Ordination exhortation

Ordination exhortation January 28, 2007

1 Timothy 4:13: Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed upon you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery.

Prior to the Reformation, the Western church treated ordination as a sacrament. Protestants have never done that. For the seven sacraments of the Roman church, the Reformers insisted, rightly, that Christ had instituted only two marks of the covenant community – baptism and the Lord’s Supper.


Baptism and the Supper are the only sacraments because they are the only signs or rites that all Christians and only Christians receive or practice. Unbelievers get married, and only a few within the church receive ordination. Baptism and the Supper are appropriately called the only “signs and seals of the covenant of grace” because they uniquely mark out the boundaries of the covenant people of God.

This correct theology, however, has had some unfortunate effects. Marriage had been a sacrament for the medieval church, but many of the Reformers treated it as a purely civil rite, and because of this marriage became somewhat secularized. Ordination remained a rite of the church, but it tended to be looked upon as something necessary for good order rather than a work of Christ and the Spirit. Sacraments have promises attached; sacraments are efficacious by the work of the Spirit. Not ordination: It is purely external, judicial, governmental.

But according to Paul, the “laying on of hands” that happens at ordination is not just an official rite, not just for the sake of order. It is not simply the church’s version of inauguration. It is an act of Christ and the Spirit, and event of the Spirit of Christ. Paul reminds Timothy that he received a Spiritual gift when he was ordained by the laying on of hands by the presbytery, and elsewhere Paul tells Timothy to stir up the gift again and again. For Paul, ordination is an effective rite. God is the true Ordainer of ministers and elders. The hands are the hands of Trinity’s elders, but through us God is setting you apart. And not only setting you apart. For Paul, ordination bestows a gift, one that must be cultivated and not neglected. For Paul, ordination comes with a promise that the Lord will equip you to fulfill the ministry entrusted to you.

What this means for you is that you should look to this rite and this moment for assurance, guidance, strength to fulfill the responsibilities you vow to take on today. As you look back to your wedding vows as a reminder of your responsibilities as a husband, so look back to these vows and this moment as a reminder of your responsibilities as a representative of the divine Husband to His bride. As you look back to your baptism to remind you that you are not your own but in life and in death belong to your faithful Savior Jesus Christ, so look back to this moment as a reminder that Jesus has called you as an undershepherd under the Good Shepherd. When you are faced with challenges that threaten to overwhelm you, remember the spiritual gift bestowed by the hands of the Presbytery.

As I mentioned, one of the unfortunate and unintended effects of the Protestant de-sacramentalization of ordination is that it might be taken to imply that ministry in the church is merely formal, external, judicial, legal. And this might push you in the direction of thinking that ordination has little or nothing to do with faith. Faith is linked to sacraments, but ordination is not a sacrament. Ordination is about law, not gospel; about works, not faith. That’s certainly not what Paul had in mind. He exhorted Timothy to trust that God had in fact bestowed a gift upon him through the Presbytery, and exhorted him to act on that faith.

As you have responded to your baptism in faith, as you have lived out your marriage in faith, so fulfill these vows in the confidence that the Lord has and will equip you for all good works. Do not neglect the spiritual gift that God Himself bestows through the laying on of hands.


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