CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MISSIONARY: HIS COMMISSION.

In this chapter we speak of the missionary as he is sent forth from the home church and goes to the field of labor assigned him. Who is to send him and by what authority? Who is back of him to oversee and direct the administration and support of the work? This necessarily involves also the question of reinforcements. For it is presumed that the work has been taken up with a view not only to its beginning, but to its continuance and completion.

1. Necessity of Competent Authority and Order. Redemption is finished, salvation is free. It has been prepared by Christ for all mankind. The good tidings are to be published abroad. Only those who hear the glad Evangel can be profited by it. How shall the communication be made? By the individuals who have received the unspeakable good as they may be impelled and may have opportunity to impart it? In the very nature of the case there is such an impulse. And the fact, that the early Christians were true to it and bore witness of Christ wherever they were and whithersoever they went, accounts to a large extent for the rapid and wide spread of Christianity in the apostolic age. But it is apparent, and history shows, how unsafe it would have been to have depended on such voluntary and unsystematized witnessing and preaching alone, without some provision for the orderly conduct and continuance of the work.

Our Lord in His wisdom made such provision. Not, indeed, by organizing a missionary society in the modern sense, but by laying down fundamental principles to govern the work, just as He did with reference to the Church which He founded, leaving it to His faithful people under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to work out, under varying conditions, the problems of organization and methods of work. Christ made the needful provision by giving the missionary command to His chosen apostles and to the Church at large, further confirming and illuminating these instructions by His extraordinary appointment of St. Paul to be the special "Apostle to the Gentiles."

The Great Commission is the fundamental statute of the missionary enterprise. It does not repress the sanctified impulse of the disciple to tell out the good news of salvation, but neither does it leave the needful work to chance or caprice, to arbitrary choice between performance or neglect, to fitful, uncertain and unregulated effort. Christ's command comes with divine authority to the Church and is all-sufficient for the purpose. He did not utter needless words or hamper the progress of His work by superfluous and bewildering details. The brevity of His utterance of great principles and the simplicity and ordinariness of their surroundings is marvelous to behold. So with the missionary command. Short and to the point! Full and final! It involves authority, obligation, aim, means, and the promise of

success.

The apostles were slow, even after Pentecost, in comprehending the world-wide character and intent of the commission. They were hampered by national and local prejudices. They did not understand just how the heathen were to be gathered into the kingdom of Christ.

The appointment of St. Paul, in addition to the original apostles, with emphasis upon the extra-Judaic, ethnic sphere of his labors, threw light upon Christ's universal missionary command and left no doubt as to its worldencircling scope.

2. Divine Authority and Commission.

How shortsighted it is for any one to treat the missionary enterprise as though it were a man-chosen and man-made work! It is God's work. The missionary idea is God's thought. Mission work is God's plan. It is as old as the eternal counsels of God with reference to the salvation of mankind. In the fulness of time those gracious counsels were realized in the mission of God's only-begotten Son. He is the One sent from God, the pioneer Missionary from heaven, the chief Commander, as He is the type and model, of all missionaries. Christ sent forth His disciples just as the Father had sent Him. That is the plain answer to the question as to who really and originally sends out Christian missionaries. They are messengers of Christ, even as Christian ministers are ambassadors of Christ. Of course, there is a distinction to be made.

The mission of the apostles. Their commission, their appointment as apostles or missionaries, like their call to discipleship, was immediate, that is, it took place by Christ in person, without the intervention of human agency. And for their work, the work of planting and extending the Church, they enjoyed the special illumination and guidance of the Holy Spirit. And yet, even in their case, and during their lifetime, preparation and call or commission through human agency were not excluded. Note the action of the church at Jerusalem in

'II Cor. 4, 20.

recognizing and endorsing the work of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, and in sending representatives to assist and co-operate with the brethren there. Note further the sending forth of Paul and Barnabas as missionaries by the congregation at Antioch; the appointment by St. Paul of Aquila and Priscilla, and the ordination and commissioning of Timothy.1

The sending forth of later missionaries. It would betray a fundamental misapprehension of all Scripture, to think of limiting Christ's missionary command to the apostles and of denying to later missionaries the honor and joy of being likewise commissioned by Christ. Such commission is on a par with the call to the Christian ministry and pastorate. The call takes place mediately, that is, through the intervention of human agency, through the Church; but that does not exclude or supplant the authority and the sovereignty of Christ, the Head of the Church. Those who are rightly called and sent are ministers and missionaries of Christ. The inner conviction, the personal willingness and desire to serve the Lord in the holy office, is tried, approved and confirmed by the Church that extends the formal call and gives the commission in Christ's name.2 "How shall they preach except they be sent ?" s

The minister and missionary of the Church, who is a servant of God and an ambasador for Christ, has every reason to realize and magnify this relation to the King of kings. He is a pitiable hireling if he does not. Such an one has degraded the holy calling to a wretched

1

Acts 15, 22; 13, 1-3; 18, 3, 19; 16, 3; Rom. 16, 3; I Tim. 4, 14. The Holy Spirit voices His call in the heart: By faith impelling to utterance (II Cor. 4, 13; Acts 4, 20); love constraining to service (John 21, 15-17; II Cor. 5, 14). Rom. 10, 15.

trade. The true Christian minister and messenger serves the Church in the joyful conviction of being in the service, under the direction and care, of the Lord of glory. To realize that he is, in a most true and real sense, a servant, a messenger, an ambassador of the Most High, even of the court of heaven, this imparts dignity to his office and value to his work, mitigates and glorifies hardships, makes him courageous, hopeful and preserving, lifts him above the incidental features of time, place and condition, and rivets his view upon the abiding possessions of heaven and heavenly glory. Let the candidate duly meditate upon the high honor, the great responsibility, the immortal glory of the holy service.

3. Churchly Authority and Commission.

Christ gave the Great Commission to the whole Church, to all disciples and Christians, both in their individual and corporate capacity, to be carried out, according to opportunities and conditions, in ways that are in harmony with the principles of His Word. He laid the commission as a sacred privilege and obligation upon the Church without specifying the mode and manner of its execution. This was left for His people to determine and develop in accordance with the spirit and principles of the Holy Scriptures.

During the centuries that have elapsed since Christ's ascension three modes of administration, in the main, have been tried and put in operation: individual endeavor, independent societies, and church administration. We will confine our attention to the second and third modes, dismissing the first one with only a few words. Individual missions, carried on apart from the Church and its institutions, by free lances that wish to follow their individual bent or whims, as may be, cannot