II. THE CHURCH IS A BODY ACTUALLY SANCTIFIED. The two senses in which the term "sanctified" may be used need careful consideration. It may mean "made holy;" and it may mean "set apart," or "consecrated,... devoted to one special object," and this latter is the more frequent and familiar use in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, where cities, lands, persons, and things were constantly "sanctified" in the sense of being devoted, or consecrated, to the Divine service. Manifestly the meaning "made actually holy" cannot be that required in our text, for this has never yet, in any age, been the fact concerning Christ's Church; and, indeed, the New Testament holds this forth only as the sublime attainment of the future. But it is true of each sincere member, and so of the whole Church, that they are sanctified in the sense of being "self dedicated,"" devoted to God," and so ideally a "holy people." A man is what he really wishes to be and endeavours to be; he is what he sets before himself as his highest attaimnent. Guard this truth against misrepresentation and misuse, and make it an incentive to the formation of high ambitions and patient effort for their attainment. Add that the pervading element, atmosphere, and tone of Christ's Church is holiness. Christ present brings the surroundings of the "holy," and we are "called unto holiness." So, ideally, Christ's Church is "sanctified."
III. THE CHURCH IS A BODY SEEKING TO BE PRACTICALLY WHAT IT IS MYSTICALLY. This opens the application of the subject. Our response to and acceptance of the call into Christ's Church puts us under a definite and distinct pledge and responsibility. We bind ourselves to win the personal holiness that will match our call and worthily follow it up. This involves due self watching and self mastery, as well as fitting use of the various "means of grace" provided for us. What we ought to be we shall be found every day striving to be, if we are true hearted and sincere.
In conclusion, revert to the practical bearings of the oneness and wholeness of Christ's Church. It involves a tender and helpful common brotherhood in rights, in sentiments, and in duties. Such brotherhood is "becoming to saints," to those "called to be saints."—R.T.
1 Corinthians 1:3
The Hebraic and the Christian salutations.
The formalities of politeness have deep meanings, and bear important relations to the social and moral life of cities and nations. The heathen benediction was Salve, or "Health to you." The modern salutation, "Good morning," or "Good day," is a brief assertion of national and individual faith in the one God; for it really means "God bless you today," and so is a perpetual witness against infidelity. The salutation in the text is a blending together of the characteristic points of the Hebrew and the Christian good wishes.
I. FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW, WHAT WAS INVOLVED IN WISHING "PEACE ONTO YOU"? "Peace" to the Hebrew was the word gathering up the blessings of the keeping of the Jehovah covenant. If faithful to the claims of that covenant and to the spirit of that covenant, they would realize peace in the heart, in the home, and in the state. And to an industrial and agricultural people, "peace" would appear the most desirable of all earthly blessings, and the condition of enjoying all others. It may be noticed how the unsettled years of later Jewish history intensified the common desire and prayer for "peace." As the prosperity of the whole land was bound up in the faithfulness of each member, it was befitting that each should wish for the other that "peace" which can alone attend on righteousness. So the formality of the salutation covered a real anxiety for brotherly faithfulness to Jehovah.
II. FROM THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW, WHAT WAS INVOLVED IN WISHING "GRACE AND PEACE UNTO YOU"? The addition is most characteristic, seeing that Christianity declares the "grace of God that bringeth salvation." Man discovers that the adequate keeping of covenant, and so securing "peace," is not within his own power. It is this discovery that prepares him to welcome the revelation of grace for his need. With the grace he can attain the righteousness which ensures the peace, and so he recognizes that both the grace and the peace come from God. Then the wish of the early Christian is that a special manifestation of Divine grace may be made to the individual. The salutation, in effect, is this: May you enter fully into the blessings of the gospel, into the grace brought unto men in Jesus Christ; and so may you know the gospel peace, which you will find a hallowing influence resting on all your life! How may we put into modern Christian language the Pauline benediction? And how should we so watch over even the formalities of every day speech that our common good wishes should be filled with rich and fervent Christian meanings?—R.T.
1 Corinthians 1:3
The Father and the Lord.
From the Gospels it may be efficiently set forth and illustrated that the Father name for God was a most marked feature in our Lord's life and teachings. He seldom or ever used any other name; and a candid reader cannot fail to realize that in this "Father name" must lie much of the secret of his mission. It may be further shown from the Epistles that his disciples caught his purpose; and, with great frequency, they use the names Father for God, and its correlate, Son, for the Lord Jesus. This appears in the text, but connected with a different name for the Lord Christ.
PAUL'S PREVAILING THOUGHT FOR GOD. The Father; our Father; the Church's Father. Towards realizing the aspects of the Divine Being that are gathered under this name, we gain help by considering the natural associations and duties of paternity; the idea of the tribal patriarch as found in the early ages; and the prophetic qualifications of the sterner and governmental conceptions of God which are found in the Mosaic system. If the Father name for God be an essential, and a foundation of Christianity, as set forth by the Apostle Paul, then we must expect to find the entire Christian revelation toned and conditioned by this primary conception of the Divine Being and relations. This may be worked out and illustrated in connection with either of the primary Christian truths. And it may be pointed out that the term "Father" is properly inclusive of all holy demands, all governmental authorities, all reverential relations; but it is new and infinitely precious to the race, because it brings home the possibility of God's individual and personal love to each member of it. In that lies a great part of the attractive and persuasive power of Christianity.—R.T.
1 Corinthians 1:4-7
Gifts are signs of grace.
