Another problem kindred to the one mentioned—one which concerns the aims and the results which should animate missionary endeavour.
2. What shall a man or a mission entertain as a motive or as an aim to be attained and as results worthy of achievement in missionary work?
This question also is based upon and will cover very largely the character of the work accomplished.
There are two distinct and separate motives and aims impelling Christians, at the present time, to missionary effort. They are, in the main, an emphasis given, respectively, to each of Christ’s two final commands to his disciples upon earth.
In the first instance his last commission to his followers to go and make disciples of the nations is taken as the watch-word; and this has always meant thorough, patient, all-inclusive effort for the redemption and elevation of all the races of the earth.
The other class has taken as its watch-word our Lord’s last utterance upon earth—“Ye shall be My witnesses.” “Witness-bearing” has become to them the expression of the Church’s great duty to the world.
There is a great difference between these two classes of aims and motives, and they are associated with two classes of theological thinking. According to the former theory the Kingdom of our Lord, under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is to spread in regenerating power and triumphant efficacy until all the nations of the earth shall come under its sway. This is a great and arduous undertaking. The planting of this Kingdom in heathen lands and the discipling of those people until the Church of God shall have become a living and a self-propagating church in all the regions of the earth is a work of ages, worthy of the combined effort of heaven and earth. And this consummation will surely take place. God has promised it; Christ’s work involves it; the Holy Spirit came into the world for its realization. They who entertain this belief are Christian optimists. No reverses can daunt them; no opposition can discourage them. They lay broad and deep the foundations of their work and labour patiently but hopefully for the great and final consummation.
Those, on the other hand, who are pessimistic as to the triumph of the Kingdom of Christ under the dispensation of the Spirit, maintain, with exclusive emphasis, the Christian duty of witness-bearing. They claim, in Dr. Pierson’s words, that our mission to the heathen world should be one of diffusion and not of concentration; that we should bear witness concerning Christ to the people who know Him not and then pass on to others, rather than remain to expand, to convert, to train and to establish living churches. They maintain that our duty is preëminently to bear witness to Christ, that we have no responsibility for the conversion of the people and for the building up of strong churches.