ant of the Servant. A servant does not determine his own tasks.
80 THE BIBLICAL BASIS
the prisoners from the dungeon" (Is. 42:6f.). This is echoed in the New Testament in Peter's description. of the Church: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9).
Paul, too, described the Church as those who "shine as lights in
the world" (Phil. 2:15), and by example and precept insisted that
it was the Church's business "to make the word of God fully known" as the fulfillment of God's having "made manifest to his saints" the riches of the mystery of Christ (Col. 1:25 ff.). But in one place he particularly connects the Church with this task, when in speaking of "the eternal purpose which [God] has realized in Christ Jesus" he insists that it is "through the church" that "the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known" (Eph. 3:9 ff.). The redeeming work of God in Christ is now to express itself through Christ's body. "To be a member of Christ's body is to be involved with Him in all His concerns. ... The Church is to be responsible for all those for whom Jesus assumed responsibility." 1?
2. Mission, too, is involved in the nature of the Church as serv-
ant of the Servant. A servant does not determine his own tasks. They are set for him by another. His service does not rest on his own initiative, or desire, or the advice of others. It consists in doing the bidding of a master. So it is with the Church. But in this instance, the Master himself was the great Servant. "I am among you as one who serves"; "For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve'"—these sum up Jesus' ministry in his own words (Lk. 22:27; Mk. 10:45). Hence, for the Church to serve this Master is to be a servant of the Servant.
This concept is involved in the very idea of apostleship, which lay behind all of Paul's missionary effort. The great-Apostle—the one "sent" to speak and act on behalf of God who sent him— was Jesus Christ (Jn. 3:17, 6:29, 8:42, 17:3; Heb. 3:1). But as the Father had "sent" him, he in turn had "sent" the apostles
(Jn. 17:18, 20:21). In most of Paul's letters he describes himself as an apostle, and in Galatians he vehemently defends his apostleship (Gal. 1:1 ff.). In his deepest consciousness he was convinced that Christ had "sent" him to herald the Gospel" (Ie Corl1217), The Church, however, is heir to this apostolic mission, Paul was
*Donald G. Miller, The Nature and Mission of the Church (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1957), p. 74.