+I. It is evident that public teachers in the Church are to be a
distinct order of men.+--Christ has given some pastors and teachers.
None has a right publicly to teach in the Church but those who are
called, sent, authorised to the work in the Gospel way. All
Christians are to exhort, reprove, and comfort one another as there
is occasion; but public teaching in the Church belongs peculiarly to
some--to those who are given to be pastors and teachers.
+II. Public teachers are here called Christ's gifts.+--"He _gave_
some pastors and teachers." The first apostles were commissioned
immediately by Christ. They who were thus commissioned of Heaven to
preach the Gospel were authorised to ordain others. Christ gave
pastors and teachers, not only to preach His Gospel, but to train up
and prepare holy men for the same work.
+III. Ministers are to be men endued with gifts suitable to the work
to which they are called.+--As in the early days of the Gospel public
teachers were called to extraordinary services, so they were endued
with extraordinary gifts; but these gifts were only for a season. As
the business of a minister is to teach men the things which Christ
has commanded in the Scriptures, so it is necessary he himself should
be fully instructed in them. In the early days, as there were
evangelists who went forth to preach the Gospel where Christ had not
been named, so there were pastors and teachers who had the immediate
care of Churches already established.
+IV. The great object of the ministry is the building up of the
Church of Christ.+--The ministry is intended for the improvement of
saints, as well as for the conversion of sinners. The apostle
mentions also the unity of the knowledge of Christ. We must not rest
in attainments already made, but continually aspire to the character
of a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ.--_Lathrop._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 13-16.
_True Christian Manhood_--
+I. Attained by the unity of an intelligent faith in
Christ.+--1. _This faith must be based on knowledge._ "Till we all
come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God" (ver. 13). A faith, so called, not based on knowledge is
fanaticism. True faith is the result of conviction--a profound
consciousness of the truth. Many reach this stage. They have heard
the evidence, examined it, and are clearly persuaded of its truth;
but they never get beyond that. They are like the neap tide that
comes rolling in as if it would sweep everything before it; but when
it arrives at a certain point, it stops, and with all the ocean at
its back it never passes the mark where it is accustomed to pause. It
is well to get to the neap-tide mark of conviction; but there is no
salvation till the soul is carried by the full spring tide of
conviction into a voluntary and complete surrender to Christ. It is
weak, it is cowardly, when convinced of the right, not to do it
promptly and heartily. Faith acquires its full-rounded unity when it
is exercised, not on any abstract truth, but on a Person who is the
living embodiment of all truth. The final object of faith is "the Son
of God," and any truth is valuable only as it helps us to Him. Christ
has Himself revealed the truth essential to be believed in order to
salvation: He is Himself that truth.
2. _Perfect manhood is a complete Christ-likeness._--"Unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (ver.
13). Man is so great that he is perpetually striving after a loftier
ideal; nothing that has limits can satisfy him. "It is because there
is an infinite in him which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury
under the finite. Will the whole finance ministers and upholsterers
and confectioners of modern Europe undertake in joint-stock company
to make one shoeblack happy? They cannot accomplish it above an hour
or two; for the shoeblack also has a soul quite other than his
stomach, and would require, if you consider it for his permanent
satisfaction and saturation, simply this allotment, no more and no
less--God's infinite universe altogether to himself, therein to enjoy
infinitely and fill every wish as fast as it arose. Try him with half
a universe of an omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with the
proprietor of the other half and declares himself the most maltreated
of men" (_Carlyle_). True manhood does not consist in the development
of a fine physique, or a brilliant mentality, or in the pursuit of
heroic ambitions. It lies in the nobleness of the soul at peace with
God, seeking in all things to please Him, and to possess and exhibit
the mind of Christ. The pagan hero is the warrior, the ruler, the
poet, the philosopher; the Christian hero is the Christ-like man. The
supreme type of manhood is Christ-likeness. The ideal is conceived by
faith, and the actual is attained only by the exercise of the same
grace.
+II. Superior to the childish vacillation induced by deceptive
teaching+ (ver. 14).--The false teachers played with truth, as men
play with dice, with the reckless indifference of gamblers, and they
and their victims were swayed to and fro, with ruin for the ultimate
goal. Like a rudderless ship they were tossed about at the caprice of
every current, with the inevitable result of wreckage among the rocks
and quicksands. Professing a zeal for truth, they deceived themselves
and others by ever changing their point of view, and craftily
avoiding the practical bearing of truth in the aims to change the
heart and reform the life. The moment the application of truth
pressing upon the conscience made them uncomfortable, they tacked
about and sailed off under another issue. As the restless seaweed,
waving to and fro in the ever-changing tide, can never grow to the
dignity of a tree, so those who were swayed by every changing phase
of error can never grow up to the strength and stability of true
Christian manhood. We can sympathise with the doubts and perplexities
of an earnest seeker after truth; but our sympathy changes into
impatience when we discover that the seeker is more in search of
novelty than truth, of variety rather than certainty. To be for ever
in doubt is to be in the fickle stage of mental and moral infancy. It
is the worst phase of childishness.
+III. It is a continual growth in the truth and love of Christ+
(vers. 15, 16).--It is the high distinction of man that he is
susceptible of almost unlimited growth in mental and moral
attainments. One of the greatest distances between animalism and man
is seen in the unbridged gulf of _progress._ The animal remains where
he was, but man has been progressing in every department of life from
the very first. There is between them all the breadth of history. The
animal builds its nest as it ever did, the bee by the same marvellous
instinct constructs its geometrical cells now as at the first; but
man is a genius--he creates. His first rude efforts in shaping his
dwellings have gone on progressing and improving until we have the
architectural development of to-day. In every kind of art it is the
same--rude flint knives, lance heads, needles, were his first weapons
and implements; to them succeeded bronze, and then iron--each marking
stages in that history of progress up to the beautiful cutlery,
stores, and arsenals of the present day. The animal roars or chatters
to-day as it has done all along. It has made no progress towards
intelligent speech--a Rubicon the animal will never cross. But man,
who began with one speech, and a very limited vocabulary of words,
has developed speech into the great languages of ancient and modern
literature. A wider gulf than this is hardly conceivable. But the
moral growth of man is more remarkable. The era of the Gospel is a
revelation of the power of love. With the ancients a mere sentiment,
Christianity teaches that love is the essence of religion; and that
nature is the manliest and noblest that advances in the knowledge of
Divine truth and in the self-sacrificing love of Christ. The whole
fabric of the Christian character is built up in the ever-increasing
exercise of Christ-like love.
+Lessons.+--_Christian manhood is_--1. _Acquired by an intelligent
faith in Christ._ 2. _Developed by an imitation of Christ._
3. _Maintained and strengthened by constant fidelity to Christ._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._