First of all, HE ASSERTS THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF HIS OFFICE, to which he was "called though the will of God." This pro found sense of the dignity belonging to his vocation, as one sent of God, was a supreme principle of his nature; not an opinion, but a conviction, and a conviction too strong to be dislodged from its central seat in his mind by any assault of adverse circumstances. It must needs be subjected to manifold and severe tests, since in this way alone can a conviction be made available for the highest moral uses. Owing to his exceptional position, St. Paul underwent, in this respect, a series of peculiar trials which distinguish him from the other apostles, so that, while he shared with them the persecution incident to the apostolate in itself, he had an experience of its perplexities and sorrows, personal to himself, in the distinctive and supplementary attitude he was ordained to maintain. Like all men, he had fluctuant moods, the ebb and flow of emotion with its reflex influence on intellect and volition. His natural temperament was extremely sensitive, and it was aggravated by hardship and disease. The blood that warmed and the nerves that thrilled under the touch of outward agencies, had their counterpart in the sensibility of his spiritual life, and, accordingly, body and soul were in singularly close partnership in his nature, and acted and interacted very powerfully on each other. Yet, in spite of this liability to the moods of subjective sensations and internal impressions, the conviction of his call to be an apostle of the Lord Jesus, and to exercise his Divine endowments in a specific way, stood altogether apart from the variations of ordinary thought and feeling, and held its strength of consciousness unimpaired throughout his career. So strong and yet so beautiful; humility the ornament of its energetic vigour, so that while he starts with "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ," he loses not a moment, but in the opening verse of the Epistle introduces "Sosthenes our brother." Not a trace of Sosthenes appears in the Epistle; the production is Pauline to the core; and yet St. Paul would associate with him "Sosthenes our brother." If St. Paul is about to rebuke intellectual pride and vanity, and condemn the evil partisanship that grows out of selfishness and disguises an inflated personality under the mask of homage to a great leader, what more fitting words can he utter on the threshold of his letter than "Sosthenes our brother," whose name was no battle cry of faction? Naturally enough, this sense of unity in St. Paul's mind with all Christians finds immediate vent in addressing "the Church of God" at Corinth, "with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord," adding with touching expressiveness, "both theirs and ours." A true sense of manhood is always known by its prompt and hearty identification with the manhood of the race. All growth and culture advance from the individual and the personal towards the universal, until at last—the providential work of development on earth accomplished—the narrow horizon that was quite sufficient for youth and early manhood, widens to the reach of the world. When we find this circumference, we find our real centre. Not otherwise can a man attain genuine individuality. For the light that blesses his eyes, for the air that feeds his lungs, for the food nourishing bodily strength, he is a debtor to the universe. And it is the aim of Christianity to call out and perfect the latent vigour of this instinct of race, and, but for its Divine office, the sentiment were impossible as a spiritual actuality. No wonder, then, that St. Paul announces to the mixed population of Corinth—to Romans, Greeks, Asiatics, in the Corinthian Church—the doctrine of grace for all, and emphasizes the gift as "both theirs and ours" The formative thought of the first chapter is thus intimated. To prepare for its enlargement, he reminds the Corinthians that it was as a Church arid in their organic capacity they were "saints;" that, as members of Christ's body, they had been "enriched by him in all utterance, and in all knowledge;" and then proceeds to show that the faithfulness of God was pledged to their continued progress in this selfsame line of direction, viz. fellowship in Christ Jesus as the Son of God and Lord of humanity. Here, as everywhere in St. Paul's writings, the two ideas of the Divine and the human in Christ are assumed as the ground of our fellowship in him and with one another; brethren because disciples, one below because one above, the strength and purity and permanence of the tie between man and man in this fellowship being determined solely by our union in him. On no other basis could the word "fellowship" have taken its specialized place in the vocabulary of Christianity. The contents of the term outreach what we ordinarily mean by respect, confidence, intercourse, and like expressions, and signify a deep sense of equality, of the recognition of common rights and privileges, and of a sympathy that has its roots, not in the shallow soil of races and their latitude and longitude as geographical facts, but in One who was the Representative in a peculiar and exclusive manner of the human race. Fellowship is an acknowledgment of redemption. It is not union alone, but a vital unity, a communion of man with man, and as man by means of communion with God in Christ—a bond that exists between spirit and spirit through the common grace of the Holy Ghost, as the Executive of the Father and the Son in the heart of every believer. Who knew more of the intensity of race-blood, of its subtle force, of its open and virulent activity in all the practical questions of the age, of its perpetuated and unyielding traditions, of its frantic emergence on every occasion unless repressed by the arm of authority,—who understood this better than St. Paul, himself a notable example for years of its power to blind common sense and stupefy common instincts? And where was there a city of such miscellaneous activity of mind and such collisions of inherited beliefs and such ill-adjusted public life as this same Corinth—a huge reservoir for all the tributary streams of civilization that had washed down into its bosom whatever had survived of the degeneracy in Asia Minor, in Egypt, in Italy? Yet this St. Paul is the man to speak of fellowship, and this Corinth is the community to which he would address himself in behalf of the grace "both theirs and ours."—L.
