From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Well we resume these Friday evening meetings and these studies in Paul's Epistle to the Romans. And God willing, we shall go on with this Friday by Friday until and including the Friday before Good Friday. I don't remember the date, but whatever it is, we go on until the Friday before Good Friday every Friday evening God willing.

Well now, we start this evening with the third verse in the twelfth chapter of this mighty Epistle to the Romans. You will remember most of you that we had to spend a number of weeks in dealing with the first two verses, and that of course was because of their great importance. They are the general introduction to the whole of the remainder of this epistle, and at the same time, they are the apostle's general introduction to the whole subject of the conduct of the Christian. We've been considering the doctrine in the first great eleven chapters.

Well now, how is the man described there to live in this world? How is he to conduct himself, comport himself? How is he to make known the riches of God's grace to others? And that's the theme which the apostle takes up. He shows, as is his custom, the link between the general introduction and the practical application by using the word "for".

"For I say, through the grace given unto me." And it's important that we should appreciate the significance of this connecting link, this introductory word "for". It reminds us that what the apostle is going to say is the result of what he said, that it comes out of what he has said, that it indeed ought to be inevitable from what he has said.

In other words, he goes on now to show us how what he has been saying should show itself in our daily lives and how indeed if we are to be truly Christian, it must show itself in our daily life and practice. There, you see, he has been pleading in the first two verses for two big things. One is that we surrender ourselves.

We surrender ourselves to God, body, mind, and spirit. We present our bodies a living sacrifice, we present the whole of ourselves. And at the same time, he has been pleading for a new way of thinking, that we are not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed. And that happens by a renewing of the mind, that new outlook that we considered together for several weeks.

That new way of thinking about everything, that new approach to all problems, that attitude to life which is based upon some comprehension of God's great plan and scheme of redemption. Well now, that's what he's been saying to us. And now he shows us what should be inevitable in the light of that: this dual action of self-surrender and new thinking.

New way of conceiving of everything. Very well. What is it? Well, for the moment, of course, we are confined to this particular chapter, the 12th chapter. Back in October at the beginning, I gave a general analysis of the whole of the remainder of the epistle. But now we're dealing in particular with what he tells us in this 12th chapter.

And here again, it is perhaps wise for us to remind ourselves of the general division, the main divisions of this particular chapter. And it's very simple to divide it into two sections. The first section runs from the third verse to the eighth verse. And there the apostle gives us a picture of the Christian man exercising his gifts in the church.

That's where he starts. It's inevitable in a way that he should start there. Christians are people who come together. That's the church. They come together because they've been born again, because all the things that he's been expounding in the first 11 chapters are true of them. So they come together. And the first place you find a Christian, therefore, is in the church. So he starts with the Christian living his life in the church. And there the point he takes up is the Christian exercising his spiritual gifts in the realm of the church.

Then the second section is that which runs from verse 9 to the end of the chapter, verse 21, where he deals with the Christian in his relationship to other people, other people in the church, other people in the world. Many have tried to divide it up still more particularly, but it seems to me that you just cannot do so, and you must be careful not to impose an artificial division upon the matter.

So I would be content in putting it like that. It is the Christian in his relationship to others, both in the church and in the world. Or if you prefer it, it is the expression of the Christian character in daily life, not only in the realm of the church but still more general. And here he deals with its general characteristics and its particular manifestations. Now that, it seems to me, is the way in which you divide up the subject matter of the chapter from this third verse right through to the end of the chapter.

That being the case, we now proceed to consider the first major section, this section that runs from the third verse to the eighth verse. And he takes up, as I've reminded you, this question of the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit in Christian believers in the life of the church.

Now here he deals with a subject that caused obviously a great deal of trouble in the early church. I say that on the basis that it is a subject with which he has to deal fairly frequently in his epistles. And as we've often reminded ourselves, the epistles in the main are the outcome of situations that had arisen.

