We have all received or sent letters dealing with a wide range of subjects — good news, bad news, greetings, bills, advertising and so forth. Every day generally brings something in the mail. This service extends over the entire earth. If we have friends scattered in various parts of this globe, we can write to them with good assurance that our letters will he delivered to them, and rather speedily, too.
We have grown up with this system and we take it for granted. But the public mail service that we now have is of rather recent origin. It is only a little over a hundred years ago that postage stamps were first used.
There were means of delivering messages down through history, but they were of a private nature, for kings rather than for the public. Job says in 9:25: “My days are swifter than a post (runner) : they flee away, they see no good.”
Perhaps the use of clay tablets may have discouraged too much correspondence, but we read of ink being used by Baruch, who wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation on a scroll. Whatever the material was, Jehoiakim was able to cut it with a pen knife.
In 2nd Chronicles 30:1, we read that Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover, to the Lord, thy God of Israel. “So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his princes as the king had commanded.”
In Ezra we read of letters being sent between the adversaries of the Jews and Artaxerxes, the king. In New Testament times letter writing was still hampered by the lack of organized delivery. But it didn’t hamper the writing ability of the early apostles, particularly Paul. The New Testament is mainly a series of letters, quite different from the presentation of the Old Testament.
We think of all these New Testament letters as coming from the apostles under Spirit guidance, but we do have some directly dictated by Jesus Himself. We all know where they may be found—in the Revelation of Jesus Christ to His servant John. These letters were written to the seven churches or ecclesias which were in Asia. In each of the letters Jesus begins by identifying Himself, which was the usual way of writing in that day.
When the tribune sent Paul from Jerusalem to Felix at Caesarea he used the same form: “Claudius Lysias to his Excellency, governor Felix, greeting.” All the epistles start in the same way with the exception of the “Letter to the Hebrews.” Whoever wrote that letter (and many think it was Paul) thought it better that his identity be not disclosed, possibly for fear of prejudicing the readers.
In our letters we identity ourselves at the end, not at the beginning. These seven letters, although they were written specifically for the seven ecclesias in Asia, can be applied in a general manner to any day and age, for they were written to all who had an ear to hear.
But Jesus wrote other letters, too, and they are still being written, for we read in substance in 2nd Cor. 3: “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again ? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you ? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on tables of human hearts. And you show that you are a letter from Christ to be known and read by all men.”
That is quite a commission, is it not? A letter from Christ. We are not only to be a letter, but an open letter for all to read. For to be known and read by all men is the purpose of an open or unsealed letter. If we sent an open letter to someone nowadays, we would probably send a copy to the newspapers to be printed, so that all could read. What sort of letters are we? Can people read us and know from whence we are ?
When Christ began His letters to the seven ecclesias He left no doubt as to who He was. “The words of the Amen the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation or the words of the holy One, the true One, who has the key of David, who opens, and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens. The words of the first and last, who died and came to life.”
The signature is clear and distinct, and not like some letters we receive in this day and age where it appears that the more important the person is, the harder it is to make out the name.
We are called to be representatives of Christ, to show forth the goodness and mercy of God. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:31,32). We should reveal Christ to the world just as Christ revealed the character of His Father to the world.
“As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word, that they may all be one ; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:18-21).
In each of His children Jesus sends a letter to the world. He is sending, in you, a letter to be read by the people with whom you associate. What a grave responsibility we carry! People judge a religion by its effects upon its converts! You may be the only Bible that some people have ever read, and perhaps through you and your actions they may be led to understand the love of God and he won to love and serve Him.
If we truly represent Christ we should make His service appear as attractive as possible. For we are serving a power infinitely greater than any mortal one. Christians who are gloomy and murmur and complain are giving to others a misrepresentation of Jesus and the Christian life.
We think of Christ as a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and so He was. The cross always before Him would be a very sobering fact. As Isaiah records in 50:7, He set His face as a flint. But He did rejoice, as it is written : “In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them unto babes : yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will” (Luke 10:21).
