9-4 God Chooses To Depend Upon Us

How far His affairs prosper is dependent upon the zeal and initiative of us His stewards (Lk. 19:12,13; 1 Cor. 4:1,2). The disciples wondered why only they had been chosen- for wasn’t God’s plan to invite the whole world to salvation in Jesus? The Lord replied by saying that “I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit” (Jn. 14:22; 15:1-11). His function was to nourish the branches, the life which they drew from Him and lived, this would bring forth the fruit which would offer all men salvation. And this is perhaps why initial preaching by bills and adverts in a new area of the world brings forth response, but it dries up once a few converts are made. It is their duty to bring forth more fruit in that area. In another figure, Christ is the head, we are the body. As a man may have a healthy head and mind, and yet be limited by the weakness of his limbs- so with the Lord Jesus. 1 Cor. 12:21 gives something more than a random example: the head (the Lord Jesus) cannot do without the feet (a symbol of the preacher in Rom. 10:15). In the work of witness especially, the Head is reliant on the preacher for the work He wills to be done. He likens preaching to drag net fishing (Mt. 13:47), in which one big fishing boat drags a net which is tied to a small dinghy. God’s fishing is thus dependent on us, the smaller boat, working with Him. Thus the harvest was plenteous during the Lord’s ministry, but relatively few were converted due to the dearth of labourers (Mt. 9:37 implies). The victorious truth that “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” is purposefully juxtaposed against the next clause, which seems to contradict it: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations...” (Mt. 28:18,19). Through teaching and baptising all nations, the extent of that universal power is made known. But it depends on the freewill obedience of the believers to this commission. The Lord had the Spirit without measure, and yet He “could not” do many miracles in Nazareth because of their unbelief. And not only on a personal level, but also collectively, we can limit the amount and extent of witness. Thus Paul had a door opened to him to preach in Troas, but the ecclesial problems in Corinth that were so sapping his energy meant he had to leave those opportunities inadequately used (2 Cor. 2:12,13 RSV).

Preparing The Way For Others

The command to prepare a way along which to flee to the cities of refuge (Dt. 19:3) is expressed with the very same words used about God through the Angels preparing a way for Israel to flee along, out of Egypt to the promised land (Ex. 23:20). This was obviously done purely at God’s initiative. But now, Israel were asked to do the same- to prepare a way for their and others’ salvation. When we reflect upon our own way of escape from this world, it’s clear enough that it was by grace. By God’s sole initiative we came into contact with the Gospel, or were born into such a family at such a time as enabled us to hear it. Our response to that grace must be like Israel’s- to prepare a way for others to flee, when they like us find themselves in a situation that is spiritually against them, although not of their conscious choice. In fact, if Israel were indifferent to preparing the way for others’ salvation, then innocent blood would be shed and they would be responsible for it (Dt. 19:10). This is powerful stuff. Indifference to providing others with a way of escape from their sin and death means we are actually guilty of their lack of salvation. And yet we tend to think that committed sin is all we have to worry about / avoid. The lesson here, however, bites far more caustically and insistently into our comfort zone. If we are indifferent to marking out the way of escape for others, their blood will be upon our heads. Our chief excuses for not witnessing enthusiastically basically amount to laziness, indifference, not getting our act together because we don’t see we have to… when actually, there is an intense urgency about our task.

All this doesn't mean that God doesn't participate in the salvation process, and has 100% turned it over to us. How could He ever be like that, when the whole marvellous plan involved the giving of His Son? There is an interplay between God’s calling of men, and human participation in that outreach. The case of Paul exemplifies this. Without the vital work of Ananias, he wouldn’t have been able- in one sense- to come to Christ. And yet it was God who called Paul. ‘Ananias’ means ‘the grace of God’. And several times Paul alludes to this, saying that “By [Gk. ‘on account of’] the grace of God [i.e. Ananias] I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10; Gal. 1:15; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:14). His conversion was by both God and Ananias. And thus we see the seamless connection in every conversion between God’s role, and that of the preacher.

God reconciled the world; but the word of reconciliation is committed unto us (2 Cor. 5:19). All men were reconciled to God on the cross, even while they were sinners (Rom. 5:10); but it depends upon us to take that Gospel of reconciliation to them. So far as we fail in this, so far we leave His death for them in vain, only a potential achievment. We were given reconcilliation personally (Rom. 5:11 RV); and we are also given “the ministry of reconcilliation”, the command to preach that reconcilliation and share it with others (2 Cor. 5:10). To be reconciled to God is to be given a charge to reconcile others. Consider how the unclean animals which Peter saw in the vision represented all the Gentile world (Acts 10:15,28). They had already all been “cleansed” by the blood of Christ, but He was dead in vain, the cleansing achieved for nothing, unless the likes of Peter took the message to them. The more and the wider and the more powerfully we do this, the more we enable the cross of Christ to be victorious, to achieve its end, the more ‘worthwhile’ as it were was the Lord’s sacrifice. Acts 15:17 (cp. Am. 9:12) encourages us to preach to the Gentiles “upon whom my name is [Amos says ‘has already been’] called”. The Name is called upon us by baptism; yet in prospect, in potential, the Name has already been called upon the whole world. But it is for us to go and convert them. This explains why Paul is spoken of as having been a convert before he actually was. Consider:

- He wrote that he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. He seems to be alluding to the practice of branding runaway slaves who had been caught with the letter F in their forehead, for fugitivus. His whole thinking was dominated by this awareness that like Jonah he had sought to run, and yet had by grace been received into his Master’s service. But the figure implies that he already was a slave of Jesus at the time of his ‘capture’ in conversion.

- Ananias addresses him as ‘brother’, possibly in realization of this.

- Paul was as an ox bound to a yoke, kicking against the goads. But it was as if he was already bound into Christ’s light yoke.