What should be the mission of the church?

The Church has been left on earth to be a witness for Christ during the time of His absence. This is its great privilege, and this is its responsibility.

But what about the process by which this end is to be reached? This is simplicity itself. Amongst all nations, said the Lord, "ye shall be witnesses to Me." No elaborate arrangements were made. No cumbrous machinery was instituted. Christ and all that He stands for is to be the subject of testimony, and every disciple according to his or her measure is to be a witness-bearer. In thus way the plan will be put into execution.

For the Christianizing or converting of the world much may be needed in the way of arrangement. For the taking out of the nations a people for Christ's name, the divine process indicated, though most simple, is most efficacious. Souls are drawn out of the world to Christ by the faithful presentation of Christ Himself in the way of testimony. Granted that such faithful witness to Christ is maintained, it is only further necessary that immediate and personal dependence upon Christ as Leader and Lord be found with each servant for the service to achieve its object.

If I speak of the gospel, do I merely mean the tidings that would tell a poor sinner how to get rid of his or her sins? By no means! There is the thought of what it is to have the blessed God, in all the magnificence of His love and grace revealed, and made known here, to the hearts of men, and they brought to know Himself, and brought into the joy of His own love. All such, so blessed, form the Church. You cannot have the gospel standing alone, and leave out the thought of the Church. And I believe the man who is seeking to do that is doing very poor and unsatisfactory work. No, they are really one. The gospel produces the Church, and the Church is sustained, or enlarged by the gospel.

During the present period of grace, God calls (out of the world) a people for His name (Acts 15:14). The thought of Christ is of realizing the "increase of His body to the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:16. To this end, He gives some evangelists for bringing souls to Him, joining them to His body which grows in number. He gives also some pastors and teachers in the assembly, for the perfecting of the saints; the body thus grows in the knowledge of Christ.

Yet in many ways the teaching of the New Testament has been degraded to something merely earthly and social. Instead of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, only charity is preached, and this often with a political flavour. This, however, is not the meaning of the “Sermon on the Mount” or the gospel of the grace of God! On the other hand it is no testimony to the grace and mercy of our God if one thinks that preaching the gospel is the only task of a Christian with regard to the world. As our Lord Himself helped those in their different needs to whom He presented the good tidings, we too can tell our neighbours of Him and at the same time show them the power and blessing of our faith practically.

1889 332 One principal purpose which the Lord had in view, by continuing for a season in their present state the people who should be gathered together in one, through His death, was that a practical witness of the character of God might be given to the world; and this in the joint testimony of those who by one Spirit were united together; and who, though not indeed taken out of the world, were to be delivered from the evil of it. Such was the church, whilst continuing in holy separateness; it was a living warning to all around, "of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." But where is that witness now? A long and dreary period has passed away since the church stood as a burning and a shining light; and the very name of christian was sufficient to brand its possessor as an enemy of the world. Its failure is continually and painfully exhibited in the overwhelming mass of nominal profession, which now assumes its place, and the perplexity and inconsistency which tarnish the walk of many a child of God in the present day.

1880 29 Preaching is a testimony for Christ; but the more practical thing here referred to is different. There is a testimony which God secures, as in Ephesians 3, "Unto angels, and principalities, and powers," etc. Now the very existence of the church is this testimony in heavenly places. Whenever God acts, He necessarily testifies to Himself; but the church is that which comes in between the earthly dispensations, and set for a peculiar testimony, and the only right testimony we can bear must flow from knowing what Christ is in connection with us. If I acted as a righteous Jew, it would be no testimony to Christ as Head of the church. All other testimony would be idle, useless, and false. To the Jew it is said, This people have I formed for My praise. This only could be as they knew what God had done for them. So the Christian can only glorify Christ by this new kind of witness, which the church is made to be. Now that the Messiah is lifted up, it brings in altogether a new kind of witness. The witness down here is according to the place God has given it in Christ, bringing down into details before men the great principles in which we stand before God. As He said, "I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world."

27 It is matter of great thankfulness that, notwithstanding the scattering of the church, by its becoming of this world as a body, and its most imperfect revival by the discovery of the free hope of glory, believers have a way before them marked in the word; that, if we are not given to see as yet the glory of the children of God, the path of that glory in the wilderness should be revealed to us. We are assured, in doctrine, that the death of the Lord, in whom the free gift came, is the sole foundation on which a soul is built for eternal glory. In truth it is only to believers in this that I address myself. Our duty as believers is to be witnesses of what we believe. "Ye," says the God of the Jews by the prophet Isaiah, "are my witnesses," in His challenge to the false gods; and as Christ is the faithful and true Witness, such ought the church to be. "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye may shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." Of what then is the church to be a witness - against the idolatrous glory of the world? Even of that glory into which Christ has risen, by their practical conformity to His death; of their true belief in the cross, by their being crucified to the world, and the world to them. Unity, the unity of the church, to which "the Lord added daily such as should be saved" (the saved*), was when none said anything was his own, and "their conversation was in heaven"; for they could not be divided in the common hope of that. It knit men's hearts together by necessity. The Spirit of God has left it upon record, that division began about the goods of the church, even in their best use, on the part of those interested in them; for there could be division, there could be selfish interests. Am I desiring believers to correct the churches? I am beseeching them to correct themselves, by living up, in some measure, to the hope of their calling. I beseech them to shew their faith in the death of the Lord Jesus, and their boast in the glorious assurance which they have obtained by it, by conformity to it - to shew their faith in His coming, and practically to look for it by a life suitable to desires fixed upon it. Let them testify against the secularity and blindness of the church; but let them be consistent in their own conduct. "Let your moderation be known to all men."

You who read the Scriptures cannot be ignorant of these things; and, happily, in this country, at any rate, most men read the Bible, and you must know that I am referring to plain positive Scripture in what I have been saying. The Bible is an open book in Scotland, and the children learn to read it, even though sometimes their elders do not explain it to them as it might be looked for. But there it is, and in very plain terms in the last book of the New Testament. Further, it is quite a mistake to suppose that it is only the last book of the New Testament which speaks of that day. On the contrary, all the Old Testament prophets are full of it, though they do not define it as a period of a thousand years. This was hidden from them. It awaited a prophet still greater than they. It was suitable in God's wisdom that John the Evangelist should be also John the Prophet, and that he should remove the veil off those times and seasons which the Lord would not allow His disciples to occupy themselves with when He was going up to heaven. It was enough for them to know, not the times and seasons of the redemption of Israel, but that now God the Father was about to accomplish the promise of the Holy Ghost, and to make them witnesses for Jesus throughout all the earth; and this is going on now. Witnessing to the Lord Jesus by the Holy Ghost is now proceeding. That is what we commonly call the gospel, and very rightly. But along with the gospel you must always remember there goes the church — the gospel being the testimony of God to every creature, and the church being the gathering together of those that receive the gospel and acknowledge the Lord Jesus, baptized by one Spirit into that which is called in Scripture the body of Christ.