Mustn't conceive of this apostle, nor any of the others, as literary men who just delighted in writing and whose occupation was to write. They were much too busy for that. I don't think they'd have written at all unless they'd had to write. And they generally had to write because of circumstances and conditions that had arisen in the lives of the members of the various churches in various parts of the world.

And this is a problem that had to be taken up on more than one occasion. Now it's right to say in many ways that that is the great theme of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. That's the epistle in which this particular subject is dealt with with the greatest thoroughness, and there in particular in chapters 8, 12, 13, and 14.

That's the matter that is dealt with there, the problems that had arisen particularly in the church at Corinth, but obviously equally in a sense in the case of the church at Rome and various other churches, but the outstanding case is the case of the church at Corinth. And there the apostle deals with it in a very thorough manner. Now what we've got here is a kind of summary of what he teaches in especially the 12th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians.

It's an interesting thing, this. You see, truth is one, and whether the church is in Corinth or in Rome, because Christianity is one, and because all Christians are people who are born again and of the spirit, it doesn't matter what their nationality may be, doesn't matter what their background is, what their culture is, you will always get the same sort of problems. Wherever you find Christians, you're likely to get the same problems. And the New Testament gives us abundant evidence of that.

And so here the apostle deals in a very condensed and almost summary way with a problem that he expands and deals with at greater length in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, especially in chapter 12, but also to an extent, of course, in chapters 13 and 14 as well. And what is obviously a matter of interest which all of us must have noticed is this: that his method of dealing with it is identical.

Though it's in briefer compass, his method is exactly the same here as it is in 1 Corinthians 12. He even uses the same illustration. Now that's the sign of a good teacher, of course. He's a man who's inspired by the spirit on top of that, and when he's given the perfect illustration, he uses it. Doesn't mind repeating it. It conveys the truth better than anything else, so he doesn't hesitate to employ it.

And therefore we can say in many ways that 1 Corinthians 12, if you like, is a commentary on this, or this is a summary of 1 Corinthians 12. Very well. What does he say? Well, again let's give you a kind of analysis of this first major division of this 12th chapter, verse 3 to verse 8. And as I do so, you will see at a glance that he's true to his own method. Every man has his own method. I've often commented about this. Every man has his own idiom.

As a man who knows anything about music, if you play a few bars to him, he will be able to tell you the composer. So you can do with writers. A man betrays himself by his style. And this is particularly true of this great apostle. He does things always in the same way. He has his characteristic method. And here he does it like this. First of all, he starts with himself. Uses himself as an illustration. "I say through the grace given unto me."

We'll see in a moment why he does start with himself. It isn't because of any conceit or any boastfulness. It's quite the reverse, as a matter of fact. But he does it because this is essential wisdom. He sort of takes the ground from beneath their feet by putting it first of all in his own particular case. Now you notice that in starting with himself, he does two things. He asserts his authority, and yet at the same time displays his humility.

Now that's a very wonderful thing. "I say." And here you might think that he's speaking as a kind of Pope, but he isn't. "I say." Yes, but "through the grace given unto me". And there's the perfect balance. He's speaking with authority. He is, after all, an apostle. And he speaks with an apostolic authority. But he's very careful to make it plain and clear that his authority is one which he has received and which he has derived elsewhere.

So you see, he wants to do these two things. He wants them to listen to what he is saying because he is speaking as an authoritative apostle. But at the same time, he wants them to know that what is true of them is true of himself also in principle. And so he disarms all objections at the very beginning. He puts himself in with them. He's a part and yet he's with them. He's a unique man, and yet as a Christian, he's the same as every other. These two things come together.

Now that is something which you'll find in this man's epistles almost everywhere. It's the great characteristic of his writing, the way in which he always combines these two elements. Well, that's how he begins. Then what he does is to lay down two big principles which must always govern our thinking with regard to this matter of the exercise of the spiritual gifts.

So you see, having started with that kind of personal note, he then lays down the two great principles. The two principles clearly are meant to lead us to the same point and to the same conclusion. They're both out to obtain the same desired result. And the object in the two principles is to destroy at the very beginning any tendency to self-assertion and to boasting.

