of the Christian Ministry.
The gift is conveyed once for all. It is made part of the life of the whole Society, flowing from the relation of the body to the Risen Christ.
Before His Passion Christ had given to His disciples ( a ) the power of the keys to open the treasury of the Kingdom of Heaven and dispense things new and old;
( b ) power to bind and to loose, to fix and to unfix ordinances for the government of the new Society.
Now (
c
) as Conqueror He added the authority to deal with sins.
The message of the Gospel is the glad tidings of sin conquered. To apply this to each man severally is the office of the Church and so of each member of the Church. To embrace it personally is to gain absolution.
He to whom the word comes can appropriate or reject the message of deliverance which we as Christians are authorised to bear. As he does so, we, speaking in Christ's name, either remove the load by which he is weighed down or make it more oppressive.
To this end all the sacraments and ordinances of Christianity combine, to deepen the conviction of sin and to announce forgiveness of sin.
In the first age, however, it is perfectly clear from the Pauline Epistles, that the Christian Society was not as yet under any rigid organisation; there was not as yet a recognised ecclesiastical hierarchy.
In some of these Epistles, particularly in 1 Cor. 12:28 and Eph. 4:11, specific offices are named.
Thus in 1 Cor. 12:27 St Paul says to the Church of Corinth, Ye are a body of Christ, and members in particular; and then in vs. 28 Godset ( e[qeto )in the Church first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers,then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues.
And in Eph. 4:11 he writes, And He Himself gave some as Apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.
But the offices named are not parts of a hierarchy. They are related to personal gifts.
The language of the verse in the Ephesian Epistle, indeed, clearly excludes the idea of the existence, at that time, of any Divinely ordered hierarchy.
The gift which Christ gave to the Church was a gift of men. It was a double gift. He first endowed the men, and then gave them, endowed, to the Church.
Through their work the character of permanent offices became revealed. There is in the New Testament no trace of any rigid universal constitution of the Christian Society.
Divine gifts for its edification are recognised. These appear to be general, and stand prominent.
There are also ecclesiastical offices. The presbyterate, as yet identical with the episcopate, is practically universal. Deacons are treated of by St Paul as universal: though there is no trace of any perpetuation of the seven.
There is no definition of the respective duties of presbyters or of deacons. Timothy appears to have apostolic functions by ordination.