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1 Corinthians 1 - Nisbet James - Church Pulpit Commentary

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1 Corinthians 1

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,

2 unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their's and our's:

3 grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;

5 that in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;

6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:

7 so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

8 who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Divisions in the Church

10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;

15 lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.

16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.

17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

23 but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

24 but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

27 but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

28 and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

29 that no flesh should glory in his presence.

30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

31 that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

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1 Corinthians 1

THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST CONFIRMED

‘I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also confirm you unto the end.’

1Co 1:4-8 The testimony of Christ, the evidence, that is, that the Corinthian Christians were in deed and in truth disciples of Christ, is confirmed by the proof given in their lives and conversation, that they had received the gifts of grace, were enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge, and in everything else in which the working of grace is to be traced.

The Apostle is able to thank God on account of them, and to argue to the certainty of their greater advance in grace until the coming of the Lord Jesus, Who shall also confirm them unto the end. They come behind in no gifts; whatever signs there are of the living action of Christ in His people, are to be found among them. They have the grace that is promised to them that believe; they have the power to declare the goodness of God towards them; they have knowledge of the work and experience of the reality of the redeeming, life-giving love, and the Apostle doubts not that He Who has so far blessed them will confirm them unto the end.

Yet these words are the preface to an Epistle which, however full of instruction and sympathy, is by no means without rebukes, and those very severe ones. The very next verses show that, notwithstanding the confirmation of the testimony of Christ, there were grievous faults among them. A spirit of division had come in. There were lessons of purity of life and of peacefulness amongst themselves, and of charity also, which needed to be impressed. It does not follow from this that we are to undervalue the importance of the gifts or graces that are the matter of the Apostle’s thankfulness. We are allowed, perhaps, to infer, from the enrichment in utterance and knowledge which he especially mentions, the prominence of those gifts which are the subject of the twelfth chapter of the Epistle, and which in the closing verse of that chapter he distinctly sets below the most excellent gift of charity, so that whilst he regards them as evidence of their true relation to Jesus, he yet has it in his mind to acquaint them that they are not all the evidence required. But the language, further, is far too extensive to apply to these gifts only. ‘In everything ye are enriched by Him.’ The testimony of Christ is not merely suggested, but affirmed: ‘Ye shall come behind in no gifts’; no, not in that most excellent gift in comparison of which the others are small, and without which they are but vanity. And it is as ‘blameless,’—not merely enlightened or eloquent or full of knowledge, or having the tongue of men and angels, but as blameless that they are to be confirmed unto the end, even in the day of Christ.

I. Is the testimony of Christ confirmed in you?—What does it need to come up to the ideal the Apostle draws for you, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ? Suppose him to rise up in the midst of us to-day and look around him for a testimony in our lives and conversation that we were the sort of Christians that he wrote to. What think you would he see and say? He would see much, very much, in which he would never think of asking for the testimony of Christ. But he would see many, very many, calling on the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. He would see a great many Christian churches, and schools, and hospitals, and a vast number of organisations set at work to do good in ways in which, until he, after Christ, had taught the lesson of charity, it never entered into the heart of man to seek the good of his neighbour. He would say, ‘The testimony of Christ has been here,’ for these things tell of the working of His Spirit as certainly as any gifts of utterance or of knowledge that were given to saints and churches in the first century. He would see the faults also, the divisions, and the contentiousness, and the unsatisfactory morality which he saw among the Corinthian converts, to whom, in spite of all, he could write thus hopefully. Yet we ourselves should look deeper, should try to see what the testimony of Christ should be in us. He might come into churches and see and join in our service, hear us read out his own words, and try to explain them as it seems to us that they were written for our learning. He would recognise in all the changes of garb and attitude and language, such of the testimony of Christ as is to be found amongst those who still believe in the one body and one spirit, one hope and calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. ‘Christ is here,’ he would say; ‘Christ has been here long; Christ will perfect the work that He has begun until the day of the manifestation of the blameless.’ God forbid that we should doubt it for a moment! but we want a deeper search. What shall I do to be saved? Where, what is my testimony? Where, what is my hope? It matters but little what evidence of Christ can be seen around me. Until I know what there is in me, all that is around me but increases my responsibility, my mistrust, my dread and shame. What I want is not what St. Paul would see, but what my God, looking in my heart, ought to see—true testimony that I am Christ’s and He is mine.

II. How is it confirmed in you?—If we are justified in arguing from the analogy of St. Paul’s words, the test of the true evidence that should be sought for is this: it is growth, development, strengthening, confirmation, progress. ‘Covet earnestly the best gifts; cultivate most earnestly the more excellent way.’ ‘Ye are enriched in all knowledge and utterance, ye come behind in no gift.’ The key-note of the strain is the idea of growth from the simpler to the greater gifts, from the elementary knowledge to astonishing and exhaustive knowledge, from the utterance of stammering lips and a lisping tongue, to being able to set forth Him Who is the source of power to men and angels, and from the best growths, from the most precious experiences, to the more excellent way of love; that is to be the sign of confirmation unto the end, and of being found blameless; progress from knowledge to knowledge, from love to love, from glory to glory. Growth is the sign of life; growth in grace is the testimony of Jesus Christ.