That's the thing that he's tackling, that's the problem. Spiritual gifts have always been one of the greatest causes of self-assertion, boasting, with all the resulting quarreling and the tendency to division. It's an astounding thing, but there is nothing that so proves man's essential sinfulness as this very thing: that he will even abuse the very gifts, the highest gifts of God, and appropriate them unto himself and cause them to militate against the interests of the church.

So this is the object, I say, which he has in mind and which he's now going to approach in terms of his two principles. Here again, let me indicate and emphasize this. Once more we are looking at one of the ways in which Christian morality and Christian ethics differs from all other views of morality and ethics.

There have been moral systems outside Christianity. There have been people and there are still people who are concerned about ethical conduct and behavior who are not Christians at all. And some people have therefore foolishly thought that there is no difference between Christianity and these other philosophical, moral, ethical systems.

Indeed there's a popular teaching today which says the pity is that Christianity has allowed these various miraculous accretions to come in. If only you could get rid of them, then you'd have a wonderful view of life to put to people and they'd be ready to accept it. But of course they've got to swallow all this about the virgin birth and the incarnation and the miracles and the atoning sacrifice and the resurrection and so on.

Now, you see, quite apart from the historicity of Christianity, there is a feature and a characteristic of the Christian teaching, even about conduct and morality and behavior, which marks it off from every other system that ever has been or is still in vogue today. What is it? Well, it is this: it is this insistence upon humility.

That is what is unique in the Christian teaching. Now if you take the great teaching on morality and ethics in terms of Greek philosophy or something like that, you will always find that it was something that tended to provoke conceit. There were the people who knew. Later some of them were known as Gnostics: the elite, the thinkers, the philosophers. There was always an element of conceit, not to say arrogance, about them.

They despised the ignorant. They regarded everybody else as barbarians, as fools. You see, they divided up the world, as the apostle has already reminded us in the first chapter of this great epistle, when he says, "I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise." Now all these other systems always have this element of pride, conceit, self-satisfaction.

You are what you are, and you're such a good person because you take the trouble and you think and you've got the ability and you've got the understanding and you've read the great books on the subject, you're a man apart, you put yourself up on a pedestal. That's always the characteristic. It's equally true today. You listen to the discussions of some of these people on your televisions or on your wireless sets, and you'll find it always comes out that there is a touch always of arrogance and of conceit. We are the men who know, the wise.

But here, the thing that is emphasized above everything else is the humility. The apostle, you see, puts himself in, and they're all of them shown that any boasting or any appearance of self-satisfaction or any self-assertion is a negation of their whole position. Humility. This is something quite new. Christianity brought something quite new into the world. Let me illustrate what I'm trying to say by putting it like this to you.

People have often asked, why did the great apostle ever write that 13th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians? In other words, why did he say so much about love? Why didn't he content himself by just saying that they must show love in their dealings with one another? Why say all that he said about it? And you know, there's only one answer to that. There was literally not a word in the Greek alphabet, in the whole of the Greek vocabulary, to express what is meant by the Christian notion of love.

So the apostle has to say a whole series of things about it. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, though I do this and that, love is like this and isn't like that." He had to do it because there literally wasn't a word that he could lay his hands on which could convey this idea. It was foreign to the whole of Greek thinking. And exactly the same thing is true of Roman thinking. In other words, modesty and humility were regarded by the best pagans as weakness.

And of course the modern world is full of the same thing. "Believe in yourself," says the world. "Trust yourself. Self-expression." Their attitude of opposition to the gospel is generally in terms of that. I think I read even in the paper today some great authority in some conference, two or three of them have been at it again this week as you must have noticed, have been making this sweeping assertion of how it's wrong to teach the children the Bible, it's going to cramp them.

Or if you teach them the Christian way of life, it'll interfere with their emotional stability or something. You see, this teaching of sin, they say, it cramps one. And all this teaching here about self-abnegation and so on, it's bad for the psyche. That's always been their attitude. They regard this glorious characteristic of humility as being a weakness.