1 Corinthians 1:10-17
Divisions in the Church condemned.
The formative idea of the chapter is now brought into full view, viz. "There are contentions among you," and it is prefaced by the statement of a principle, to which St. Paul earnestly directs the attention of the Corinthians, viz. "that they be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment," or "perfected together," the stress being laid, as before, on their corporate or organic character as a Church. These warring divisions were not matters merely or chiefly personal, but they involved the very heart and soul of the Christian community. No doubt their partisanship in the supposed interest of Paul, Apollos, and Peter, ay, of Christ himself, was very hurtful to them as individuals. But the point he urges is that their partisanship was a disjunction of their unity, and hence that this unity, which was designed to grow into perfection, was arrested by strife. And just here St. Paul strikes the great fact that men of the outside world judge of Christianity much more by the Church in its totality than by instances of individual character in the Church. History is full of exemplifications of this truth, from the times of Julian and Coleus to the age of Voltaire and Rousseau. Nor should this surprise us; for evidently there is a philosophy in it, however much the philosophy is abused by the wit and devices of men. Individuals are "members one of another," members of the body; but the body is the Church, and the organic life of the Church is the Divine witness to the glory of Christ made visible through the Church to the world. How quickly the apostle rises into fervid utterance, and how compact his words! "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" If his services to the Corinthian Church are to be perverted in this way, St. Paul can only thank God that he baptized but a few of them. At the moment, St. Paul hastens to assert his own high manhood by an utter refusal to be made an object of partisanship, and he does this in the only method possible to his argument, by confessing his obligations to Christ who had sent him "to preach the gospel."—L.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
How St. Paul regarded the preaching of the gospel.
By an easy movement he advances to the gospel, to the mode of preaching it as essential to its Divine success, and thus reaches the climax of his reasoning in the first chapter. Other functions of his apostleship will come hereafter into view—the resolute disciplinarian, the firm, administrator, the tender but unyielding executive of the Head of the Church. At present, however, one thing absorbs him, namely, the Divine institution of preaching. What is his foremost relation to these Corinthians? It is that of a preacher of Christ's gospel. And how had he preached it? "Not with wisdom of words"—not as a speculative thinker, not as a Greek rhetorician, not in the spirit of worldly eloquence—"lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." Two things are prominently set forth—the gospel and its manner of presentation; and Christ is in each of them, and in each of them alike, so that not only the substance of the gospel, but the mode of its exhibition, must conform to his sovereignty as the Head of the Church. All preaching of the gospel is not gospel preaching. Looking at the character in the light St. Paul viewed it, the preacher was an original creation of Christ, a new force ordained and anointed of him, and introduced by him for the proclamation of the gospel. It dated no further back than Pentecost; it was of universal adaptation; it was to command all languages, and speak to the simplest instincts, not of men, but of man as man; and this original creation, this new force, was to continue through all time, and never surrender its rights and prerogatives to any successor. And the spirit and matter of fulfilling this grand office were thoroughly unworldly, so much so, indeed, that, it would strike the Greek as "foolishness," and prove to the Jew "a stumbling block." But in contrast with the Greek and his search after wisdom, and with the Jew in his love of national signs as the elect race of Jehovah, Christ was preached as "the power of God and the wisdom of God." The word "power" is not used except in connection with the preaching of "Christ crucified," and its value in the argument is assured by its specialty of application. All the aid of contrast and comparison is given to this one