III. How can we put the test to ourselves?—Let us take two or three points and put them to our conscience.

(a) Do I take more pleasure in increasing my knowledge of God? It is a hard question, perhaps, because unfortunately it is not easy to answer it in a way that will leave the conscience tolerably content. We are very prone to rest content with a very slight knowledge of Him. The little that we have learned in childhood or at school is all that we keep up, with occasionally reading the Bible and listening to sermons once a week. I do not suppose that there is one person among us who can look comfortably at that question so put to him; a very sure sign, that, of the way in which we begin to excuse ourselves. It is true that the learning of which I speak is not confined to books, not confined even to the Book of books. It is not confined to experience, or learned merely by sorrow or thankfulness, by temptation or victory. Those of whom we first read of it were probably men who probably had no books, and were little accustomed to dogmatic teaching, and perhaps had little self-knowledge or little self-introspection to begin their investigation; but if it were so it does not account for our careless attitude of mind or heart. We cannot say that the knowledge of God is so spread around us as the waters cover the sea, that we live in such an atmosphere of it that we are all like to have enough of it. Even if it were so, and you know it is not, darkness in the midst of our minds while light is all around us, still it is not the true account. Do we care to know more about God, to study the mind of Christ, to dwell in thought upon the story of His life and the infinite effects of His death, to work out the manifold manifestation of His works, to see Him everywhere? Do we care for it, or do we put it from us? I will not supply an answer. If your heart condemn you, go to Him Who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things.

(b) Do I take more pleasure in communion with Him by prayer and sacrament, prayer, in which I make my requests known to Him, and communion, in which He strengthens my power of living close to Him and doing His will? Now, prayer is a very crucial test of the relation of the soul to God. If your desires are set upon things that you can openly and without self-deceit ask God to give you, you will find prayer become the very natural, spontaneous, constant utterance of your soul. On the other hand, if you feel that you cannot lay half your heart before God, that you have no desire for anything that you care to ask God for, it is no wonder that you do not care to pray. So also if you see no difficulties in the way that you are not likely to overcome by the mere effort of your will, no temptation coming to you which requires more than an act of simple self-command to drive away or escape from, no doubt you do not feel the necessity of gaining strength and refreshing from the source of your life. Prayer and communion thus become the custom rather than the living habit to you. You are uncomfortable when you do not go through the forms that you are used to, but it is very like the discomfort of wearing a dress that does not fit you; it is not the discomfort of a soul hungering and thirsting for its necessary sustenance. How many are there with whom this is the case! God’s offers, ever ready, of an ever-abundant supply of strength, are ill responded to by one who will scarce lift up his hand to take the mercies that are so freely bestowed. You must answer the question yourselves if you want the answer. I do not say it needs a very searching inquiry. I fear that with very many of us the answer is too obvious. God help to put into our hearts more and more the good desires that He loves to hear of, and prayer that He longs to grant!

(c) Do I take more and more pleasure in doing good for the love that I bear to His people? Answer yourself, What good do I do in my daily life that I find pleasure in doing for God? What effort am I making to do more and more without reference to any secondary motive, even to the quieting voice of my own conscience? Am I growing less selfish, more willing to surrender my own will, my own plan, my own comfort? Am I growing more active in the effort to help the work of God, more sympathetic with sorrow, more in accord with His spirit Who offered Himself a sacrifice for sin; more patient, more hopeful, more happy in the work that I like, or less and less prone to measure everything by its relation to myself, putting self out of the way without feeling it to be self-denial, setting love first of all by the unconscious and habitual practice of looking at self last of all?

We want to see the testimony of Christ. Will you look for it in the answer of the heart brought to these questions? We set the ideal high because we know the effort must be an incessant one if it is to be the test of true growth and of true life.

Bishop W. Stubbs.

Illustration

‘Is the Christianity which we profess to-day the same thing as the Christianity of which St. Paul was the heroic champion? The religion of Jesus Christ is in point of fact exactly the same to-day as it was then, only now it occupies a different position and advances to greater power. It has to confront and apply itself and to deal with all the circumstances of modern life and civilisation. And it is one great glory of our religion, and surely one great element of its extraordinary power, that it is able to adapt itself to all conditions of human life everywhere and in all ages. A modern English bishop would have been wholly unfitted to be an apostle of the early Church, and the humble tent-maker would be quite unfitted to-day to be a ruler of our modern Church of England. But the religion of Jesus Christ, adapting itself to the days of its infancy, had a tent-maker for an apostle, and adapting itself to our modern life, so different to-day, has men in high position for rulers of the Church. Under all circumstances, and in all ages, the thing itself remains unchanged. Our Christianity and that of the first days are really one and the same, though differing so widely in outward appearance, just as a man remains the same whether clothed in the rags of a beggar or dressed in the apparel of a king.’



THE WITNESS CONCERNING CHRIST

‘The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.’

1Co 1:6 Christianity means, first of all, the testimony of Christ; that is to say, the witness concerning Christ. Now this is what the great Apostle urges over and over again. He is always urging it. He presents himself everywhere to men as a witness for the Person of Christ.

I. The message which he brings is first and foremost a testimony concerning Him.—And this was something wholly new in the history of religious teaching. There had been religious teachers; there had been philosophers by the score before St. Paul came. They had their doctrines; they had their systems; they had their theories, which they presented to men’s minds, and which they offered to men’s acceptance. St. Paul, too, had his system and his doctrines to propose to men, which he did hold up and propose to men; but they lay in the background of all that he taught. What he put prominently forward first, and what was the one thing which he gave his life in order that he might press upon the minds and souls of men, was the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, as he over and over again says, lived, died, was buried, rose, ascended, is ever at the right hand of God, and ever living with His Church and people upon earth. It was this testimony of Christ which he is everywhere delivering; it is the same testimony of Christ which is the prime element of our Christianity too. It is true there are great doctrines presented to our minds—doctrines that are most magnificent in their sweep, and most glorious in their truth, most mighty in their power, most precious in their meaning, but they all of them hang upon the Person of Christ. It is the testimony of Christ which makes them all what they are.