The introduction will naturally deal with the fact, universally recognized, that talents and genius and particular endowments come from God. This was early declared in the call of Bezaleel and Aholiab, and was a familiar idea even to the heathen nations. It is one that needs fresh and frequent statement in our day. In the early Church there were both ordinary and special gifts, but the manifest Divine origin of the more special ones was designed to convince of the Divine source of all gifts, great and small.
I. THE GIFTS SPECIALLY ENTRUSTED TO THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH. They included everything that could be regarded as necessary to their maintenance and work as a Church. But only two things are mentioned here:
1. Utterance.
2. Knowledge.
Both these were highly valued at Corinth, rhetoric and wisdom being eagerly pursued. Consequently, as the desire for these found expression and sphere within the Christian community, Paul properly leads them to recognize fully the source of such endowments. And to know the source is to recognize the responsibility of using the gifts only in the Divine spheres and in accordance with the Divine will. This may be pointedly applied to all the modern gifts and talents in Christ's Church; all are from God, all are for God's use, and all are to be used on God's conditions.
II. THE GRACE SEEN IN THE BESTOWMENT OF THE GIFTS. This may be recognized in the honour of receiving such trusts, and in the adaptation of the gifts to the various needs of the Church.
III. THE AGENT THROUGH WHOM THE GIFTS ARE BESTOWED. The living Lord Jesus Christ—"in Christ Jesus"—conceived as present with and presiding over the Church; dispensing to every man severally as he wills, for the general edification.
Apply by showing the importance of gifts in every age, the proper modesty of those who have the trust of gifts, and the thankfulness and hope we should cherish concerning those among us who are divinely endowed.—R.T.
1 Corinthians 1:7-9
Christ coming, and Christ here.
The early Church conceived that the Lord Jesus Christ would return, in some material manifestation, during their age. Inquire how far this idea rested on the view they held of Messiah as an earthly Deliverer and Patriot King. Their question, after our Lord's resurrection, "Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" indicated a bias and preoccupation of mind which even their Lord's ascension did. not correct; and possibly this lingering misconception helped to form the idea of Christ's speedy second coming. It may be further shown that our Lord's assurances about his coming again might have been taken literally, though he so carefully sought to impress the spiritual hearing of his promises, and their fulfilment, mainly in the abiding and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. With the conception of this speedy coming of Christ in their minds, the apostles regard the proper attitude of the Christian and the Church as being one of "waiting." Such waiting becomes a virtual "preparing;" it involves a care to have and hold all things ready, and this is a good sign of the faithful and diligent servant. "The attitude of expectation is thought of as the highest that can be attained here by the Christian. It implies a patient, humble spirit, one that is waiting for, one that is looking forward to, something nobler and better." The moral influence of a high and noble expectation may be pointed out. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also;" and it is certain that to fitness for it your life and conduct will be moulded. In these verses we find a double thought associated with the Lord's second coming.
I. PAUL'S THOUGHT OF CHRIST'S COMING TO REWARD. As he has been writing of "gifts" and their use in the Church, he must have in mind Christ's gracious reward of his faithful ones. Reward is proper from one occupying the position of Master. Rewards may be given for work that is far short of perfection, Rewards may be bestowed when no absolute claims can be made for them. Divine rewards can only be gifts of grace. The moral ends to be served by granting rewards are such as God may seek by such means. So it is rational and right that we should still watch, work, and use our gifts, in the full expectation of gracious recognition and reward in due season. Qualify, however, the expectation, by showing that the New Testament strives to impress on us that Divine and future rewards must be spiritual, not material; we are to have crowns, but they are crowns of life, righteousness, and, glory.
II. PAUL'S THOUGHT OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE TO CONFIRM. Too much attention to Christ's coming would lighten the conviction of his real, though spiritual, presence now with the individual and with the Church. That presence Paul conceives as the confirmation, the imspiration, and the security of Christ's servants. In it they have their only, but their all sufficient, guarantee that, amid. frailties, temptations, and perils, they shall hold out unto the end, attaining unto the coming of the Lord. Either of these thoughts of Christ may prove misleading if it stands alone. Each tempers and qualifies the other. Both together keep us wisely looking down on our work, beside us at our helper, and on to our reward. The thought of "reward" makes us wonder how the Divine One will ever be able to testify to our "blamelessness and unreprovableness." Illustrate by David's appeal to his "integrity." We may be genuine and sincere. A standard of consistency may be pressed on us as Church members; but nothing less than the standard of absolute purity must be pressed, on us as one clay to stand in the presence of the glorified Christ.—R.T.
1 Corinthians 1:11, 1 Corinthians 1:12
The spirit of faction.
Introduce by showing the various elements of which the Church at Corinth was composed. There are signs that some members wore wealthy and learned, many were certainly poor, and probably many were slaves. Those who suddenly become wealthy are always in peril of showing masterfulness, and claiming undue authority and. influence. Party feeling ran high in Corinth, and this, with the mixed character of the population, tended to break society into sects and schools. This affected the Church, and. Paul received reports of the disposition to make parties within it, and so destroy the unity of the Church in Christ; such reports greatly distressed him, and they are in part the immediate occasion of his writing this Epistle. The subject of the verses before us we may take to be Church unity—how it may be preserved and lost. Our Lord and his apostles manifest a peculiar anxiety for the conservation of the unity of the Church, and appear to regard that unity as essential to the Church's stability and growth and witness.
I. CHURCH UNITY PRESERVED BY MAKING EVERYTHING OF CHRIST. He is the one living Head, the only Master and Lord. The common life of the Chinch is the life in Christ. The Church is a whole vine, made up of many branches, but Christ is the uniting and quickening Life in the
1 Corinthians Intro
1 Corinthians
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