3. The Responsive Martyrdom of the Missionary

The Key to the Missionary Message

Luke 24:47-49

1. The Remissionary Message of the Missionary

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name . . . (Luke 24:47)

It is easy to forget that the first duty of the missionary is not to uplift the heathen, not to heal the sick, not to civilise savage races, because all that sounds so rational and so human, and it is easy to arouse interest in it and get funds for it. The primary duty of the missionary is to preach “repentance and remission of sins . . . in His name.” The key to the missionary message, whether the missionary is a doctor, a teacher, an industrial worker, or a nurse—the key is the remissionary purpose of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s death. The idea of the “missionary” class, the “ministerial” class, the “Christian worker” class has arisen out of our ideas of civilised life, not out of the New Testament faith and order. The New Testament faith and order is that as Christians we do not cease to do our duty as ordinary human beings, but in addition we have been given the key to the missionary message, viz., the proclaiming of the remissionary purpose of the Life and Death of Our Lord. The other work is to be done so instinctively and naturally that it does not interfere with proclaiming the missionary message. We need to remember that Christians must do all that human beings ought to do, and much more, because they are supernaturally endued, but we must never confound that with what Our Lord has entrusted His servants to do, viz., to go and make disciples (rv).

(a) The Limitless Significance of Christ the Lamb of God (1 John 2:2)

It is possible to take any phase of Our Lord’s life, the healing phase, the teaching phase, the saving and sanctifying phase, but there is nothing limitless about any of these. But take this: “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” That is limitless. The key to the missionary message is the limitless significance of Jesus as the propitiation for our sins. A missionary is one who is soaked in the revelation that Jesus Christ is “the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” The key to the missionary message is not the kindness of Jesus; not His going about doing good; not His revealing of the Fatherhood of God; but the remissionary aspect of His life and death. This aspect alone has a limitless significance.

(b) The Limitless Significance of Sin Against the Lamb of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)

If the significance of Christ as the propitiation for sins is limitless, the domain to which His propitiation applies is limitless also. Sinfulness against Christ is as limitless as the propitiation. “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned” (Romans 5:12 rv). We are apt to talk sentimental nonsense about the Universal Fatherhood of God; to knock the bottom board out of Redemption by saying that God is love and of course He will forgive sin. When the Holy Spirit comes, He makes us know that God is holy love, and therefore He cannot forgive sin apart from the Atonement; He would contradict His own nature if He did. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favour, is through the Cross of Christ, and in no other way.

“Him who knew no sin He made to be sin” (rv). Jesus Christ went through identification with sin, and put away sin on the Cross, so that every man on earth might be freed from sin by the right of His Atonement. God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint—“that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (rv).

The key to the missionary message is not man’s views or predilections regarding Redemption, but the revelation given by Our Lord Himself concerning His life and death, “the Son of man came . . . to give His life a ransom for many.”^† When the Holy Ghost comes in, He brings us into touch with the Lord Jesus Himself, and gives us the key to the missionary message, which is not the proclaiming of any particular view of salvation, but the proclaiming of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The Holy Ghost sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, and the love of God is world-wide; there is no patriotism in the missionary message. This does not mean that patriots do not become missionaries, but it does mean that the missionary message is not patriotic. The missionary message is irrespective of all race conditions, it is for the whole world. “God so loved the world. . . .”

Sin against Christ the Lamb of God is world-wide, the propitiation of Christ is world-wide, and the missionary’s message is world-wide; it is a message not of condemnation, but of remission. “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations” (rv).

The only final thing in the world is the Redemption of Jesus Christ.

The significance of the sermon on Christ the Lamb of God is limitless because He is the Lamb of God, not of man. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The Bible reveals all through that Our Lord bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He came here for one purpose only—to bear away the sin of the world in His own Person on the Cross. He came to redeem men, not to set them a wonderful example. We have to beware of becoming the advocate of a certain view of the limitless. The Redemption avails for everyone—“The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” not the sin of those who belong to any particular country, but the sin of the world. The words are worthy only of Almighty God’s wisdom, not of man’s.