II. And yet Christianity in its true essence means something more than this testimony of Christ.—It means this first, but it means much more besides. And St. Paul expresses the further meaning of the religion which he taught in the brief, terse sentence of the text. He says to his converts in the city of Corinth, ‘The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.’ And what he means to say is that that testimony of Christ, which he delivered to them, took deep root in the hearts of those who became followers of Christ, and laid hold of the springs of their being. It is quite clear that this was so. St. Paul came to the great city of Corinth, and there he delivered the testimony of Christ to such as would listen to him. Most men, of course, refused to listen. They laughed at what seemed such folly to them. They scoffed at the humbler tent-maker who ventured to teach them. They were angry, some of them, with him, and the anger of some went on until the days of persecution. Nevertheless, there were some who did listen, and when they listened, the testimony of Christ, which Paul delivered, laid strange hold upon them which they could not explain. The Person of Christ, of which he talked to them a great deal, rose up before their spirits and minds as a great reality, and then it was to them the very refuge that they wanted from their sins and the sorrows of their life. It was the very rock on which they wanted to plant their feet for safety; it was the very light that they wanted to guide them; it was the very hope which they wanted as they thought of death and whatever it might be that comes after death. The testimony of Christ was confirmed in them.

III. And here is the further meaning of the essence of true Christianity. It is not only the revelation of Christ to men; it is that first and foremost, but besides that it is the drawing of men to Christ. St. Paul’s first object was to bring Christ to men, but the reason why that was his first object was that he might eventually bring men to Christ. The testimony of Christ has been delivered to us, not simply to add to the stock of our human knowledge, or to move our wonder and admiration. Christ is held up to us, not simply as a beautiful statue, attracting our wonder and admiration and homage by its beauty and its glory, while all the time it is only like cold and lifeless marble. No! He is held up as a living Person, stretching His hands to us, moving Himself towards us, calling us by His loving voice, and Whom we find to be warm and living. Christ is held up to us in the New Testament that we may be drawn to His feet in humble penitence and faith and love, and then, what always follows, that we may be gradually renewed after His image.

Illustration

‘It would be a foolish thing to say, as men sometimes do say, in the newspapers and elsewhere, that all our modern controversies upon matters of doctrine are a mere waste of words and time, and that it matters really very little whether we accept, for instance, the Thirty-nine Articles of the English Church or the Decrees of the Council of Trent. Doctrine is of great importance, but it is of less importance than the testimony concerning Christ Himself. St. Paul wrote elaborate treatises to set forth and to enforce doctrines. There are treatises by the hundred written to-day to uphold some doctrines and to demolish others. But all these things do not touch the centre of our faith. They are all secondary to the great foundation truth that the Son of God came into the world in the Person of Christ, lived, died, rose, ascended, lives for ever, promising to us who have sinned—that means all of us—pardon and peace and life. It is the testimony of the Person of Christ which first meets the hunger of human souls.’



UNTO THE END

‘Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

1Co 1:8 Weak faith, weak love, weak resolves, weak prayer, a weak watch, these are the roots of almost all which we have most to regret in life. Therefore, the great question is, What are the strengtheners of this great scheme of religion?

It might be expected that there would be a resemblance between what strengthens the natural and physical life, and what strengthens the moral and spiritual life, for God generally places these things in an analogy. Let us look at it in that light.

I. Does the natural life need continually and regularly its appointed and properly supplied nourishment, without which it cannot sustain life? so the soul, it too has its bread, the Bread of Life.

II. And does the health of the body require its own proper medicine?—So does the soul, without which it cannot always be well and strong. And what is the medicine? ‘Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? Why, then, is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?’ Go there, and you will find it.

III. And fresh air?—Without which, all that is vital fails and wanes. And what is the fresh air of the soul? What is it? Let me give you Christ’s answer. ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.’

IV. And what in nature can ever be well and fulfil its function without light and sunshine!—And by a law, as universal and as binding, the higher life of the soul must have brightness, it must have the radiance of an inward joy, the smile of heaven, the beams of love which flow from the heart of Jesus. It must have that light.

V. The strength, the very life of our body, depends on its union with the head, and according as the communication from the head to the body goes down, and according as the communication from the body to the head goes up direct and constant, so is every one’s life and every one’s power. Just so it is between us and Christ.

Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘At your confirmation you did, of your own free will, in the presence of God and His Church, make the most express dedication of yourself to God for life. It was both a promise and a vow—a promise to man and a vow to God deliberately made and sealed by the laying on of the hands of the chief pastor of the Church. You vowed that you would renounce every sin, and everything however pleasant, which might lead you to sin; and all wrong thoughts and wicked desires. You vowed that you would believe, as God calls you to believe, believe with your heart every part of His holy Word, and specially in the grace of salvation. Thirdly, that you would keep, in your memory, keep in your heart, keep in your daily walk of life, all that God hath commanded us both to be and do. And even, even if it was not commanded, whatever God can wish you to do—His commandment and His will. Have you kept that promise? Are you keeping it now? Are you keeping it in the letter? Are you keeping it in the spirit?’



THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST

‘There are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided?’

1Co 1:11-13 The one hope of our nation lies in the faithful allegiance to the living Christ. This is a lesson which He Himself inculcated again and again—that all His people must live in His Divine love—as the branch lives by the sap of the trunk, and as the members of the body live by the beating of the heart. And in nineteen centuries of the Christian era all that the human mind has ever known of best and of greatest has been derived from Him. I see no dangers to Christianity except such as arise from the errors of Christians. But, though Christianity can never be finally overthrown, it may be temporarily overthrown. It may suffer a collapse, disastrous, indeed, to those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth.

I. If we would uphold the cause of Christ we must learn humbly to study for ourselves His own words and His own clear will.—We must take our ideas from Him, and not from the fuglemen of our party. It is quite possible to mistake and to misunderstand Him grievously, even as His own Apostles did. They faithfully record for us their failures. Christ was too large, too Divine, too loving, too universal, too eternal, for their finite souls. If even the Apostles misunderstood Him, do you think there is now no danger that we, who too often suffer so little with Him, do so little for Him, listen so little in solitude to His still small voice—do you think that there is no danger that we should misunderstand Him?

II. The Lord Christ is the universal Christ; the Christ not of one party, but of all; not of one Church, but of all; not of one race, but of all; not of one Christian, but of all. The fatal tendency of Christians is to monopolise Christ, to talk and to act as though Christ were divided, as though they alone could speak of Him with infallible knowledge. It is a deadly error, the daughter of selfishness, the mother of bigotry, strife, and persecution, the source of continual weakness, the disintegration of Christianity into wrangling and squabbling sects. It springs from the stronghold of Satan, disguised as an angel of light. When these Corinthians, the most conceited and self-asserting of all St. Paul’s converts, said, ‘I am of Christ,’ they meant to throw at every other Christian the taunt, ‘You are not of Christ.’ And how often do we hear Christians talk as though Christ were theirs and no one else’s! as though all except themselves were all quite wrong and mistaken. No man, no sect, no church, has a right itself to claim Christ, or His forgiveness, or the merits of His redeeming love as its special and peculiar, still less its exclusive, possession.

III. Why was St. Paul so indignant with those Christians who described themselves, ‘I am of Christ’?—Why did he think them sufficiently rebuked by the question, ‘Is Christ divided’? It is for this reason, that with all the selfishness of the religious mind they were trying to set up a Christian party of unchristian men. They were turning orthodoxy into the factiousness which is expressed in the New Testament by the word translated ‘heresy’; they were trying to emblazon the Name of Christ on the ignoble banner of a party instead of on the glorious Semper eadem of the universal Church. They were narrowing the Divine universality of Christ, as though they were the oracles, and orthodoxy should die with them, and the angels had never sung, ‘Peace on earth, and good will towards men.’ Two men went into the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican, and which did Christ rebuke? In true Christianity there is nothing of this pettiness or ignorant individualism. Christianity is as universal as our Christ, and he who lives or talks or writes as though it were other than this, whatever may be his pretensions, however loudly he may reiterate, ‘Lord, Lord,’ has neither learnt the most elementary of Christ’s lessons, which is the lesson of Christian love, nor acquired the sweetest of the virtues which He inculcated, which is a humble and a childlike mind. Therefore, let not Christ be a Christ claimed exclusively by our sect or claimed solely by ourselves. Let Him indeed be the Lord, the Christ of us individually. He it is Who, amidst the noise and jostling of the world, is our one Friend in all our faithlessness, the One to forgive in all our sinning.

IV. As a plain practical conclusion, I would say, while with contrite hearts and scarce uplifted eyes we may say in our own solitude of trust, ‘I hope that I am of Christ, if only He will pardon the very best of what I am,’ let us be wary of saying in an arrogant and exclusive sense, ‘I am Christ’s.’ Let us be wary of that miserable spirit which degrades the grandeur of Christianity. We are not the only sound or the only orthodox persons. All from whom we differ are neither so deep in darkness nor so flooded with error as our conceit fancies. You cannot ruin Christianity more thoroughly than by stamping it with bigotry and hatred. You have no right to brand with heresy every difference between your brother’s creed and your own. There is only one heresy which verges on the pardonable, which is—hatred. Wouldst thou be a Christian? Then lay aside the rags of self-righteousness, and thy badges of party, thy envy and bitterness and strife. Ceremonial observances are not religion. Multiplied services are not religion. Long prayers are not religion. Orthodoxy of creed is not religion. These are but parts of religion—elements of religion. To this or that man they may seem as religion, but ‘to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world’—that is religion. Righteousness and peace and joy in believing—that is religion, and to do the things which Christ says—that is religion, and all the charities which bind man to man and that blend the nations of the world—these are religion; and this is religion, to love God with all our hearts, and our neighbours as ourselves; and this is religion, to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

—Dean Farrar.