And that gives us cause for rejoicing, too. David also writes concerning Him : “I saw the Lord before me, for He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced : moreover my flesh will dwell in hope. For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades nor let thy Holy One see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence.”
Jesus with all His trials and weariness did not grumble or complain. All our troubles and tribulations stem back to Eden when Adam with his free will chose the serpent’s advice to be like God, knowing good and evil. So we have the evil, and it is a means of drawing men back to God. And we also see it as a means of developing that character that is pleasing to God, for we must overcome the evil and choose the good.
Do we sometimes think of our pilgrimage in this wilderness of sin as tiresome and get downhearted ? We must not grumble as the Israelites did, during their wanderings in the wilderness. We tend to condemn Israel, but do we complain over things that are not nearly as important ? And little troubles grow into big troubles. Paul declared in Phil. 4:11: “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” These things happened to the Israelite as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction upon whom the end of the ages has come. Remember that there is not much value in reading about Israel unless we put into practice the things that we learn. Israel saw about them the harsh barrenness of the wilderness of Zin, they were surrounded by enemies on every side, while day by day the burning heat of the desert sun beat down upon them. They grew tired of their wanderings and the sameness of their duties day after day. The record itself tends to grow monotonous.
In 1st Cor. 10:1-3, we read : “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all ate the same supernatural (spiritual) food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them and the Rock was Christ.”
Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. We are all familiar with the type expressed here. The Israelites would have perished in the wilderness without the manna and the water provided by God. On two occasions God provided them with water from this rock which we are told is a type of Christ.
Without that water the people would have died, and that rock had to be struck to obtain the water, just as Christ was struck so that His life could be a ransom for many. As the Israelites neared the end of their journey to the promised land, they were faced with the same situation.
It is a similar situation that the world is in today. It needs the return of Jesus to restore its health. But at His second coming, Christ is not to be struck, but to be spoken to. Moses, in breaking a type by striking the rock, proved another type by being forbidden to cross the Jordan. Do we, in our lives, by our actions, crucify the Lord afresh and put Him to an open shame ? If we are a letter from Christ we must attempt to portray Him in our actions, our habits and our speech to all people.
Now what sort of letter from Christ do we appear to our wives ? Christ set us an example, you know, as Paul explains in Eph. 25:28: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that the church might be presented before him in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own body. He who loves his wife loves himself.”
The apostle Peter tells how the wife should act. “Likewise, you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behaviour of their wives, when they see your reverent and chaste behaviour.
Let not yours be the outward adorning with braiding of hair, decoration of gold and wearing of robes, but let it be thy hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1st Peter 3 :1-4) .
The Bible lays down the pattern for harmony and peace in a marriage relationship. If it is not obtained, it is because one or both are not following the pattern.
Now, regarding our children, how do we appear to them ? Do they read in us a letter from Christ? Do we portray a very good word picture of Him? Do we set a good example for them in our speech, our habits, our attendance at meetings ? They may not copy all of our good habits—they are much more likely to copy all of the bad ones.
It is a law of nature that we will get no more energy out of a system than what we put into it. Newton stated in his law that action and reaction were equal and opposite. Paul puts this law to us in spiritual language when he says : “As ye sow, so shall you also reap.”
This letter then that we are writing, is it clear and distinct, or does it get blurred and indistinct at times and look as if we had run out of ink ? I suppose there are many places where we would like to scratch out the words and rewrite them, or better still, erase them altogether. But the things we say and the things we do are past. We go this way but once. Yesterday is gone with its cares, its opportunities, its mistakes. Tomorrow is not ours, all we have is today.
So let us write in this manner : Love is patient and kind ; love is not jealous or boastful ; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way ; it is not irritable or resentful ; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends, so make love your aim. Thus when we come to the end of the letter we will have no hesitancy in signing it clearly and distinctly. May we be able to say with Paul : “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One