2. The Regenerative Magnitude of the Mission

preached in His name among all nations, beginning from [rv] Jerusalem . . .

“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (Revelation 14:4). These words form a magnificent commentary on sacramental preaching, i.e., preaching in His name.

(a) The Personal Possession of the Nature of the Lamb of God

Jesus spoke these words to His disciples, and to no one else. To be a disciple means to be a believer in Jesus—one who has given up his right to himself to the ownership of Christ. “You must possess My nature in yourselves,” says Jesus, “then go and preach in My Name”—in My nature.

(b) The Powerful Programme of the Naiveté of the Lamb of God

Naiveté means natural simplicity and unreservedness of thought. The Divine simplicity of the phrase —“preached in His name”! It is entirely free from diplomacy in any shape or form. The amazing simplicity of the nature of God is foolish judged by human wisdom; but “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”

The key to the missionary message is the proclamation of this gospel of propitiation for the sins of the whole world. We must be careful lest we become too wise for Jesus and say—“Oh but the people will never understand.” We should say—“God knows how to make them understand, therefore we will do what He tells us.” If we have got hold of the truth of God for ourselves, we have to give it out and not try to explain it. It is our explanations of God’s truth that befog men. Let the truth come out in all its rugged force and strength, and it will take effect in its own way. “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached . . .” We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.

“. . . among all nations, beginning from [rv] Jerusalem.” The particular place where Our Lord tells His disciples to begin is where He is not believed in; and we do not need to go to the back of beyond for that. The first place may be inside our own skull, in the intellect that will not believe in Him. If we remain true to Jesus Christ and to His command to preach in His name, it will mean encountering hostility when we come in contact with the culture and wisdom and education that is not devoted to Jesus.

3. The Responsive Martyrdom of the Missionary

. . . And ye are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:48 )

These imperative words are spoken to Jesus Christ’s disciples. A witness is one who has deliberately given up his life to the ownership of another, not to a cause, and death will never make him swerve from his allegiance.

(a) The Wonder of Witnessing

“Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you,” and in Acts 1:8 Jesus tells them what the result of the coming of the promise of the Father will be, “Ye shall be My witnesses” (rv). Many a man is prevented from being a witness to Jesus by over-zealousness for His cause. “What are you being trained for? Are you going to be a minister, a deaconess, a missionary? What is the use of all this training?” Bible training and missionary training is not meant to train men for a purpose for which human nature can train itself. Religious institutions start out on the right line of making witnesses to Jesus, then they get swept off on to the human line and begin to train men for certain things, to train for a cause, or a special enterprise, or for a denomination, and the more these training places are multiplied, the less chance is there of witnesses to Jesus being made. Nowadays we are in danger of reversing Jesus Christ’s order. There stands the eternal word of Christ—“As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” (rv). Too often a missionary is sent first by a denomination, and secondly by Christ. We may talk devoutly about Jesus in our meetings, but He has to take the last place.

One way in which Satan comes as an angel of light to Christians to-day is by telling them there is no need to use their minds. We must use our minds; we must keep the full power of our intellect ablaze for God on any subject that awakens us in our study of His word, always keeping the secret of the life hid with Christ in God. Think of the sweat and labour and agony of nerve that a scientific student will go through in order to attain his end; then think of the slipshod, lazy way we go into work for God.

(b) The Woe of Witnessing

A missionary is one who is wedded to the charter of his Lord and Master. “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” It is easier to belong to a coterie and tell what God has done for us, or to become a devotee to Divine healing, or a special type of sanctification. Paul did not say—“Woe is unto me if I do not preach what Jesus Christ has done for me,” but—“Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” Personal experience is a mere illustration that explains the wonderful difference the Gospel has made in us. Our experience is the gateway into the Gospel for us; but it is not the Gospel. This is the Gospel: “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name.”

Worship is the love offering of our keen sense of the worth-ship of God. True worship springs from the same source as the missionary himself. To worship God truly is to become a missionary, because our worship is a testimony to Him. It is presenting back to God the best He has given to us, publicly not privately. Every act of worship is a public testimony, and is at once the most personally sacred and the most public act that God demands of His faithful ones.

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