Illustration

‘Our condition is full of anomalies; we deprecate divisions; we hold our episcopal government as the best, and wonder why it is not so received. We try a theory which shall explain the success of the Gospel with the fact of our unhappy divisions. But as to the fruits, we are perplexed by what we see. A man goes to an island where the population are lepers; he stays with them, serves them, gives them hope in that lowest depth of trouble. He takes the disease; that was sure beforehand. He will die; that, too, is true. He asks only that others may be sent out to help them; this one is a Roman Catholic priest. In a Fijian island missionaries have extirpated cannibalism. There is fear of a relapse; victims are prepared. A woman crosses the strait, persuades, rebukes in her Master’s Name; brings back safe in her boat the lives of the victims and her own life. That was a Wesleyan. Another went to the Dark Continent, where the task of this century lies; was prostrated with fever, came home with zeal unquenched, went out again, and perished by the sword; that martyr was an Anglican Bishop. We do not feel able to discuss their relative positions in the Church of God, nor where error lies. Such grand actions stir the blood and moisten the eyes, and dispose us to praise Grid for His goodness. May He spread the infection of that holy courage!’



THE WORD OF THE CROSS

‘The word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God.’

1Co 1:18 (R. V.)

Any view of Christianity which leaves out of consideration the necessity of a reconciliation between the soul and God, and the need of Divine power in daily life—whether the omission be made in order that our religion may fit in with metaphysical speculation, or because there is no longer any room left in our philosophy of life for anything superhuman—in effect robs Christianity of its essential characteristic, and reduces it, when any attempt is made to apply it practically, to foolishness. Your own experience in your own life, if you are honest with yourself, is sufficient to expose the inadequacy of any doctrine which does not give its true place to the ‘Word of the Cross.’

I. ‘The Word of the Cross’ is the revelation of the reconciliation of God with man.—It teaches that there is no need to live under the cloud, that ‘we may walk in the light as He is the light,’ and that the ‘Blood of His Son Jesus may cleanse us from all sin.’ ‘The word of the Cross is the power of God unto those that are being saved.’ I do not pretend to be able to define exactly how the sacrifice which Christ offered upon the Cross is accepted on our behalf, or how His righteousness stands for ours. That is one of ‘the secret things which belong unto the Lord our God.’ It is sufficient for me that the fact of the efficacy of His death is revealed in the Bible, and may be put to the test of experience. We learn it under many figures. It is an atonement, or setting at one of ourselves and God. It is a ransom, redemption, or buying back of our souls which were lost. It is a sacrifice in which the Victim was offered in our stead, bearing our sins on His own Head. These are all figures, each of which gives one side of the great truth which lies underneath. It little matters what theory we hold as to how Christ’s death wrought the salvation of man; but it is of immense moment whether we have laid hold of His salvation in our lives. I call you to witness, you who have opened your hearts freely for the Lord Jesus Christ to reign as your Master and your King, how the cloud rolled away between yourself and God, and how His peace took possession of your soul, when you found for the first time in your life that Jesus Christ was your Saviour. Christ’s reconciliation through the Cross is a matter of experience, and Christianity is still foolishness without it.

II. But reconciliation with God is not the full content of ‘the Word of the Cross.’—It is also ‘the power of God unto us that are being saved’; that is, a continuous energising power in our daily lives, giving us victory over the sins which used to bind us. If it were nothing more than a reconciliation, and brought no power in its train, the deep blue depths of our spiritual sky would soon be flecked once more with clouds of sin, which, undispersed by any heavenly glow, would blend to form the leaden hue we know so well. But here again we may appeal to experience. Not to experience in moments of excitement, but in the humdrum routine of ordinary life. God does give power in the daily life. Look around you—is there not proof of the power of the Cross in the lives of many whom you know well? Have you never seen a change in the very faces of some who speak little of it, but who are winning the victory over sins to which they once were slaves? Those who have watched the change in a human soul wrought by the grace of God, and seen human weakness turned into Divine strength, know that the power of God is given to men. We who have felt it in our own lives can testify that victory over sin is no delusion; it is a tremendous reality.

III. Thank God, the way to Him is still open to all of us.—There is not one to whom life is not still bright with some promise if it leads pass the Cross of Christ. What He asks is the complete surrender of your whole being to Himself. There must be no reserve in any part. You must be ready to give up all for Him, to go where He sends you, to do what he bids you—you must be His entirely. What He offers is pardon for your sin; peace with God, that you may be able to look up into His face as a son to a father, with assurance of perfect communion. He offers you power in your life, both victory over yourself, and strength for your Master in the presence of ungodliness and wrong. The choice He leaves to you. God help you to choose aright.

Rev. E. C. Sherwood.

Illustration

‘Too often men do not put to the test the power of God because they are not willing to surrender their lives and wills to the work of Christ in their hearts. Too often the love of our own comfort, or of some sin from which we do not really want to be free, stands in our way, and we put off the matter till another day. Something whispers that the door of mercy is ever open. So it is, but practical experience teaches us that souls do not always want to enter there. The wonderful poem by Tennyson entitled The Vision of Sin illustrates what I mean. It opens with the description of a young man full of promise led away by an evil companion, who introduces him to sensuous indulgence symbolised by wine, and described under the figure of voluptuous music. Meanwhile God, in the awful solemnity of a rugged mountain height, revealed Himself unheeded, as the dawning of the day. And then the morning mist, heavy, hueless, cold, rolled down the mountain slope and engulfed the youth and the palace of sin, shutting out God’s heaven, and enveloping everything under its clammy pall. When he appears again the young man has been changed by the vapour from a bright and promising boy into a withered and cynical old man, embittered against God, and incapable of a single noble thought. Finally the scene changes back to the mountain height, towering now over a valley hideous with a seething mass of corruption below, and judgment is passed on the man’s life. As you read the poem see in the bright youth who

Rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,

But that his heavy rider kept him down,

your own soul with its boundless possibilities of soaring to heights of fellowship with God, if sin and passion do not bind you to earth. See in the withered old man, maudlin over his wine-cup, the soul of one who has deliberately followed the path of his own pleasure until all his power of enjoyment is gone and every spiritual faculty is dead—then ask yourself the question with which the poem closes, Is there any hope?’



