God-Centered Ministry

James Ritchey

The call of the Christian minister is one that is placed upon him by God Himself.  It is confirmed externally by the church, which we see especially taking place in the presbytery as a presbytery will approve a man for ordination.  But as the representatives of presbytery lay hands upon a man in the act of ordination, they are confirming that this man is called of God and is to belong entirely to God.  Ministry must be done at all times before the face of God, just as the Christian life must be lived at all times before the face of God. 

This may seem basic, but we are so prone in our hearts toward man-centeredness.  And certainly there are many pressures to fear men and to live for the approval of men. Ministry can easily become less about proclaiming the oracles of God as written in His infallible Word and more about pleasing our hearers or drawing people in.  While we should deeply love our congregations and should seek out the lost, the minister is called to live before God and to be approved of God. This may have consequences, and it may not invite the approval of man, but the minister is called to God-centeredness and to live approved of God. 

 The call of Isaiah in Isaiah 6 serves as something of a corrective to our often man-centered thinking.   

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him stood the seraphim.  Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet and, and with two he flew.  And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:1-3, English Standard Version) 

This section of the account of Isaiah’s vision of the throne room of God provides us with a reminder of the God we are called to serve.  This is the God who is the King over all; this is the God who is majestic and exalted; this is the God before whom even the unfallen angels must cover their faces and their feet; this is the thrice holy God whom man cannot approach unto without a Mediator; and this is the God who is all-glorious.  The glory and the holiness of God shine through in this passage.  We are being shown that God is not to be taken lightly, but rather we are given a grand picture of who He is as our all-glorious and infinitely holy Lord.  The glory of the Creator is on display. 

But we see next a distinction between God and Isaiah, between Creator and creature.  We read:

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.  And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:4-5)

We see again the glory and holiness of God in the fact that even the ground shakes before Him, but as Isaiah sees all of this he realizes that his response to the holy God has not been right.  He has not adequately trembled as has the ground or covered his face as the angels in the presence of the holy God.  He is seeing something of the distinction between the Creator and the creature, and he is utterly undone before God.  The New King James Version translates verse 5 as, “So I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.” 

In the presence of this holy God, Isaiah cannot help but come undone.  He must unravel, because he is seeing not only a distinction between Creator and creature, but also the utter contrast between God’s holiness and his unholiness.  John Calvin rightly states this:

So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods.  But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence.  So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.  Hence that dread and amazement with which Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God.  When we see those who once stood firm and secure so quaking with terror, that the fear of death takes hold of them, no, they are, in a manner, swallowed up and annihilated, the inference to be drawn is that men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.[1]

What Calvin describes is what we see happening with Isaiah.  He sees who God is, and the spotlight shines upon who he is.  He cannot hide or obscure the fact that in the presence of a holy God, he is as nothing.  And we as ministers, indeed, as Christians, must recognize the same about ourselves. 

But the text does not end on this note, for there is good news to be found:

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.  And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7)

The Lord has cleansed Isaiah.  This section of the passage points us to the atonement that is found in Christ, as “guilt is taken away” and “sin atoned for.”  This would be done fully and finally for all of God’s people in the work of Jesus Christ, as He, the holy and glorious One would become man and make atonement for His people by shedding His blood under the wrath and the curse of the holy God, as He bore sin for His own.  But notice that the coal touches Isaiah’s lips–this one who recognized that he had “unclean lips,” and that his words were tarnished by sin is now being cleansed so that he might speak words of life.  We too are those who are of ourselves tarnished with sin and unclean speech, but God has atoned for our sins and commissioned us now  to speak His Words. 

And we see Isaiah respond to the call of the Lord now, as one who has been cleansed and one who has been forgiven.  We read in verse 8, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, ‘Here I am! Send me.’” Isaiah is now confident in his forgiveness and in his call.  So we too, as those in the ministry, ought to be confident, never forgetting the forgiveness we have been shown and never forgetting that it is God who has called us. 

But this encounter would mark Isaiah’s life and ministry.  Read here what Geerhardus Vos writes about how this encounter affected Isaiah:

The theophany in the temple is clearly intended to place in the strongest possible contrast the absolute divinity of Jehovah and the relativity and dependence of created existence. Among all the prophets Isaiah was endowed with the keenest appreciation of the antithesis between God and not-God. The personal presence of Jehovah found by him everywhere bears features most distinctly divine, unique in their divinity. That the scene of the sixth chapter is the temple becomes highly significant in this connection. It makes little difference whether with some expositors we think of the heavenly temple, or with others of the sanctuary on Zion: even in the latter case the careful adjustment of details to the main purpose shows that a deeper explanation is required than Isaiah’s accidental presence there. In Jehovah’s temple everything is expressive of His holiness, pervaded by the atmosphere of the divine: here everything created covers and humbles and effaces itself. Most strikingly this idea is symbolized by the seraphim, who, though themselves the highest representatives of a higher world, yet in the presence of God are made to feel their own insignificance as profoundly as the earth-born prophet. Owing to this heightened sense of divinity, as specifically distinct from all other being, the idea of God obtains in the prophecies of Isaiah a peculiar ascendancy and pervasiveness. God becomes the one supreme reality from whom everything else derives its significance. The thought of Jehovah expands until it fills all the recesses of creation, and there is no place left for any other being except as a medium for reflecting the divine glory.[2]

So too, as ministers we ought to have a deep understanding of the God whom we serve and what a privilege He has bestowed upon us, those who are infinitely lower in stature and those who are redeemed sinners to proclaim the life giving Word of God. We ought to be taken up with and captivated by a grand God-centeredness.  It is only in the fear of the Lord and in a grand sense of the glory and the holiness of God that we will resist the snares of the fear of man and of man-centeredness in the ministry. 

[1] John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Henry Beveridge (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2008) from Book 1 Chapter 1 Sections 2-3, pg. 5.

[2] Geerhardus Vos, “Some Doctrinal Features of the Early Prophecies of Isaiah,” found in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001), 274–275.