The Chief End of the Church
From his arrival in 1830 until his final departure in 1863, Alexander Duff was a tremendous force for the gospel in India. As one of the “St. Andrews Seven,” Duff was mentored by pastor and professor Thomas Chalmers, and he applied much of Chalmers’s philosophy to his ministry in India. In addition to his work of preaching the gospel of Christ, Duff established schools and institutions in India that shaped the future of the nation toward Christianity.
After the Great Disruption in the Church of Scotland, Duff took on more leadership responsibilities. His labors extended to fundraising and overseeing missionary efforts. In 1839 Duff gave an address at the ordination of Rev. Dr. Thomas Smith, who was soon to go to India as a missionary. This address was later published as Missions: The Chief End of the Christian Church, and was one of Duff’s most significant writings.
What follows is the beginning of that address. It has been lightly updated and modernized. The full unaltered address, along with other works of Duff, can be found for free online.
"May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations." — Psalm 67:1-2
The Royal Psalmist, in the spirit of inspiration, representing the Church of the redeemed in every age, and more especially under its last and most perfect dispensation, here offers up a sublime prayer for its inward prosperity, and outward universal extension. All is in the order of nature and of grace. Knowing full well that he who has not obtained mercy from the Lord, cannot be a fit bearer of it to others; that he who has obtained no blessings himself, can dispense none; that he who enjoys no light, can communicate none, he first of all, with marked and beautiful propriety, begins with the supplication of personal and individual blessings. "God be merciful unto us," forgiving and pardoning all our sins; "and bless us," conferring every gift and every grace really needful for time and eternity; "and lift up the light of thy countenance upon us," cheering us with the smile of reconciliation and love, and causing the Sun of Righteousness to rise on our darkened souls with healing in His beams.
But does the Psalmist stop here? Does he for a moment intend that he and his fellow worshipers, as representatives of the visible Church of the living God, should absorb all the mercy, all the blessing, and all the light of Jehovah’s countenance? Oh no! Having thus fervently prayed for evangelical blessings to descend upon himself, and every member of the Church, he immediately superadds, in the true evangelistic or missionary spirit, "That your way," or, as it is given in our metrical version, "that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations."
How significant the connection here established between the obtainment and the distribution of evangelical favors! "God be merciful unto us, and bless us." Why? Only that we ourselves may be pardoned and sanctified, and thereby attain true happiness? No. There is another grand end in view, to the accomplishment of which, our being blessed is but a means. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us, that so thy way may be known on earth,"—that so—that thus—that in this way—that by our instrumentality—that by our being blessed, and having the light of thy countenance shining upon us,—"thy way"—thy way of justification through the atoning righteousness of the Redeemer—thy way of sanctification by His Holy Spirit—"may be made known on earth, and thy saving health among all nations."
And then, seized with the true prophetic fire, at the grandeur of the divine design in reference to "all nations," and hurried away by the magnificence of the vision of the latter day glory, does "the sweet singer of Israel" break forth into heroic measures, sublimer far than any ever strung on Grecian or Roman lyre:
Let people praise thee, Lord;
Let people all thee praise;
O let the nations be glad,
And sing for joy always.
Then shall the earth yield her increase,
God, our God, help us shall;
God shall us bless, and of the earth
The ends shall fear Him all. (Psalm 67:3–7)
Here the two grand characteristics of the true Church of God (the evangelical and evangelistic, or missionary) are written as in a sunbeam: the evangelical, in the possession of all needful gifts and graces out of the plenitude of the Spirit’s fulness, and the evangelistic, in the instant and perpetual propensity which that possession ought to generate and feed, instrumentally to dispense these blessings among all nations. As if to confound lukewarm and misjudging professors throughout all generations, these characteristics are represented by the Spirit of inspiration itself, as essential to the very existence and wellbeing of the Church, and in their very nature inseparable. The prayer of the Church, as dictated by the Divine Spirit, is directed to the obtainment of blessings, not as an end merely terminating in herself, but as a means towards the promotion and attainment of a deeper end of the sublimest description, the enlightenment and conversion of all nations! Hence it follows, that when a church ceases to be evangelistic, it must cease to be evangelical; and when it ceases to be evangelical, it must cease to exist as a true church of God, however primitive or apostolic it may be in its outward form and constitution!
There is no mystery here. If, in the common affairs of life, a servant sought out and obtained an increased portion of goods, that he might proceed to a distant city or foreign nation and lay out the whole for the advancement of his master’s interest; and if, instead of acting in the terms of his own requisition, and agreeably to the express design of his kind and munificent employer, he chose to remain at home, and appropriate all for his own private ends, what judgment would the world pronounce on such a man? Would he not be condemned as an unprofitable servant, who dishonestly attempted to embezzle the property of another? And would not the master be more than justified in taking away from him even all that he had?
Precisely similar is the position and attitude of the petitioning church, and consequently, of all petitioning believers, as portrayed by the pencil of the Divine Spirit in the words of our text. Believers are there taught to pray, and all who have ever read or sung this precious psalm in a believing frame of mind, have actually prayed for the richest spiritual blessings.
For what purpose? That they themselves may enjoy the comforts and consolations of piety in this life, and a fitness for the heavenly inheritance hereafter? Doubtless, this is the first end, and must be implied and included in the object of the petition. But, so little does this appear, in the eye of the Spirit, to be the only, or even the chief end, that it is actually left altogether unexpressed! There is another end present to His omniscient view, of a nature so transcendently exalted, that the former is, as it were, wholly overlooked, because eclipsed by the surpassing glory of that which excels. And that other end of all-absorbing excellence is the impartation of God’s saving health to all nations. So preeminent in importance does this end appear to the mind of the Spirit, that believers are taught to implore spiritual blessings, expressly and even chiefly, that they may thereby have it in their power the more effectually to promote it throughout the world!
If, then, in answer to such prayers, spiritual blessings should be conferred from on high; and if, instead of employing them for the promotion of their Divine Master’s interest, by causing His saving health to be made known to all nations, believers should sit down in ease, and appropriate all to themselves and their own friends immediately around them,what judgment must be pronounced upon them in the court of heaven? Must they not be condemned as guilty of a breach of faith, guilty of a dereliction of duty to their Lord and Master, guilty of a dishonest attempt to embezzle the treasures of his grace? And if so, must not their sin, if unrepented of, bring down its deserved punishment? And what can the first drop from the vial of Divine wrath do less, than expunge from the spiritual inventory of such worthless stewards all that they have already so gratuitously and undeservedly obtained? What an irresistible argument does the Spirit of God here supply, in favour of the missionary enterprise! Who can peruse the words of His own inspiration, without being overwhelmed with the conviction that, in His unerring estimate, the chief end, for which the Church ought to exist, the chief end, for which individual church members ought to live, is the evangelization or conversion of the world?