A MESSAGE FOR JEW AND GREEK

‘The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified.’

1Co 1:22-23 St. Paul is here contrasting the expectations which men would naturally form of the Gospel of Christ with what that Gospel really is. He divides the world into two parts. Some, like the Jews, were requiring a sign; and others, like the Greeks, were seeking after wisdom. The same message of the Cross came to both.

I. A sign refused.—‘The Jews require a sign.’ These words immediately carry our thoughts to those occasions in the Gospels when this very demand was made from our blessed Lord Himself. His answer was, ‘A wicked and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it.’ No sign should be given, because no sign could be given. They were asking for some portentous work of wonder, some startling phenomenon which they might see or hear, bearing testimony to the Lord. It could not be given.

II. Conditions which could not be accepted.—‘And the Greeks seek after wisdom.’ They did not require a sign, but they had their conditions which they expected to be satisfied. A message from God, they said, must be addressed to the intellect of man and be in accordance with its forms. There must be an orderly system of doctrine, supported by adequate arguments, like the schemes of philosophy to which they were accustomed. Above all things, the intellect must grasp the whole, the chain of reasoning must be complete. Now St. Paul laboured over and over again to make the Corinthians feel that the Gospel which he preached was not addressed to the intellect of man. If it were measured by the mere intellect it must be accounted ‘foolishness.’ It could not be otherwise. The forms of the intellect might stretch until they broke, but they never could embrace it. It was too high for their measuring-lines to reach, too deep for their plummets to sound. It was addressed to something in man which was far above the understanding.

III. The true sign and the true wisdom.—‘We preach Christ crucified.’ This was the sign before which St. Paul himself had bowed down to the dust. This was the wisdom before which he had felt his own understanding shrink and dwindle into nothing. He knew that no words of his could make the sign plainer or the wisdom wiser. He was determined that he would not weaken the message of God by mixing it up with that wisdom which he had felt and known to be foolishness. He had nothing to do with any explanations. And the same message comes to you. Gaze steadfastly upon ‘Christ crucified.’ Ask for no explanations. Ask not how or why this thing should be. Be sure of this, that whatever explanation you may hear, whatever opinion you may form, will be infinitely short of the truth, for His ways are not as your ways, nor His thoughts as your thoughts. Therefore draw near with reverence and awe, and see this great sight. Gaze upon it until it has found its way to your heart and you hear it speaking there. It will speak for itself more mightily than the wisest words of man can speak for it. It is the sign of God’s salvation, for it signifies His grace and truth, His perfect righteousness, His everlasting love. It is the beginning and the end of wisdom, for it fills the heart with fear, and by gazing upon it man learns to know God.

Illustration

‘In the words of a modern writer, “Christ is Christianity.” Christianity is a great historical religion, it can be traced back to a founder with whose career and history we are familiar, and there are other great historical religions, e.g. Buddhism and Mohammedanism, which can be traced back to personal founders; but unlike all other religions, Christianity claims to be more than historical, it claims for its founder an abiding presence in the world in every age, its founder is not a being of the past, but a being of the present, and hence Christian preaching in the Apostolic age and in our own is not setting forth a body of divinity, a chain of doctrines, or a code of duty, which owe their origin to Jesus Christ Who lived eighteen centuries ago, but it is preaching Jesus Christ Himself in all that He is revealed to be, Perfect God and Perfect Man, uniting the two natures in One Person, now living, in heaven, in the Church, in the hearts of His children.’



THE MISSION AND MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH

‘We preach Christ crucified.’

1Co 1:23 It is of the last importance to the Church’s mission that her message never vary, but be the same identically with the message entrusted to her from the first, and taught to apostles and evangelists by the enlightening Spirit. We have in the text the keynote of that message, struck by the great Apostle of the Gentiles.

1. We preach ‘Christ.’—One of the most remarkable features in Christ’s own preaching was His assertion of Himself. He preached, as no other ever did, Himself. ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life’; ‘I am the Bread of Life’; ‘I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me’; ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ We see in this a striking evidence of Christ’s Divine authority; but we see an intimation also given to those who thereafter should speak in His name as to the character of their message; it was to be an echo of His own, they were to be ambassadors coming with all authority in Christ’s name, and telling those to whom they came of a living Saviour, a living Teacher, a living Guide, a living Friend, and a living King, a Person invisible indeed to the eye of sense, but no mere abstraction or fond ideal, present in the world, claiming through His ambassadors the personal trust and love of all His children—a trust and a love leading to such response as that given by the Apostle, than whom none knew better or more happily the power of his own preaching. ‘I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’

II. But our compendium of theology is not exhausted.—We preach, writes St. Paul, ‘Christ crucified’; Christ and a fact concerning Christ. ‘Crucified’—now the fact of Christ’s crucifixion is not stated here as one of the most important incidents in His career—but it is selected as the one fact which coupled with the Redeemer’s name shall comprise the theme of the Christian message. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ stands alone in the world’s history as a fact of momentous significance; it is full of doctrine. The Cross is the staff of that banner of infinite love which floats over a fallen world. If Christ be the centre of Christianity, the Cross is the centre of Christian dogma. If Christ be Christianity, the Cross is the Gospel. The mission of Jesus Christ was to bring sinful man to God, to bridge the gulf which sin had opened between the fallen children and their loving Father. Forgiveness of sins and peace with God and with conscience are the blessings which the Gospel proclaims to all who ponder the mystery of evil and know the plague of their own hearts; blessings pregnant with every other blessing of the Christian life. In imparting these blessings the Cross was ordained to be the instrument, the magnet of attraction for the sinner, the bridge by which he should pass over the chasm that severed him from God. Hence is the Cross bound up with all Christian teaching and theology.