word. Power, God's power, is the designation of preaching Christ crucified. Over against it are put "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble," and the array of dissimilarity is lengthened out by "foolish things," "weak things," "base things," and "things despised." But what bearing has this condensed energy of a single idea and its rapid accumulation of phraseological forms on the partisanship of these Corinthians? Has not the apostle wandered from the main idea of the chapter—the "contentions among you"? Nay, this very partisanship is the exact opposite of Paul, Peter, Apollos, in preaching the gospel, and they can never consent to this abuse of their position. Nay, further, it is in downright antagonism to "Christ crucified." There is no "power" in it, no "wisdom." It is the idolatry of the senses. It is the intellect of the senses repeating the folly of Greek and Jew in another but equally fatal shape. It is mere seeking to find themselves and their glory in man. Directly opposite to this, St. Paul argues, we preach "Christ crucified," so that "no flesh should glory in his presence." A great lesson it is in the true spirituality of Christianity as the only strength and safeguard of the Church. If Christ is "made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption;" if Christ become "the power of God" to our hearts in this fourfold form of the "riches of grace;" the root of all worldliness is destroyed, partisanship is at an end, because self-seeking is ended, and henceforth that Scripture has a very real import to us, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." A man may admire others for their own sakes, and this admiration may be very helpful. To admire others because our image is projected upon them can only augment our own weakness. Our praise in such cases is but the echo of our self admiration, and echoes are dying sounds.—L.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
1 Corinthians 1:2
"Called to be sailors."
The term "saint" is, in common use, limited to certain classes of holy men. It is applied to the inspired evangelists and apostles; to the great doctors and martyrs of the early Church, especially to such as were "canonized;" and to the glorified in heaven. But the New Testament usage is more general. In the Acts and in the Epistles, Christians generally, otherwise designated "disciples" and "brethren," are also called "saints." In all except two of St. Paul's Epistles, the Christians to whom he writes are thus designated in the opening salutations. The appellation is one very significant and very instructive.
I. THIS DESIGINATION REMINDS CHRISTIANS OF WHAT THEY EITHER ONCE WERE OR WOULD HAVE BEEN BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD. Properly and literally, a saint is one separated and consecrated, made holy by being called out of a sinful society and set apart and dedicated to God. In the case of most of those first thus addressed, it was literally the case that they had been "plucked as brands from the burning." Inhabitants of one of the most luxurious, voluptuous, and debased cities of the ancient world, these members of the Corinthian Church had been rescued and saved by the gospel of God's grace. If the case seems different with hearers of Divine truth in our own land and in our own day, still it must be borne in mind that Christianity alone has brought about such a result that God alone has made us differ.
II. THIS DESIGNATION REMINDS CHRISTIANS OF WHAT THEY ARE.
1. They are the creation, the "new creation" of God's Holy Spirit. His cleansing and regenerating power, symbolized in the purifying waters of baptism, has effected this great change.
2. They are accordingly consecrated unto God. In the Corinthian temple of Aphrodite, a thousand priestesses were "consecrated" as prostitutes, to the impure worship of the goddess of lust. In the Christian Church all members are devoted to the holy service of a holy God.
3. They are sanctified in character. Negatively, Christians are represented by this language as being freed from the bondage and service of sin. Positively, they are arrayed in the white garments of spiritual purity. Outward, ceremonial purity is insufficient; for Christ looks for and values the purity of the heart.
4. They are associated with a holy fellowship. The Church is a holy body, and an unholy member would be out of sympathy with the body to which it professedly belongs. Holiness is a "note" of the spiritual brotherhood.
