The worker and the word - Chambers, Oswald
Aspect of sacred authority
(Matthew 21:23)
Authority means a rule to which the worker is bound in loyalty. It is not sufficient to say, because Jesus Christ says so, therefore you must obey, unless we are talking to people who know who Jesus Christ is. Authority must be of a moral, not a superstitious character. In the old days it was the authority of the church, or the authority of the bible; both these were external authorities, not indigenous to man. Nowadays people are saying, bother6 external authority; why should i accept external authority? Immediately a man becomes spiritual by being born from above (rv mg), the bible becomes his authority, because he discerns a law in his conscience that has no objective resting place save in the bible; and when the bible is quoted, instantly his intuition says, yes, that must be the truth; not because the bible says so, but because he discerns what the bible says to be the word of god for him. When a man is born from above (rv mg) he has a new internal standard, and the only objective standard that agrees with it is the word of god as expressed in the bible. What is needed to-day is not a new gospel, but live men and women who can re-state the gospel of the son of god in terms that will reach the very heart of our problems. To-day men are flinging the truth overboard as well as the terms. Why should we not become workmen who need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth to our own people? The majority of orthodox ministers are hopelessly useless, and the unorthodox seem to be the only one Who are used. We need men and women saturated with the truth of god who can re-state the old truth in terms that appeal to our day.
Aspect of social authority
( john 18:36)
Christianity is in its essence social. When once we begin to live from the otherworldly standpoint, as Jesus Christ wants us to live, we shall need all the fellowship with other Christians we can get. Some of us can do without church fellowship because we are not Christians of the otherworldly order. Immediately a man dares to live on Jesus Christs line, the world, the flesh and the devil are dead against him in every particular. The only virtue you will have in the eyes of the world as my disciples, says Jesus, is that you will be hated. That is why we need to be knit together with those of like faith; and that is the meaning of the christian church.
In the old days the ecclesiastics used to dictate, now they are ignored, and instead we have a society of men as they are. In the present day we have to face a brotherhood of men apart from Jesus Christ. If a man stands on the present system of civilisation as one of the general brotherhood of men, and yet pro- claims a different brotherhood, that of the disciples of Jesus Christ, john 16:2 will be the result, they shall put you out of the synagogues. According to Jesus Christ, Christianity is a society based on the brother- hood of men who have been lifted into a right relationship with god by regeneration. My kingdom is not of this world, said Jesus, and yet we are more inclined to take our orders from the world than from Jesus Christ.
Aspect of personality
( john 17:22)
The conception which Jesus Christ had of society was that men might be one with him as he was one with the father. The full or bed meaning of the term personality in its fundamental aspect is a being created by god who has lived on this earth and formed his character. The majority of us are not personalities as yet, we are beginning to be, and our value to god in his kingdom depends on the development and growth of our personality. There is a difference between being saved and sanctified by the sheer sovereign grace of god and choosing to be the choice ones, not for heaven, but down here. The average view of Christianity, that we only need to have faith and we are saved, is a stumbling-block. How many of us care anything about being witnesses to Jesus Christ? How many of us are willing to spend every ounce of energy we have, every bit of mental, moral and spiritual life for Jesus Christ? That is the meaning of a worker in gods sense. God has left us on earth, what for? To be saved and sanctified? No, to be at it for him. If we are footing it7 bit by bit, and living in the otherworldly spirit while in the world, we are developing our personality, and are of far more worth to Jesus Christ than those who have entered into the experience of sanctification but have never gone on any farther.
Are we willing to be broken bread and poured- out wine in Jesus Christs hands for others? To be spoilt for this age, for this life, this time, spoilt from every standpoint saving as we can disciple men and women to him? My life as a worker is the way i say thank you to god for his unspeakable salvation. The hatred and the indignation of the world does not come when we are sanctified; it comes when we try to live our daily life according to the rule of sanctification. It is not preaching sanctification that awakens resentment, but living the life to which sanctification introduces us, the life of oneness with Jesus Christ, and insisting that that oneness be manifested in our practical life. Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man. . . . From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. It is quite possible for anyone to be cast out as reprobate silver, lest that by any means, . . . I myself should be a castaway.