from the order of nature, within which to carry forward his operations as the power of a new creation over against the vanity and misery of the old. This constitution or order of grace is what our faith is taught to receive in the article of the Holy Catholic Church; that great mystery which is denominated Christ’s Body, and within which is comprised, according to the Creed, the whole supernatural process of man’s salvation, from baptism for the remission of sins, onward to the resurrection of the flesh and the life everlasting. It is not of the first creation, like the art and science, and political institutions of mankind in every other view. It holds directly from Christ in his capacity of glorified superiority to the universal order of nature. He is “head over all things to the Church.”68 It is in virtue of his having conquered, and ascended up on high, leading captivity captive, far above all heavens—far above all principality (Eph 1:21), “and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come”—that he has by his Spirit created for himself this glorious constitution, and continues to reign over it through all ages as “the beginning (Col 1:18) and firstborn from the dead.” So when he commissioned his Apostles for their great work, all was made to depend on what had thus been accomplished in his own person. “All power,” he said (Matt 28:18–20), “is given unto me in heaven and in earth: Go ye therefore”—because it is so and I am able, as the conqueror of sin and death and hell, having all power in my hands, to become the author, the principle and ground of a new creation, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail; because it is so, go ye therefore—“and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
And here we are brought directly to the point which we have now before us for particular consideration, namely, the origin of the Christian Ministry. It is, by the terms of this commission, identified with the institution of the Church itself. The two things are not just the same. The Church is a much wider conception than the Ministry. But still they are so joined together, that the one cannot be severed from the other. The idea of the Church is made to involve the idea of the Ministry. The first is in truth constituted by the commission that creates the second; for it has its whole existence conditioned by an act of faith in the reality of this commission, and this tested again by an act of real outward homage to its authority, the sacrament of baptism being interposed as the sign and seal of every true entrance into the system of grace thus mysteriously consigned to its charge. “He that believeth, and is baptized,” it is said (Mark 16:16), “shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned.”
The appointment of the Ministry in the form now mentioned, took place just before our Saviour’s ascension; but it was not until the day of Pentecost that the appointment was fairly armed with its own proper supernatural force, as an institution springing from the glorious sovereignty with which Christ was invested, when he took his seat at the right hand of God as head over all things to the Church. The Apostles were directed to wait at Jerusalem, accordingly, till they should be endued with power from on high. Then, when the right time was fully come, the Spirit descended in symbols of wind and flame. The great promise of the gospel was fulfilled. The Ministry received its baptism of fire. The Church came to its solemn inauguration; all as an order of things proceeding really and truly from the Saviour’s glorification. “Being by the right hand of God exalted,” the people were told at the time (Acts 2:33), “and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.”
[The Nature of the Christian Ministry]
We are to consider, in the next place, the Nature of the Christian Ministry, the peculiar quality and constitution of the office, as related to its origin in one direction and to its general purpose or design in another.
And what we need first and chiefly to fix in our minds here, is its supernatural character. This lies in what we have now seen to be the source from which it springs. It refers itself at once to the ascended and glorified Christ. When he went up, leading captivity captive, far above all heavens, and was constituted head over all things at God’s right hand, then it was, and in this capacity and posture, that he gave gifts unto men, and foremost among these the institution of the Ministry, endued with power from on high for its own heavenly ends.
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