III. THIS DESIGNATION REMINDS CHRISTIANS OF WHAT THEY WILL BE. They are inheritors of a holy kingdom. They look forward to immortal citizenship in that city into Which entereth nothing that defileth, where holiness reigns perfectly and for ever, whose occupations of service and of praise are suited to holy beings and to a holy place. A prospect such as this is inspiring as well as delightful. The future casts its influence upon the present. "He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as Christ is pure."—T.
1 Corinthians 1:5
Enrichment in Christ.
Paul's view of the dignity of the Christian calling, of the privileges and honours of the Christian life, was both just and instructive, and may well assist us in our endeavour to live clear of and above the false and worldly standard with which we often meet. How could the grandeur and sacredness of our religious position be more effectively set before us than by this inspiriting language addressed by the apostle to the members of the Christian community at Corinth: "In everything ye were enriched in Christ"?
I. A PARADOX, WHEN WE REGARD THOSE WHO WERE THUS ADDRESSED. In the house of one Justus, a proselyte to Judaism, who had become a Christian—a house close by the Hebrew synagogue, in the wealthy, commercial, pleasure seeking city of Corinth, there assembled in a large apartment a company of disciples of the Nazarene. Some were of Jewish, some of Gentile race. Most, though not all, of the brotherhood were poor, and few were learned or of high station. Perhaps the families of Crispus the president, of Justus himself, and of Chloe from Cenchrea, were the persons in the assembly of most consideration; for Aquila, Apollos, and Sosthenes were absent. Some of those assembled to hear the letter of the apostle, who was the founder of the Church at Corinth, were Bondsmen, and few were persons of any note. When Titus and Trophimus, bearers of Paul's Epistle, accompanied by the Corinthians—Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, who had also just come from the apostle then labouring at Ephesus—when these looked round upon the gathering of Corinthian Christians, they may well have started with astonishment as the language of the Epistle was read out, which described the abundant enrichment of these lowly, poor, unlettered disciples. Here was a company, including "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble," but composed of the ignorant, the weak, the base, the despised of the world. A few Jewish merchants, a few handicraftsmen, a few slaves, a few industrious women, and perhaps a scholar or two, were declared to be "enriched in all things." It was a paradox; and it was a paradox which has been repeated again and again during the past nineteen centuries.
II. A POSSIBILITY, WHEN WE THINK IN WHOM THIS ENRICHMENT TOOK PLACE. Nothing but the consciousness of a new life breathed into humanity, a new hope dawning upon the world, could account for these Corinthians being thus addressed by a teacher like Paul. The language is so sweeping and unqualified, and the statement is made with so much confidence, that we feel that something very remarkable must have occurred to account for Paul addressing such persons in such language. The explanation is to be found here—"In him" ye were enriched. It is in Christ that the wealth of God is placed at the disposal of the destitute children of men.
1. His Divine nature is a storehouse, a treasury of true wealth; in him all fulness dwells.
2. His ministry was an earnest of the greater blessings which should follow; for he was ever freely giving.
3. His death and sacrifice were the means of securing to us the fulness of God; he unlocked the treasury: "Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be rich."
4. His ascension, so far from impoverishing the race he came to save, was the occasion of its enrichment. "He received gifts for men;" he poured out spiritual blessings from on high.
III. A FACT, WHEN WE CONSIDER THE ACTUAL SPIRITUAL POSSESSIONS ENJOYED BY MANKIND THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. As the sun enriches the earth with luxuriant fruitfulness, as great men enrich a nation by their heroic deeds and saintly self sacrifice, so does Christ actually bestow untold blessings upon this race. Referring to the Epistle, we observe that wisdom and knowledge, faith and healing, miracles and prophecy, tongues and interpretation, were among the special instances of wealth with which the early Church was dowered. Yet the same Epistle assures us that love is a greater gift than all these. "See that ye abound in this grace also." The fruits of the Spirit are the riches of the Church. The unsearchable riches of Christ are made over to his redeemed and renewed people. To them it was said, "All things are yours."