That was very true at the time of our Lord and the apostle, and it has continued, I say, to be true throughout the centuries. But here, at once in introducing his subject, the apostle reminds us of this. So you see, quite apart from the historical facts on which our faith is based, this great central characteristic is in itself a proof that we have here something unique, something new, that has come into the world through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Very well. What then are these principles that he now lays down to bring us to the practice of this humility? Because, you see, if we don't manifest this, we are not carrying out what he's been saying in the first two verses. And if we're not carrying out what he said in the first two verses, it means that all our knowledge of the theological principles of the first 11 chapters are of no value whatsoever to us, and may indeed be doing us more harm than good.

If we are proud of our knowledge, well then the knowledge is of no value to us. Now that's the argument. Well then, what are the principles? Well, here they are. The first is that it is all of grace. "I say through the grace given unto me." Here it is, and he goes on repeating this. "As God has dealt to every man the measure of faith." It's all of grace and of faith.

Now this is an argument with which those of us who are familiar with the earlier part of this great epistle already know very well, because he's already dealt with it many times in establishing his great doctrine of justification by faith only. He's had to go on repeating this. Take, for instance, at the end of the third chapter, he brings it in there. He says, "Where is boasting then?" Chapter 3, verse 27. "Where is boasting then? It is excluded."

"By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith." There is no room for boasting in any part of the Christian life. In other words, his whole argument there has been, you never become a Christian because you are what you are or because of what you've done. Never. It is in spite of what you are. It is in spite of what you've done.

Salvation is by grace through faith. By grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast. No boasting. Now he's always emphasizing this. And he's emphasized it again in the 11th chapter, you remember, in verse 6. He says, "If by grace then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works then it is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work."

There it is once more. Now that has been a great point which he has been emphasizing about our entry into the Christian life. And what he's saying here is this: that principle not only holds with regard to your entry into the Christian life, it is a principle that governs the whole of your Christian life. You don't merely start like this, you continue like this. And if you don't continue, you've gone wrong, you've lost connection with your point of origin.

So this, you see, is the first principle that he lays down. Our entire position is the result of grace. Our whole activity is based upon grace. The second principle is the one which you get in verses 4 and 5. And here is again a very familiar one.

"For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." What's he doing here? Well, he's here putting before us the famous picture which he used in so many of his epistles of the church as the body of Christ. And so he uses an illustration. Now the object of the illustration is precisely the same as that of the principle of grace that he's already laid down.

But it's a very wonderful illustration. He uses this analogy concerning the body. The point being, as we shall see, that the parts of the body are always parts of a whole, and that the parts have no sense nor meaning except in their relationship to the other parts, and all of them together to the whole, and especially to the head.

Now then, there are the two principles that he lays down: the principle of grace that governs the whole of the Christian life, and the idea of the church as the body of Christ. Then having done that, you see, he goes on to the third point which you get in verses 6 to 8. I'm giving you the analysis, you see, from verse 3 to verse 8, the first major section of this chapter.

Having laid down his principles, he comes to the application, and he gives us examples and illustrations of how all this, these two principles now in operation, show themselves. If it's prophecy, well, you prophesy according to the proportion of faith. If it's ministry, wait on your ministering; teaching, and so on. Now these are but practical examples and illustrations to show how these two great principles, which are illustrations of a yet more fundamental principle, show themselves in the life of the church with respect to this whole matter of the exercising of the spiritual gifts.

Very well. There then is our analysis of this first major section. And having looked at it like that in a kind of, well, general, naked-eye view, we must now produce the microscope and come to a more detailed exposition. You know this Bible is very scientific, and that's how you approach it. Here you've got a specimen if you like in front of you on the table.

You don't start with your microscope, you start with your naked eye. You look at it in general. You get a general impression. Then having got a general impression of the parts, you come to the individual portions, and here you may have to bring in, as I say, your microscope. But it's a most rational procedure and it is a very scientific procedure. So we come to our detailed exposition. And the first phrase that of necessity arrests our attention is this one: "I say through the grace given unto me."

