1 Corinthians 2:1-16

EXPOSITION

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

St. Paul's own method.

1 Corinthians 2:1

And I "I too;" I in accordance with God's method. When I came to you. The date of his first visit was in A.D. 52, and he had stayed a year and a half (Acts 18:11). He had since been (roughly speaking) "three years" ( τριετίαν, Acts 20:31) at Ephesus. Of speech or of wisdom. I spoke to you neither oratorically nor philosophically. Hence the Apollos party, fond of the brilliant rhetoric of the young Alexandrian, spoke of Paul's speech as "contemptible" (2 Corinthians 10:10). The testimony of God; that is, the witness borne to Christ by the Father (1 John 5:10, 1 John 5:11).

1 Corinthians 2:2

I determined. The unadorned simplicity of my teaching was part of a fixed design. Not to know anything. Not, that is, to depend on any human knowledge. Of course, St. Paul neither means to set aside all human knowledge nor to disparage other Christian doer, toes. His words must not be pressed out of their due context and proportion. Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Christ, in the lowest depth of his abasement and self sacrifice. He would "know" nothing else; that is, he would make this the central point and essence of all his knowledge, because he knew the "excellency" of this knowledge (Philippians 3:8)—knew it as the only knowledge which rose to the height of wisdom. Christ is the only Foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11). In the person and the work of Christ is involved the whole gospel.

1 Corinthians 2:3

I was with you; literally, I became or proved myself, towards you, as in 1 Corinthians 16:10. In weakness. St. Paul was physically weak and liable also to nervous weakness and depression (1 Corinthians 4:7-12; Galatians 4:13; 2 Corinthians 10:1, 2 Corinthians 10:10; 2 Corinthians 12:7, 2 Corinthians 12:10). He shows an occasional self distrust rising from the consciousness of personal infirmities. This enhances our sense of his heroic courage and endurance. Doubtless this physical weakness and nervous depression were connected with his "stake in the flesh," which seems to have been an acute and distressing form of ophthalmia, accompanied with cerebral disturbance (see my 'Life of St. Paul,' 1:215-221). In fear, and in much trembling. Probably the words are even literally true, though they are a common phrase (2 Corinthians 7:15; Philippians 2:12, Philippians 2:13; Ephesians 6:5). It must be remembered that in his first visit to Corinth St. Paul had gone through stormy and troubled days (Acts 18:1-12).

1 Corinthians 2:4

My speech and my preaching; the form and matter of my discourse. He would not attempt to use the keen sword of philosophical dialectics or human eloquence, but would only use the weapon of the cross. Was not with enticing words of man's wisdom; rather, with persuasive words of wisdom (the word anthropines is a gloss). This simplicity was the more remarkable because "Corinthian words" was a proverb for choice, elaborate, and glittering phrases (Wetstein). It is not improbable that the almost total and deeply discouraging want of success of St. Paul in preaching at Athens had impressed him mere strongly with the uselessness of attempting to fight Greek philosophers with their own blunt and imperfect weapons. In demonstration of the Spirit and of power. So he says to the Thessalonians," Our gospel came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." The plain facts, so repellent to the natural intellect, were driven home with matchless force by spiritual conviction. The only heathen critic who has mentioned St. Paul's method is Longinus, the author of the treatise on 'The Sublime and Beautiful,' who calls him "a master of unproved dogma," meaning apparently that his force lay in the irresistible statement of the facts which he came to preach.

1 Corinthians 2:5

In the power of God. So in 2 Corinthians 4:7 he says that the treasure they carried was "in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us."

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

The apparent foolishness is the only wisdom.

1 Corinthians 2:6

Howbeit. In this passage he shows that in reality a crushing irony lay in his description of the gospel as being, in the world's judgment, "weak" and "foolish." It was the highest wisdom, but it could only be understood by the perfect. Its apparent folly to the Corinthians was a proof of their blindness and incapacity. Among the perfect. The word either means

1 Corinthians 2:7

In a mystery; that is, "in a truth, once hidden, now revealed." The word is now used for what is dark and incomprehensible, but it has no such meaning in the New Testament, where it means "what was once secret, but has now been made manifest" (Romans 16:25; Ephesians 3:4, Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26; 1 Timothy 3:16). It implies the very reverse of any esoteric teaching. Hidden. It was "hidden from the wise and prudent, but revealed to babes" (Matthew 11:25). Before the worlds; literally, before the ages; before time began. Unto our glory. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews clearly states that "the future age" is in God's counsels subjected, not to the angels, but to man. But "our glory" is that we are "called to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus" (1 Peter 5:10).