APPLICATION. There is nothing in the resources or the purposes of God, nothing in the heart of Christ, to limit the extent to which this spiritual wealth may be diffused.—T.
1 Corinthians 1:9
"The fellowship of his Son."
Social ties are inevitable either for good or for evil; some are made for us and others are made by us. All religions have made use of the social tendency, the social necessity, which distinguish human nature. Christianity adapts itself to the highest form of the tendency. The Divine Christ has made himself the Associate, the Friend, the Brother of mankind.
I. THE FELLOWSHIP OF FAITH IN CHRIST'S REDEMPTION. The work of Christ was perfect in itself, but its benefits are only to be enjoyed through spiritual association and affinity with Christ. Union of heart and soul with Christ is the condition of true salvation. Christians are built on Christ as the foundation, grafted into Christ as into the vine, joined to Christ as to the body, partakers of Christ as of spiritual bread, friends with Christ as by a congenial attachment.
II. THE FELLOWSHIP OF SPIRIT WITH CHRIST'S CHARACTER. The frequent expression, "in Christ," shows what was the view of the Lord himself and of his apostles concerning the identification of the people of Jesus with their Lord. It is their aspiration to be like him, to have the mind which was in him. They are followers, disciples, imitators, representatives of him whose name they bear. Sympathizing with Christ's obedience and submission to the Father, they are practically and powerfully and beneficially affected by this sympathy.
III. THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE ACTIVE LIFE WITH THE WORK OF CHRIST. Christians recognize their Master's devotion to the highest interests of men, his unwearied efforts, his unflinching sacrifice. In communion with him they make their life one of service, of consecration. In motive the Christian life is service to Christ; in result it is service to man. How many a life has been rescued by the cross from selfishness and from sin, and made a life of devoted and successful benevolence!
IV. THE FELLOWSHIP OF HEART AND OF ACTION WITH CHRIST'S PEOPLE. Union with the Head is the basis of communion with the members; yet by this last the former is fostered and perfected. Congeniality and sympathy of disposition and aim, worship and ordinances in common, mutual aid, conjoined endeavours and testimony,—these are the results, and, at the same time, the means of communion with Christ.
V. FELLOWSHIP PROSPECTIVELY IN CHRIST'S INHERITANCE. The Lord ever encouraged his disciples, who shared his humiliation, with the prospect that they should share his exaltation. It was his promise, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" it was his prayer, "Where I am, there may also my people be." Fellowship with such a Being cannot be for a season, it must be imperishable. To be "ever with the Lord" is the bright and joyous expectation of all who honour and who love his appearing. This shall be the crown of communion. Then in the fullest sense shall his disciples and friends be truly "partakers of Christ."—T.
1 Corinthians 1:17
The mission to preach.
No man did so much as Paul to prevent Christianity degenerating into form. He had himself been galled by the bondage of the old dispensation, and he the more rejoiced in the liberty of the new. He upheld the spirit against the letter, the life against the ceremony. He did not depreciate baptism, for it would not have been easy to depreciate the ordinance and at the same time to honour the spiritual reality it symbolized. But others could and might administer the rite of purification; he was at liberty to leave this to them, in order to give himself the more devotedly to his own special and appointed work, the preaching of the gospel.
I. THE LANGUAGE EXPRESSES THE CONVICTION OF A DIVINE MISSION.
1. The Christian, and emphatically the Christian preacher, does not go his own way and do his own work in the world. He does not claim to direct his own steps.
2. Christ is the sender. To Paul he had said, "Unto whom now I send thee;" and Paul acknowledged concerning his commission, "I received it not of men." It is a high and sacred truth that we are sent men. The soul that awakens to a sense of the reality of life and hears the voice of God, proves its vitality by exclaiming, "Here am I send me." Every Christian is, in a sense, a missionary, an apostle of Christ.