Now here, as I've shown you, is the key statement. I'm sure we don't need to be reminded as to what is meant by grace. And yet we can't take any risks. The whole argument here depends upon the meaning of grace. And it means undeserved favor, undeserved favor. Something that comes out of the heart of God, not in response to anything in us, but in spite of us. Altogether from God: favor, kindness, blessing, entirely, utterly undeserved from our side.

Very well. But what does he mean here now in particular by saying, "I say through the grace given unto me"? Is he referring here to the general grace that he had received as a Christian? The grace that brings the gift of faith, the grace that we all must have before we can ever be Christians? Does he mean it merely in general or is he referring here to something more particular?

And I want to suggest to you that he means both, but particularly the second. He is, of course, referring to the grace that had made him a Christian at all. He never got over that. He'd been a persecutor and a blasphemer and an injurious person. He who had so hated Christ, the fact that he's a Christian at all is an amazing thing that can only be explained by the grace of God.

But here, I think he's got something more particular in his mind. And he is referring here to the grace in particular that had made him an apostle. He's asserting his apostleship. Why do I emphasize this? Well, I think that the analogy of what he says elsewhere in this epistle and in other epistles compels us to say this. It's something that he says so often. Let me give you some examples.

Take, for instance, in the very first chapter of this epistle in the fifth verse. He's talking about, he says he's a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and so on. Then he says, "By whom we have received grace and apostleship." And we indicated at the time, and it's generally agreed, that what he means here is this: the grace of apostleship, for the obedience to the faith among all nations for his name.

The grace of apostleship. Or take the way in which he will come to say it later on in the 15th chapter and in the 15th verse, where he puts it like this: "Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God." He's there in this whole context, as you may recall, referring to himself as an apostle.

"That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost." And then you see the same point: "I have therefore whereof I may glory through Christ Jesus in those things which pertain to God," and so on. It's there very definitely, the grace of apostleship.

The peculiar grace that was given to him to enable him to function as this great apostle to the Gentiles. But there is a very notable and remarkable example of the same thing in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in the third chapter and in verses 5 to 10. Now you remember that in the church at Corinth, they were tending to divide themselves up in a very partisan manner in terms of the various apostles and teachers.

Some said I am of Paul, I am of Apollos says others, I am of Cephas says a third group, we are of Christ says the fourth group. Now the apostle has to take up this great theme, and this is how he puts it in the third chapter from verse 5 to verse 10. Here's the very same thing that he's telling us here in Romans 12:3.

"Who then is Paul? And who is Apollos? But ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor."

"For we are laborers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon." Now there it is. According to the grace given unto me, I am a wise masterbuilder. I am an apostle, I am a teacher, I am a planter of churches and so on.

Now there, it's quite plain that the grace to which he's referring is the grace that had made him an apostle. But take what is perhaps one of the most moving statements of this that he ever made in 1 Corinthians 15, and especially in verses 9 and 10. "For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am."

"And his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." There, you see, it is the particular grace that had made him an apostle. And as he's dealing with teaching in Romans 12:3, I am arguing that he's still saying the same thing. He's talking about the grace that is given to me that has made me an apostle and a teacher, and that is why they should listen to him.

Then of course you've got him saying the same thing once more in the Epistle to the Galatians, in the first chapter and in verses 15 and 16. "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." His calling as an apostle. Not his conversion so much as his calling as an apostle.

And again he says it in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 7 and 8. And these to me are all very glorious statements which we can never afford to neglect. "Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."

The grace that called him and made him an apostle. And then take that last very personal example of it which we have in the first Epistle to Timothy and in the first chapter, where he puts it again in a particularly moving manner, beginning at verse 11. He's been working out an argument and he winds it up by saying, "According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust."

"And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus."

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." Very well. I've produced that evidence because I'm anxious to show you that the apostle was very jealous, in the right sense of the word, on this particular point.

