other hand we read of the body and its members. Christ is the Head and His disciples the members. In one passage Christ has a more striking position still, for Christ and His Ecclesia are described as the Christ: For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of the body being many are one body, so also is the Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12). This is in exact correspondence with the image employed by our Lord Himself: I am the Vine, ye are the branches.:

There are four lists of the gifts of the Spirit. In Ephesians 4:11, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (5). In 1 Corinthians 12:28, apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, healings, helps, governments, and tongues (8). In 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, kinds of tongues, interpretations of tongues (9). In Romans 12:8, prophecy, miracles, teaching, exhortation, giving, ruling, showing mercy (7).

Dr. Hatch points out that ruling was a charisma as much as speaking with tongues, but that the gift of ruling, like Aaron’s rod, swallowed up all the rest.

St. Paul gives us four lists of the gifts of the Spirit. In some he chooses to mention the gift in the abstract; in others the man possessing the gift as a precious asset to the Church; in other cases still he glides from the concrete to the abstract. Because two lists begin with the words "apostles and prophets" efforts have been made to force the words to mean orders among the clergy. Dr. Hort says much profitless labour has been spent in trying to force the various terms used into meaning so many definite ecclesiastical offices. Not only is the feat impossible, but the attempt carries us away from St. Paul’s purpose, which is to show how the different functions are those which God has assigned to the different members of the human body. In Ephesians and Corinthians apostles come first, as those able to bear witness to the Resurrection; next prophets, whose outpourings were regarded as specifically inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Dean Armitage Robinson in his Commentary on the Ephesians says: " We shall be disappointed if we come to this passage, or any of the parallels, in the expectation of finding the official orders of the Church’s ministry." The three familiar designations, bishops, priests, and deacons, are all wanting. The evidence of the Acts of the Apostles, which employs two of these designations in reference to the leaders of the Ephesian Church, together with the evidence of the Epistle to Timothy, which employs all three in dealing with the organisation and discipline of this same church at Ephesus, forbids the suggestion that such officers are not mentioned because they did not exist or because the apostles attached but little importance to them. The reason for the silence must be sought in another direction. The most intelligible explanation is that bishops, presbyters, and deacons were primarily local officers, and St. Paul is here concerned with the Church as a whole.

Apostles, prophets, and evangelists are divinely gifted men who serve the Church at large; and if a local ministry is alluded to at all, it is only under the vaguer designation of pastors and teachers. The official ministry rises in importance as the first generation of apostolic and prophetic teachers passes away. The recovery of the Didache throws a fresh light on apostles and prophets. It shows us a later generation of apostles who are what we would call missionaries. They seem to correspond to evangelists in St. Paul’s catalogue. This establishes that wider use of the word "apostle" as equal to "missionary," a point for which Bishop Lightfoot strongly con tended. The Didache gives us an interesting picture of Christian prophets. They are pre-eminent in any community they choose to visit. They celebrate the Eucharist with special liturgical freedom. They receive the first-fruits of the tithes, "for they are your high priests." And when at the close of the Didache bishops and deacons are mentioned for the first time, honour is claimed for them in these significant terms: "For they also minister unto you the ministration of the prophets and teachers therefore despise them not, for they are your honourable ones along with the prophets and teachers." In this primitive picture it is instructive to see that the ministry of office is in the background, overshadowed for the present by the ministry of enthusiasm, but destined to absorb its functions and survive its fall.

We have examined the records of the Ecclesia in action, in the exercise of its divine commission, and we find evidence of the recognition of all the members as taking their share in the ministry in accordance with their gifts. We find a ministry of charismatic gifts a ministry of enthusiasm, not confined to officers, but shared by all Christians. No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love, which set so deep and strong
From His still open grave.