0375. LIVING EPISTLES.

LIVING EPISTLES.

"Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God" (2Co_3:3).

An epistle is just a letter or something one has written for the good of another. It may contain the revelation of one man’s thoughts and feelings to another. The visible creation is a great letter spread out before the eyes of men, in which we may read the wisdom and power of God. Providence is another letter written by the finger of God, but not every one can read it aright; it is very frequently read "through a glass darkly." The Church is the epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of God, and sent to the world as an expression of His love and grace and power and of the "manifold wisdom of God." Every Christian is a paragraph of this great letter, written not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. "Ye are His workmanship."

I. A letter is written on prepared material. Not on the table of the stony heart, but on the fleshy table of the new heart (Eze_36:26-27). Not on the rotten rags of our own righteousness, but on the white linen of His own righteousness, which is unto all that believe (Jer_31:33).

II. A letter bears the expression of the writer.

Every true believer is an expression of the character and mind of Christ. "The Epistle of Christ." "The words which Thou hast given Me, I have given them." "Thou shalt speak My words faithfully." "We have the mind of Christ."

III. A letter bears the signature of the writer. His Name is put upon His people. His Name is to be signed at all we do and added to all we ask. "If ye ask anything in My Name I will do it." "Yet not I, but Christ."

IV. A letter should be legible. What is the use of a letter if it cannot be understood. Some professing Christians are about as difficult to make out as the autograph of some writers, the letters are so badly formed that it is next to impossible to get the right message out of them. Peter and John, as epistles, were large and legible (Act_4:13). Let your light so shine.

V. A letter should be free of blots. If there is a big blot on the letter you send, the blot will likely be the first thing noticed. Faults are easily seen. If as epistles of Christ we are blotted, it is certain the blots are not the writer’s doing. His work is perfect. If there are blots, thank God there is a blot-eraser provided (1Jn_1:7).

VI. A letter is known by its handwriting. There was no mistaking the "writing on the wall" (Dan_5:5-6). Does not the world look on the character of every Christian and still keep asking, "Whose image and superscription is this?" If we have been made partakers of the divine nature, the Lord, whose writing we are, knoweth them that are His, although the world should know us not. There is another handwriting that He will not own (Mat_7:23; Mat_13:40-42).

Autor: James Smith