1 Corinthians 2:8

Had they known it; literally, had they recognized; had they got to know it. The apostles often dwell on this ignorance as being in part a palliation for the sin of rejecting Christ (see especially Acts 3:17; Acts 13:27; comp. Isaiah 2:1). Jews and Romans, emperors, procurators: high priests, Pharisees, had in their ignorance conspired in vain to prevent what God had foreordained. The Lord of glory. This is not a mere equivalent of "the glorious Lord," in Psalms 24:10. It is "the Lord of the glory," i.e. "the Lord of the Shechinah" (comp. Ephesians 1:17, "the Father of the glory "). The Shechinah was the name given by the Jews to the cloud of light which symbolized God's presence. The cherubim are called, in Hebrews 9:5, "cherubim of glory," because the Shechinah was borne on their outspread wings (see, however, Acts 7:2; Ephesians 1:17). There would have been to ancient ears a startling and awful paradox in the words "crucified the Lord of glory." The words brought into juxtaposition the lowest ignominy and the most splendid exaltation.

1 Corinthians 2:9

But as it is written. The whole sentence in the Greek is unfinished. The thought seems to be, "But God has revealed to us things which eye hath not seen, etc., though the princes of this world were ignorant of them." Scriptural quotations are often thus introduced, apart from the general grammar of the sentence, as in the Greek of 1 Corinthians 1:31. Eye hath not seen, etc. The Revised Version is here more literal and accurate. The quotation as it stands is not found in the Old Testament. It most resembles Isaiah 64:4, but also vaguely resembles Isaiah 53:1-12:15; Isaiah 65:17. It may be another instance of a loose general reminiscence. "Non verbum e verbo expressit," says St. Jerome, "sed παραφραστικῶς eundem sensum aliis sermonibus indicavit." St. Chrysostom regards the words as part of a lost prophecy. Origen, Zacharias of Chrysopolis, and others say that the words occurred in an apocryphal book, the 'Apocalypse of Elias,' but if so the apocryphal writer must have had the passage of Isaiah in his mind. Some regard the words as a fragment of some ancient liturgy. Origen thought that they came from the 'Revelation of Elijah.' They were also to be found in the 'Ascension of Isaiah' (Jeremiah on Isaiah 64:4). and they occur in the Talmud. In a curious fragment of Hegesippus preserved in Photius, that old writer indignantly repudiates this passage, saying that it is futile and "utterly belies ( καταψεύδεσθαι) the Holy Scriptures and the Lord, who says, 'Blessed are your eyes which see, and your ears which hear.'" Photius cannot understand why ( ὅτι καὶ παθὼν) Hegesippus should speak thus. Routh hardly knows how to excuse him; but perhaps if we had the context of the fragment we should see that he is attacking, not the words themselves, but some perversion of them by heretics, like the Docetae. The phrase, "As it is written," decisively marks an intention to refer to Scripture. Neither have entered into the heart of man; literally, things which have not set foot upon the heart. The general thought is that God's revelations (for the immediate reference is to these, and not to future bliss) pass all understanding. The quotation of these words as referring to heaven is one of the numberless instances of texts inaccurately applied.

1 Corinthians 2:10

But God hath revealed them unto us. They are secret no longer, but are "mysteries which now it is given us to know" (Matthew 13:11). By his Spirit. The Spirit guides into all truth (John 13:16). In 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 St. Paul attributes every gift of wisdom directly to him. Searcheth. "How unsearchable are his judgments!" (Romans 11:33). Yea, the deep things of God. This expression, "The depths of God," passed into the cant expression of the Gnostics, and it may be with reference to their misuse of it that St. John uses the phrase, "The depths of Satan" (Revelation 2:24). "Oh, the depth," etc.! (Romans 11:33).

1 Corinthians 2:11

The things of God none knoweth. Some manuscripts have not the same word ( οῖδεν) as that rendered "knoweth" in the earlier clause, but "hath learnt" ( ἔγνωκεν); comp. John 21:17; 2 Corinthians 5:16. All that is meant is that our knowledge of God must always be relative, not absolute. It is not possible to measure the arm of God with the finger of man.

1 Corinthians 2:12

The spirit of the world. The heathen world in its heathen aspect is regarded as under the power of the devil (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 6:11, Ephesians 6:12). Freely given to us by God. The word "freely" is here involved in the verb ( χαρισθέντα) "graciously bestowed." It is different from the phrase used in "Freely ye have received," which is gratuitously ( δωρεὰν, Matthew 10:8). All God's gifts are "without money and without price" (Is 55:1), and not "to be bought with money" (Acts 18:20).