This was the thing that staggered him and filled him with amazement: that he of all men should have been called to be an apostle. It is entirely the result of the grace of God. Very well. He speaks now then to the Romans and he asks them to listen to him because he's an apostle. The grace of God has made him an apostle. And of course it includes not only his actual calling, but this grace not only calls a man, it equips him and it enables him.

And what he's really saying is this, he says: I'm asking you to listen to what I'm saying because not only am I actually an apostle, but I have received understanding in these matters. I've received wisdom, I've got knowledge. I have received as the result of his grace certain gifts of the spirit. I've got discrimination. I'm able to teach, I'm able to expound, I'm able to explain. I've been made an apostle in all these ways by this grace of God.

Now that's what he's saying. And it's a tremendous statement. But for the grace of God, he would never have been an apostle at all. But for the grace of God, he would never have been able to teach in the way that he teaches. It required this unusual insight, this special understanding, this peculiar faculty of discrimination in which this man shines out so wonderfully in all the writers of the New Testament.

Peter, you remember, even pays him a tribute in his second epistle in the third chapter. Says there are things in this man's writing that are difficult to understand, by which he means that even he found it difficult to understand. But there it is. Now it is the grace of God, says Paul, that has made me the man I am. It isn't anything in me. I say to you by the grace that has been given to me.

In other words, you see, what he's conveying to them is this: that he has nothing whereof to boast in and of himself. He's not saying I, the great man Paul, am telling you. I, the brilliant pupil of Gamaliel, am telling you. I, the giant intellect, I, the man who has studied as very few men have, I'm saying to you, listen to me. He says it isn't that.

I've got nothing but what I have first of all received. And my very office, my calling, my abilities, all I am and all I'm doing is solely the result of the grace of God. I have authority, but it is an authority that has been given to me. It is an authority that was given to me by the Lord himself who said that he was going to make of me a minister and a witness and a teacher of the Gentiles.

Now you see, that's what the apostle is saying. You remember how he put it like that in his testimony before Agrippa and Festus. You'll find the account in the 26th chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. There it is. He was called, he was taken hold of, apprehended, and he was appointed, and he was told what he was going to do and what God was going to do, Christ was going to do through him and in him. And he equips him with the abilities and the gifts necessary to do this.

And of course we remember, don't we, how in the previous chapter, the 11th chapter of this Epistle to the Romans, he has already told the Gentiles: I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office. Now all that, you see, is conveyed here in this phrase "through the grace given unto me".

Now this is a very wonderful thing. And here again is this perfect combination of these two characteristics. Here is a man who can say on the one hand be ye followers of me. Treat me as your example. He is a man who can say: Now you've not had many fathers in Christ; I and I alone am your father. He can speak like that. But when he does so, there is never a touch of arrogance. Why not?

Well, because he's always careful to add that he is what he is solely because of the grace of God. It's nothing in him. So you get this curious paradox: this assertion of authority and yet this immediate showing that he is an exceptionally humble man because he's aware that he has nothing but that which he has received and received freely, utterly undeservingly, as the result of the grace of God.

Now my friends, this is a very important matter. And as actually at the present time, it is a subject which has unusual significance. What do I mean? Well, let me show you. Let me illustrate what Paul is saying by what Peter says. Peter puts it in his way in his first epistle in the fifth chapter. Let me read to you the first four verses.

The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Now there's Peter's way of saying, you see, exactly the same thing. Notice how he starts: The elders which are among you I exhort, who am myself also an elder. Not only that, I am a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory which shall be revealed. I'm Simon Peter. I was with him on the mount of transfiguration. There were only two others with me, even all the apostles wasn't there. I am a very exceptional person.

And yet you notice the perfect balance. Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples unto the flock. Why do I say this is important? Well, it's important for this reason. We're living in what is called an ecumenical age when men are pressing us to become parts of a great world church, including the Roman Catholic Church.

Now you see, as you face questions like that, you are facing the whole question of authority. And this question of authority is one of the most urgent and pressing problems at the present time. Where does authority lie in the church? Well, you know the answer, don't you? The Pope in Rome is the authority. He speaks ex cathedra. Ipse dixit.