II. THE LANGUAGE ASSERTS THE VAST IMPORTANCE OF PREACHING. It is common amongst worldly men to undervalue this spiritual agency; they think more of political or physical power than of moral influence. What is preaching? It is the use of moral means towards a moral end. It is the presentation of truth to the understanding, of authority to the conscience, of persuasion to the heart. Above all, it is the use of a Divine weapon, though with an arm weak and ill adapted for a service so high. Our Lord himself was a preacher, Paul was a preacher, and preachers have been among the greatest moral factors in the history of all Christian nations. Preaching is the vehicle of a Divine blessing, the means towards a Divine and immortal result.
III. THE LANGUAGE LAYS STRESS UPON THE SUBSTANCE OF CHRISTIAN PREACHING. Paul felt himself called and qualified to preach the gospel.
1. This was good news. An argument may be reasoned, an oration may be declaimed, a poem may be sung, but that which has to be preached is good news.
2. It was good news from God. From any inferior source good tidings could scarcely have deserved the name. Man needed pardon, the principle and power of a new life, hope for the future; and these were blessings God alone could bestow.
3. It was good news concerning Christ. Thus to preach Christ and to preach the gospel were one and the same thing. For Christ was to man the wisdom, the power, and the love of God.
4. It was good news for all men. It brought liberty to the Jew and light to the Gentile, truth to the inquiring, comfort to the sorrowful, peace to the sinful penitent, and hope to the downtrodden and the slave.
APPLICATION.
1. The preacher may be reminded of his true vocation.
2. The hearer of the gospel may be reminded of his precious privilege and of his sacred responsibility.—T.
1 Corinthians 1:18
The doctrine of the cross.
There is a holy zeal of indignation in the spirit animating this passage. Paul, the rabbinical scholar, not untinctured with Hellenic culture, must have felt it hard that the life he had voluntarily adopted often brought him into disrepute even amongst his intellectual inferiors. But he had chosen deliberately and in the sight of God, and no power on earth could make him swerve from his course. His own mind was satisfied that the gospel could do for man what no other power could effect, and his daily observation convinced him that in this judgment he was right. He could afford, then, to endure the scorn of men, for the doctrine he was promulgating was attested as the power of God.
I. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE, OR WORD, OF THE CROSS.
1. The cross had to Paul no merely material and superstitious meaning. In after ages men heard much of "the true cross," and even now relics (supposed) of the instrument of our Saviour's sufferings are treasured and revered. The cross may be reproduced in shape, in ornament, in architecture, in posture, and there may all the time be no spiritual understanding of the cross.
2. Nor did a merely sentimental meaning attach itself in Paul's mind to the cross. Suffering, and especially the suffering of innocence, awakens sympathy, and people talk about the cross they carry, with no other apprehension of the meaning of the phrase.
3. But it was a symbol of Christ's sacrifice. Jesus bare the cress before he set out for Calvary; its shadow had been for years upon his soul. In his death upon the cross he bore our sins, and secured that his people should with him be crucified unto the world. Thus the tree of death became the sign of redemption and the law of life.
II. THE OFFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE, OR WORD, OF THE CROSS.
1. In itself. The cross was associated in men's minds with slavery, with guilt and crime, with suffering, with shame, with reviling, and with death.
2. In its position in the Christian scheme. To hope to convert the world by preaching seemed to many the vainest folly; by preaching a person, ridiculous; by preaching a person judicially put to death, insanity; by preaching one crucified, a moral obliquity and infamy.
3. There was a special reason why the Jews should resent this doctrine. They cherished a carnal love of splendour and power of a manifest and impressive kind, and the word of the cross outraged their sentiments. They looked for a temporal deliverer in the Messiah, and this expectation was disappointed in the gospel of the Crucified.
4. There was a special reason why the Gentiles, especially those of education and philosophical tastes, should take offence at the word of the cross. They disdained the barbarian and despised the Jew, and they contemned the form in which Christianity was proclaimed. They loved health, beauty and power, and had no sympathy with a religion which gloried in the Crucified, and appealed to the sinful and the wretched. Their taste for speculation and for novelty was not gratified by Christian doctrine, and the cross would fit into none of their schemes of the universe.
