(Continued from page 211.)

If Christ had a ministry in which He addressed Himself to the Jewish nation as such, He had also a ministry in which He specifically addressed Himself to the true children of God in the midst of it. In John 10 He speaks of thus ministering to the true sheep of the Jewish fold. Peter was given a ministry of like nature-a ministry specially intended for the real believer among the circumcised. In John at:15-17 our Lord commissions Peter to shepherd and feed His lambs and sheep.

The Lord knew what the lambs and sheep among the circumcision would need. He knew what persecutions they would have to endure. He knew the stiffneckedness, the unbelief, the blindness of the rulers and leaders of the nation, and that they would forbid teaching and preaching in His name. Accordingly He provided for the need of His true sheep. He knew they would need the most considerate nourishing, the tenderest care and oversight, diligent strengthening and constant encouraging.

Carefully and effectually training Peter for this special service to the objects of His tender interest and love, He puts them into Peter's care-He entrusts them to him. Hence a special ministry is given to Peter. If he was to have a ministry in which he would address himself to the nation as such, so also was he to have a special ministry in which he would address himself specifically to the believers in the midst of the nation.

If in the earlier chapters of the book of Acts we have the record of that ministry carried out by Peter, in which the nation of Israel as such is addressed, the two epistles of Peter carry out a special ministry to the persecuted and dispersed disciples- the followers of the despised and rejected Messiah.

Of course, in speaking of Peter's ministry in his epistles as especially intended for converted Jews, I do not wish to be understood as meaning that it has no application to a wider circle. It certainly applies to all Christians, but its primary application is to believers connected with Israel wherever they have been scattered (i Pet. 1:152 Pet. i:i).

I do not need here to consider this ministry in detail. It will be sufficient to characterize it as a ministry in which the government of God is explained:in the first epistle, as being the Father's discipline of His children ; and, in the second, in its bearings upon the world. The first epistle shows that the governmental ways of God are pregnant with inestimable blessing for the children; the second shows their issue for the world in a sweeping judgment after long-suffering and patient waiting for it to repent.

In the second epistle Peter says he writes as anticipating soon to put off his tabernacle. Writing thus that what he had ministered to them may abide in power in their minds, he completes or fills out the service with which his Lord had entrusted him, in commending to them the ministry of Paul (chap. 3:15, 16).

John's written ministry was then not begun, but Paul's was practically, if not entirely, finished. Before turning to John's ministry I will seek to characterize that of Paul.

I will notice that Paul also had a double ministry:one towards the world-the nations-all men; the
other, towards the body of Christ, the Church (Col. i:23, 84). In either case it was a ministry of the grace of God-a dispensing of blessings from God, whether to believers individually or collectively.

A word of explanation is perhaps necessary here. In the Old Testament times promises were made, but the blessings implied in the promises were not dispensed. When our Lord was on earth He did dispense certain blessings to individuals where He found faith. He did minister the forgiveness of sins, for instance, to individuals who believed; but He did not minister the full blessing that goes with the fulfilment of the promise of forgiveness; nor did He, in the days of His flesh, give the Holy Spirit.

In connection with the ministry of Peter there was both the ministration of the forgiveness of sins and of the Holy Spirit; yet Peter did not minister the fulness of blessing which is the present portion and possession of faith. In God's wisdom, this was reserved for Paul. The full range of faith's blessings, so far as they are now bestowed, is through the ministry of Paul. We have also in Paul's ministry the blessings that are in hope-that is, what will yet be done for us and given to us as completing the blessings which redemption has acquired for us.

What we find in Paul's ministry, then, is the entire sphere of blessing in which God displays His wondrous grace. Paul thus occupies us with what, in a true sense, we may speak of as outward or external-not unreal, far from it; it is a most real display of the grace of God.

But we now turn to John's ministry. Its leading feature is that it occupies us with God Himself-with
what He is in Himself. It is what is intrinsic, essential, underived and eternal. It is the life of God -the eternal life that was ever with the Father. In his Gospel, John's ministry relates to the manifestation of God in His Son become Man. His life on earth is viewed as a declaration of what God is-His nature, character, and life, displayed on earth as testimony to men-the features and characteristics of His unchangeable nature, not only proclaimed, but shown, exhibited.

In the epistles the life that is eternally in the Son and has been manifested among men in its eternal, unchanging nature, is viewed as a communication and the ways in which it displays itself in those to whom it has been communicated are unfolded.

In the book of the Revelation John writes of the ways of the Eternal-He who is the First and the Last, the living One, though He died-in bringing all things into accord with His own eternal nature.

The distinctive features of the ministries of Peter, of Paul, and of John, are distinct and plain. They are in no way in opposition, but perfectly harmonious, each in agreement with the others, none to be pitted against the others. They are not to be compared as if one was paramount to the others. There should be no depreciation of Peter's ministry as if it were defective-not equally perfect with that of Paul or of John. There is a tendency, perhaps naturally in us all, to give a prominence to the blessings ministered by Paul which overshadows the Blesser Himself. It was this tendency that was in the mind of one whose memory we all rightly cherish, when he counseled us not to neglect John in pressing Paul. He did not mean by this advice that John is a balance to Paul, but that the apprehension and enjoyment of John's ministry will be a cure to our proneness of being occupied with the range of our blessings in such a way as to have them more distinctly before our souls than the One who has blessed us.

It is the Blesser Himself with whom John occupies us. What He is-what He is essentially, intrinsically, eternally. What He is in essence, in nature, in character:this is what John shows us.

Beloved brethren, what would all the range of our blessings be without God Himself ? It certainly ought not to need much consideration to realize that the Blesser is greater than the blessings. The Giver is higher than His gifts. Our God and Father is higher, greater than all His hand bestows. The Son of God who came from God and the Father to give us the knowledge of Himself is above the benefits He has procured and secured for us, inestimable as all these are; and we need the sense of this in our souls to keep us from glorifying ourselves on account of the great blessings that have been given us. The ministry of John serves to maintain us in this very needful apprehension.
C. Crain

( To be continued.)