III. There are two dangers against which we need to be equally on our guard.

(a) The one, by a too exclusive attention to doctrines to leave Christ out of His own Gospel.

(b) The other, to preach the historical Christ or the mystical Christ while His offices and work as they are set forth in Scripture and the creeds are overlooked.

Neither of these dangers should be overlooked, for they menace the growth and success of the Church of Christ, as well as the life and peace of individual souls. They call for the utmost vigilance on the part of all who labour for the advancement of the cause of Christ and the progress of His Kingdom.

—Bishop W. Walsh.

Illustration

‘It was at the Cross that the mercy and truth of God met together, that His righteousness and peace embraced one another, so that He could be just and yet the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. It was on the Cross that the one great sacrifice for sins for ever was offered up. It was by the Cross that Jesus passed to His resurrection triumph over death and Hades. It was by the Cross that Jesus won His right to ascend His mediatorial throne, to sit at the right hand of the Father as the representative of redeemed humanity, and to pour down upon His Church the gifts of the eternal spirit. It was from the Cross pre-eminently that Jesus preached the doctrine of self-sacrifice and self-surrender which is of the essence of His teaching. At once an altar, a throne, and a teacher’s chair, the Cross gathers round itself every important doctrine of the Christian faith. God’s eternal purposes, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Atonement, the Mediatorial reign, the gifts of the Eternal Spirit, the present blessedness, the future glory of the Church, together with the deepest moral and spiritual lessons man can learn, all hang with the Redeemer on that tree of shame, and are all involved in that one word “crucified” as we apply it to Jesus Christ.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

There are five accounts of the Crucifixion in the New Testament: one in each Gospel, and the fifth in 1 St. Peter 2:21 –25 The great painter, Rubens, has been criticised for his picture of the Crucifixion because he represents Golgotha as a garden of flowers. But surely Rubens was right, for the Holy Gospel tells us that in the place where Christ was crucified was a garden.

I. The sweetest, fairest flowers bloom beneath the Cross.—Faith, Hope, Love, all grow near the Cross. How many kind and loving hearts we have known, and if we asked them where they learned their kindness and their love, they would say they learned it all at the Cross.

II. The whole of the New Testament is signed with the sign of the Cross.—‘What need is there to say that the Cross of Christ is the great overshadowing theme of each of the four Gospels, all previous narrative being but a long approach and avenue to this? We seem to see the figure of each evangelist bent down from dawn to dusk, like a burdened conscientious gleaner in the awful harvest field of the Cross of Calvary. Nothing is said of His unique youth, nothing is left unsaid of His precious death and burial. The four evangelists, like four immortal artists, seem intent, as under a sacred vow, on giving every detail with infinite fidelity.’

III. Whenever there has been a great revival of real religion it has been ‘Christ crucified’ that has converted the sinner and restored the backslider and uplifted the believer.

—Rev. F. Harper.

Illustrations

(1) ‘One morning Dr. A. Whyte had been reading about the Cross, and he stooped down and whispered to his little boy of four years old who was at his knee: “Do you know what a cross is, my boy?” “Oh, yes, father,” was the reply; “it’s just the thing we climb on when we go to heaven.” Dr. Whyte was delighted. “Ah, my little boy,” he continued, “when you are as old a sinner as your father you’ll know experimentally the truth of your words.” ’

(2) ‘Daniel Rowlands, the great Welsh evangelist, first knew the power of the Gospel as he was one Sunday reading the Litany in the old Llangeitho Church. “When he was engaged one Sunday morning in reading the Church service, his mind was more than usually occupied with the prayers: an unexpected overwhelming force came upon his soul as he was praying in those most melting and evangelical words, “By Thine Agony and bloody Sweat, by Thy Cross and Passion, by Thy precious Death and Burial, by Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the coming of the Holy Ghost.” As he uttered these words, a sudden amazing power seized his whole frame, and no sooner did it seize on him than it ran instantly, like an electrifying shock, through all the people in the church, so that many of them fell down on the ground they had been standing on in a large mass together, there being no pews in the church. His heart melted with love, amazement, and thanksgiving; similar feelings were immediately excited in all the people under this powerful impulse. Oh how did the dying love of Christ affect them all: they mourned and wept as they looked unto the Lamb of God suffering for their sins.” ’



THE WISDOM OF THE CROSS

‘Christ … the wisdom of God.’

1Co 1:24 Mark here the strong contrast drawn by the Apostle between the wisdom of God and the so-called wisdom of men, or, as it is called in Pauline phrase, ‘The wisdom of the world.’

I. The wisdom of God revealed in redemption, as a method of saving mankind.—Cowper sings—

O how unlike the complex works of man,

Heaven’s easy, artless, unencumbered plan.