III. THE POWER OF THE DOCTRINE, OR WORD, OF THE CROSS.
1. The source of this power. It is Divine. The word of the cross expresses the Divine mind, shows God's estimate of human sin, exhibits the Divine righteousness, reveals the Divine love, and does all this on a human platform, so that we are enabled to appreciate the mystery of heavenly counsels.
2. The sphere of this power. Unbelievers cannot recognize it; they cannot but regard it as folly, for they are perishing in the sin from which it might deliver them. But all who are "in course of salvation" are living witnesses to the efficacy of the gospel. In a free moral nature, truth and love must be received in order that they may operate.
3. The proofs of this power. Compare it with any other power, and its superiority is manifest. What else can awaken the selfish, the sensual, and the obdurate to a sense of sin; can impel the low minded and earthly to the pursuit of holiness; can guide and graciously constrain to a life of consecrated service; can enter a corrupt society as leaven, and can purify it as salt?—T.
1 Corinthians 1:31
Glorying in the Lord.
The one condition of spiritual blessing, upon which Scripture universally insists, is humility. The lowly are assured of acceptance, and the proud and self confident are condemned to rejection. The terms of Christianity correspond with the teaching of the Old Testament; for it is to the poor in spirit and to the meek, to the child like in character and disposition, that the blessings of the new covenant are assigned. The same spirit which is a means of obtaining the blessings of Christianity is distinctive of those who possess these blessings. They have received all they enjoy from the free grace of God, and it is their delight to abase themselves and to exalt him from whom they have derived their spiritual privileges and prospects. They may glory, but it is not in anything which is their own; it is in him of whom and to whom are all things.
I. CHRISTIANS REPUDIATE ALL GLORYING IN SELF.
1. In their own possessions anal powers. There is a natural tendency to think highly of self, and to depreciate our fellow men and their gifts, and to forget our God the Giver of all. But the very fact that we are Christians is conclusive against the lawfulness of such moral habits. God has made us; Christ has redeemed us, and we are not our own.
2. In the gifts of God's providence. To boast of wealth, or nationality, or family, is to overlook the great question, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?"
3. In their privileges. This the Jews were constantly in the habit of doing; they boasted that they were Abraham's children, and Moses' disciples, etc. If highly favoured by Christian privilege, let Christ s people be upon their watch lest they claim credit for what they owe to the free grace of God.
4. In their attainments. The Corinthians seem to have been in special danger of falling into this snare. Human learning and philosophy may very possibly become an occasion of stumbling and reproach.
5. In their virtues. This was the Pharisaic spirit, and should be checked by the remembrance that "we are unprofitable servants."
II. CHRISTIANS CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF GLORYING IN THEIR LORD.
1. This is a just and reasonable habit. Reflection assures every true and spiritual Christian that he is indebted to the mercy of God in Christ, first for his redemption from sin, and then for every grace, all help, all counsel, all comfort, through which he is what he is. Therefore in the Author of salvation and life he is bound to rejoice.
2. This is a profitable habit. To glory in the Lord is a sure preservative against ingratitude and murmuring, and will help in maintaining a cheerful and happy tone and temper of mind. It is, moreover, an evident and beautiful preparation for the employments of heaven.
3. This is a habit for which we have the apostolic example and precedent. It was the habit of Paul's mind to glory, not in man, but in God. He could glory in his own infirmities; he could glory in the blessing God bestowed upon his labours, though then he "became a fool in glorying." But this was the prevailing sentiment of his spirit: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord!"—T.
HOMILIES BY E. HURNDALL
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
Christian salutation.
I. CHRISTIAN SALUTATION SHOULD BE COURTEOUS. Christianity teaches the truest politeness. It seeks to eradicate the harsh and the brutal. Life is rough enough without our making it rougher; Christianity tends to smooth the ruggedness of life and to make it more kindly. Courtesy in others towards ourselves we greatly value; we have to be towards others what we would have them to be towards us. Paul's courtesy is evidently of the right type—it is heart-courtesy. Surface courtesy is of little worth. Besides which it is a lie.