2 Corinthians 4:7

TREASURE IN EARTHEN VESSELS

‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’

2 Corinthians 4:7

This metaphor of the Divine treasure in earthen vessels sums up in a picturesque and easily remembered form much of the Apostle’s teaching in this the least systematic of his epistles. It hints at truths which have often been verified, and as often forgotten, in the history of the Christian Church. Let us look at one or two of the lessons which may be learnt from an application of the principle contained in this metaphor. Let us briefly apply it (1) to the Bible, (2) to the Church, (3) to the individual minister of the Gospel.

I. The Bible.—The application of these words to the written records of Revelation is no new thing. In recent times it has been made by Dr. Sanday, one of the most learned and reverent of living critics, in a most helpful book. If few of us can be critics, all of us must be aware of the great change of view which has come about during the last fifty years; and those who are called upon to strengthen the faith of others will soon discover how many shipwrecks of faith, partial or total, have been caused by difficulties about the Bible—its historical accuracy, the apparent conflict between its statements and the discoveries of science, the morality of some of the teaching of the Old Testament. Who has not known instances in which men have found it honestly impossible to retain the theory of inspiration in which they were brought up, and then, in abandoning that theory, have also abandoned wellnigh all belief in the reality of Revelation? Our forefathers saw that in the Bible there was a glorious treasure, and assumed that the vessels which contained it could have no admixture of so common a thing as earth. Our own generation sees that the vessels are of earth, and therefore some men rush to the conclusion that they can contain no Divine treasure. Must we not remember Bishop Butler’s memorable warning against framing our ideas of Revelation by what we should have expected God to do, instead of observing the method which, in point of fact and experience, we see that He has adopted? There are hundreds of difficulties in Biblical criticism which will not be solved in the lifetime of the youngest person here present; on numberless points we must be content to suspend our judgment. But there is no principle that can help us more than that which is contained in this metaphor of St. Paul, more especially because it brings the explanation of the Divine method with regard to Revelation into line with the explanation of the working of the Holy Spirit upon mankind in general.

II. From the Bible we turn to the Church.—Here again history tells us the same tale. Just as men constructed false theories of mechanical inspiration because they did not understand that the Divine treasure could be contained in earthen vessels, so, for the same reason, they have sometimes contructed false or exaggerated theories about the Church, which is the witness and keeper of Holy Writ, the ‘Spirit-bearing body.’ Men have thought it a dishonour to God to suppose that His Church could ever be polluted by sin or deceived by erroneous doctrine. More than once in the history of the Church, from the Montanists of the second century to the Puritans of modern times, there have been zealots who would fain have uprooted the tares without delay, and have purged the Church of all unworthy members. And just as men have often sought an impossible perfection in the Church on earth, so also have they looked for an unattainable freedom from error. Sometimes, as by the Church of Rome at the present day, this infallibility has been attributed to an individual; sometimes, and with much better reason, it has been supposed to reside in the general voice of the Church as expressed in its assemblies. But a patient study of the Divine method seems to show that God does not work after this fashion. Do not misunderstand me. It is not that I would belittle the Church’s mission or disparage her authority, or cast doubt upon the reality of the guidance of the Holy Spirit from age to age. God forbid! What I urge is that, as in the written Revelation, so here also, this guidance does not supersede the human channel or overpower the human instrument. Doubtless our Lord might have committed to the Church, or to its chief ruler, the power of deciding every doubt with infallible certainty, just as He might have invoked legions of angels to deliver Him from death. But we know that He did not choose that method of deliverance for Himself; and the Church, which is His Body, shares in the humiliation to which His human Body was made subject. The Church, indeed, is indestructible—the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Yet it has its dark hours, its agonies, its periods of corruption, as well as its times of illumination and refreshment. It has been stained by the cruelties of persecution; by the profligacies of its spiritual rulers—its teaching has at times been largely overlaid with travesties of the Gospel. Even now we see it rent asunder, and weakened by disunion. Few of us can read Church history without a sense of melancholy, almost of despair; and yet we have been told on excellent authority that the study of Church history is the best cordial for drooping spirits. What is the explanation of the paradox? Surely this. If we look at the human element only, at the earthen vessels, our spirits sink when we see their frailty and unworthiness. If we look at the Divine element—the unfailing treasure of the knowledge of the glory of God in Jesus Christ—we take courage again, for we perceive that even through human shortcomings God is fulfilling Himself in many ways—in many fragments and after divers fashions—and that the exceeding greatness of the power is of Him and not of man.

III. As with the Bible and the Church, so it is with the individual minister of the Gospel.—There are few, perhaps, among those who have been set apart for God’s service who have not felt what Isaiah and Jeremiah felt. ‘I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.’ ‘Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.’ It is well that we should feel this, and remember our own unworthiness; and yet we must not let the feeling paralyse us. We must remember also the live coal from off the altar, the touching of the mouth by the hand of God. God chooses us poor earthen vessels; and even when He has committed to us the Divine treasure, earthen we still remain. The great contrast must not unfit us for our task. It must not make us reject the call when first it comes, or despair when in after-years we have to acknowledge mistake after mistake, failure upon failure. God, we believe, has chosen us as His instruments. He has made our poor humanity the medium of the Divine message to mankind; and we know that wherever in this life the human element meets the Divine there must be this contrast, this overpowering sense of imperfection and incongruity. But here again a study of the past may help us. Christ chose twelve Apostles, and amongst them there was a Thomas who doubted, a Peter who denied, a Judas who betrayed. And from that day to this the work of the Church has been carried on by men who, if in some cases they have been canonised after death, certainly had their faults very freely recognised when they were alive. Martyrs, confessors, saints, and doctors of the Church—a noble army truly, but still an army composed of men of like passions with ourselves; and in proportion as each deserved the name of ‘saint,’ he was most conscious, probably, of his own inadequacy for his mighty task.

—Rev. Chancellor Hobhouse.

Illustration

‘There was a “crisis” in the Church of Corinth; we see it both in the First Epistle and in the Second. There were scandals in the Church of Corinth. The First Epistle tells us what they were—faction and partisanship, spiritual pride, doubts and false doctrines about the Resurrection, profligacy, drunkenness, apparent relapse into the notorious wickednesses of the pagan community which surrounded the new-born Church. We know how St. Paul dealt with these matters in the First Epistle. Yet the troubles were not at an end. St. Paul’s opponents were still active. During his absence they undermined his position by assailing his Apostolic authority, by slandering his personal character, by ridiculing his physical infirmities, by trying to emphasise the differences between Jewish and Gentile converts, by appealing to the superior claims of those who, like St. Peter, had been the companions of Jesus Christ in the days of His flesh. And what was St. Paul’s line of defence against these attacks? He traces back his authority to our Lord Himself, he speaks of the “visions” which had been vouchsafed to him, as well as to the “more abundant labours” which were the best evidence of Apostolic mission. As he confesses repeatedly in a half-ironical tone, he has recourse to “boasting,” his critics have forced him into it. He is possessed with a sense of the dignity of his office, the truth of his “Gospel,” the importance of his mission, the real value of the results already achieved; and yet, in the midst of this same “confident boasting,” he never loses sight of his own infirmity, nor forgets the disproportion between the worker and the work. For himself, he is content that it should be so, provided only that the message of the Gospel is not discredited thereby, provided that men learn to distinguish between the precious treasure of the Revelation of God through Jesus Christ and the “earthen vessels” in which that treasure is contained.’