This is true enough, if you are reflecting on the application of the ‘plan’ to human spiritual need. But the poet hardly strengthens his assertion when he proceeds to instance the rainbow ‘majestic in its simplicity,’ for the rainbow is not simple, but richly complex; and the many-coloured lights of which it is composed are only blent into one for man’s use; and this happens, too, curiously enough, to be the exact image the Apostle employs to describe, not the simple but the highly complex wisdom of God, in the passage where he describes it as ‘manifold.’ i.e. ‘many-hued’ (Eph 3:10 ), the colours being either associated in the bow or woven together in an elaborate embroidery; in either case describing complexity, and not simplicity.

II. The wisdom of God revealed in the Incarnation.—The subject of the Incarnation was strangely overlooked by the Church of a former day. This is the stranger, because it was not so overlooked by the early Church. Christians of the early centuries of the Christian era were never tired of meditating upon and writing books upon the subject. The wondrous thought of God coming down and dwelling among men took tight hold of their minds, captivated their souls. To defend this citadel of Gospel verities they considered the sacred duty of every Catholic against all comers. Gibbon may register his flippant sneer over the creed of Christendom hanging on a diphthong. But we know Who taught us to treasure less than a diphthong, a ‘jot’ or a tittle, a letter no bigger than an English comma, and the tiny horn that in size is about the twentieth part of one letter. At any rate, such care in defining this stupendous mystery apprises us of the immense importance those primitive believers attached to a right faith in it.

III. The wisdom of God revealed in the Cross.—Here is the crux in more than a literal sense. How freely men have canvassed the wisdom, the justice, the morality of the doctrine of the atoning death of Christ. They have not shrunk from ‘charging God foolishly.’ The Cross is an exhibition of injustice, in that it presents One suffering for others—Himself perfectly innocent, they guilty; and, by reason of these vicarious pains, the guilty received into favour, pardoned, restored, glorified. Injustice? Then all life is filled with injustice; for all life teems with vicarious pain. Is the soldier a criminal because he dies for his king and his country? Do the records of heroism all down the ages tell only of the miscarriage of justice wherever the heroes of the world’s annals have consecrated themselves to death for others’ sakes? Who thinks of punishment in the death they died, and who ought to think of punishment in the death of Jesus Christ?

Bishop A. Pearson.

Illustration

‘The words “wisdom,” “wise,” are found some twenty-eight times in this Epistle, and only fourteen times in all other Epistles put together. The reason is probably to be sought in the condition of the divided Church to which he is writing. Two parties were opposed to himself: the Apollos party, the Cephas party; the first representing the liberal intellectualism of the place, the second the Judaic conservative element. Here, then, you have the two lines; and so far as these party lines were being travelled on to the jeopardy of the Pauline preaching of the Cross, St. Paul does not hesitate, at any rate by implication, to stigmatise them both as the “wisdom of this world.” ’



CHRISTIAN SANCTITY

‘Christ … made unto us … sanctification.’

1Co 1:30 The special interest of this passage is to note the means of sanctification. How is Christ made sanctification to us?

I. Not merely by a presentation of motives.—No doubt motives are presented—motives of gratitude, motives of love, all have their appointed place, but who has not found that the motive power of these affections fails to produce the good fruit which was expected from them? We ought to be grateful, but our gratitude is sadly evanescent; we ought to love, but how dull and cold our love soon grows! No, the presentation of motives will not suffice; something more is needed.

II. Nor is He our sanctification merely by the exhibition of a pattern.—He is our accepted and perfect pattern, the absolutely faultless life was found in Him alone; but to present Christ as a pattern may rather depress than encourage me. If all that is given is a pattern I shall despair of imitating it, and despair is the death-knell of exertion. There must be something more than a pattern, or Christianity would be a failure. But Christ offers us far more than a pattern.

III. He is our sanctification first as to its source.—It is remarkable, indeed, that sanctification in Scripture should be ascribed to each person in the Holy Trinity. We read in Jud 1:1 , ‘Sanctified by God the Father.’ In 2Th 2:13 sanctification is declared to be through the Spirit, and it is certain that the Holy Ghost is the great agent in this work; yet both here and in Heb 2:11 we find sanctification ascribed to Christ. We may certainly, therefore, say that Christ, as head of His Church, is the source of its sanctity. What light does this fact throw upon the means of sanctification? It teaches us that, as we have already indicated, holy dispositions are received not by any efforts of our own, but by faith in our sanctifier.

IV. Christ is made our sanctification as to its sphere—i.e. He is made to us a sanctuary in which we may be safe. The word ‘sanctification’ is translated in the Septuagint (Isa 8:14 ) as ‘sanctuary.’ This gives us the thought of a spiritual atmosphere into which we may plunge, a hiding-place into which we may flee and in which we may abide, and only as we do thus abide in Christ, in fellowship with Him, shall we be in a position to receive from Him and to be sanctified by Him.

V. Christ is made to us sanctification as to its secret.—If you would be holy you must not only have Christ for you, you must have Christ in you.

—Rev. E. W. Moore.

Illustration

‘It is a frequent though ill-founded objection to the doctrine of justication by faith only, that it overlooks the necessity of holy living, that the effect of teaching it will be to lead men to suppose that no radical change of life is needed in themselves, that they may believe in Christ and yet live as they please. How great a fallacy this is every true Christian is aware, for he knows that wherever Christ is really received a new nature is received with Him, and that the tendency of the new disposition is as truly to holiness as that of the former was to sin.’

ST.




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Rights in the Authorized (King James) Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Published by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
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