It has the authority of Christ himself, we are told. Now all I'm trying to show you is that that, you see, is a complete denial of what the apostle says in this one phrase here in Romans 12:3 and which he says everywhere else and which the apostle Peter is equally careful to say.

Not as lording it over God's heritage. The minister of Christ is never to be addressed as your lordship or my lord. But you see that's unfortunately what's happened in the church. That's what's gone wrong with the whole history of the church: that the church has departed from the New Testament conception of authority. It has forgotten this perfect blending of authority and humility. Separateness yet sameness. You are, I am. We're all in this together.

Fundamentally we are the same. The division is not a division in terms of men. Authority in the New Testament is always spiritual, never official. That seems to me to be the important principle here. It isn't the office that matters, it's the man. But with the church as she has become, it is the office that matters. It's the office that makes the man.

But in the New Testament, it's different. The authority is in the man and it is a spiritual authority. In other words, there is no such thing as a hierarchy in the New Testament. There are divisions, I'll have to emphasize that, that's what the apostle is doing. There are different offices, there are different callings, there are different gifts, but there is never a hierarchy. There is never this gradation leading up to some ultimate lord who is almost worshipped and who speaks with great authority.

All that has come into the church from the world, from the state. That's where the church went wrong. It didn't even begin at the time of Constantine, it had already been happening in the century before that. You get no trace of that kind of thing in the first two centuries of the Christian era. But the moment you get into the third century, it was beginning to come in.

And these various offices developed. At first you just got presbyters, bishops if you like, presbyters and bishops interchangeable term, and deacons. But in the third century, they began to divide up. Then you got your bishop, your presbyter, and your deacon. Then you had not only a bishop, but you had a kind of civic bishop, bishop in a town as distinct from a bishop in the country.

Then you had what was called a metropolitan, a man in a great capital who was even above the bishops of the cities. And eventually you get the man who was over the whole lot, the Pope of Rome, the Lord of Lords as it were, the one who is supreme. That's what is meant by this notion of hierarchy. And all I'm trying to show you is that it is something that is entirely remote from the New Testament and is indeed a blank contradiction of this essential teaching.

I say unto you through the grace that is given unto me. The apostles were not afraid to be humble. The apostles had no need to dress themselves up or to sit on so-called thrones or to be removed as far away as possible from the people. No, no, they're always amongst the people. They're one with all other Christians. There is the common element that they never forgot. So you have a combination of authority and humility.

And that is always the characteristic of the New Testament teaching with regard to authority. Well, my friends, we must leave it at that, I'm afraid, for tonight. But this is such a tremendously important matter that I felt I must place unusual emphasis upon it. As you think, therefore, about this whole question of church unity and its being pressed upon us in all the denominations and in every conceivable kind of church, do it all in the light of the New Testament teaching.

Ask questions: where has all this come from? Where do I find it in the New Testament? Can I find it there at all? And where has it come from? And so on. And you will find that there is great light on all these subjects here. And here is the greatest, perhaps, of all the apostles who says, I am the least of the apostles, that I'm not worthy to be an apostle. But by the grace of God, I am what I am.

And as I speak to you and teach you, I'm not doing it as a man, not doing it merely as an official. I am doing it through, by means of, as the result of the grace that has been given unto me. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank thee for thy word. We pray thee to open our understandings that we may see the relevance of all this to ourselves and to the situations in which we find ourselves. That we may be able to think and reason in a spiritual and in a scriptural manner. Oh Lord, we pray thee to bless thy word to us to this great and glorious end, that in all things and in all ways we may worthily represent thee in this our day and generation. Hear us, O Lord. Pardon and forgive us for all the imperfection of our service and all that thou dost see in us amiss.

Lord, we thank thee for the grace that sought us and bought us, that leads us and sustains us, and which will hold us to the end. We bless thee more than ever that we are what we are by thy grace. And may that grace, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit, abide and continue with us now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.