1 Corinthians 2:13

Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. The meaning of this clause is very uncertain. It has been rendered, "Blending spiritual things with spiritual" (Kling, Wordsworth), i.e. not adulterating them with carnal admixtures (2 Corinthians 2:17; 1 Peter 2:22). "Interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men". "Explaining spiritual things in spiritual words." This meaning the Greek will not bear, but Calvin and Beza get the same meaning by rendering it, "Adapting spiritual things to spiritual words." It is doubtful whether the Greek verb (sunkrinontes) can be rendered "comparing,'' which comes from the Vulgate, comparantes. Wickliffe has the version, "Maken a liknesse of spyritual things to goostli men, for a besteli man persuyved not through thingis." The commonest sense of the word in the LXX. is "interpreting'' (Genesis 40:8, etc.), and the best rendering is, "Explaining spirituals to spiritual men." If it be supposed that the verb συγκρίνω acquired the sense of "comparing" in Hellenistic Greek (2 Corinthians 10:12; Wis. 7:29; 15:18), then the rendering of our Authorized Version may stand.

1 Corinthians 2:14

The natural man. The Greek word is ψυχικὸς (psychical); literally, soulish, i.e. the man who lives the mere life of his lower understanding, the unspiritual, sensuous, and egoistic man. He may be superior to the fleshly, sensual, or carnal man, who lives only the life of the body ( σωματικὸς); but is far below the spiritual man ( πνευματικός). St. Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:23) recognizes the tripartite nature of man—body, soul, spirit. Receiveth not; i.e. "does not choose to accept." He judges them by the foregone conclusions of his own prejudice. Because they are spiritually judged. The organ for the recognition of such truths—namely, the spirit—has become paralyzed or fallen into atrophy, from neglect; therefore the egoist and the sensualist have lost the faculty whereby alone spiritual truth is discernible. It becomes to them what painting is to the blind, or music to the deaf. This elementary truth is again and again insisted on in Scripture, and ignored by sceptics (Romans 8:6, Romans 8:7; John 3:3; John 6:44, John 6:45; John 14:17; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6). This verse is sometimes used to depreciate knowledge, reason, and intellect. On that abuse of the passage, see Hooker, 'Eccl. Pol.,' 3. Ecclesiastes 8:4-11, an admirable passage, which Bishop Wordsworth quotes at length. It is, perhaps, sufficient to say that if God has no need of human knowledge, he has still less need of human ignorance.

1 Corinthians 2:15

Judgeth all things. If he can judge the higher, lie can of course judge the lower. Being spiritual, he becomes intellectual also, as well as more than intellectual. He can see into the difference between the dream and the reality; he can no longer take the shadow for the substance. He can not only decide about ordinary matters, but can also "discriminate the transcendent,'' i.e. see that which is best even in different alternatives of good. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Psalms 25:14). He himself is judged of no man. He may be judged, condemned, depreciated, slandered every day of his life, but the arrow flights of human judgment fall far short of him. These Corinthians were judging and comparing Paul and Apollos and Cephas; but their judgments were false and worthless, and Paul told them that it was less than nothing to him to be judged by them or by man's feeble transitory day (1 Corinthians 4:3). "Evil men," as Solomon said, "understand not judgment" (Proverbs 28:5).

1 Corinthians 2:16

Who hath known the mind of the Lord? "The Lord" is Jehovah (see Isaiah 40:13, LXX.; Romans 11:34). This is the reason why no one can judge the spiritual man in his spiritual life. To do so is like judging God. We have the mind of Christ. So Christ himself had told the apostles (John 15:15); and St. Paul always claimed to have been taught by direct revelation from Christ (Galatians 1:11, Galatians 1:12). They had the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), and therefore the mind of Christ.

HOMILETICS

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

A faithful picture of a true gospel preacher.

"And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech," etc. These words may be regarded as a faithful picture of a true gospel preacher.

I. The grand subject of his ministry is the CRUCIFIED CHRIST.

1. Christ crucified, because he is the highest revelation of God's love for man.

2. Christ crucified, because he is the most thrilling demonstration of the wickedness of humanity.

3. Christ crucified, because he is the grandest display of loyalty to moral rectitude. This is the theme—a personal "Christ crucified;" not a creed or creeds written in books. He himself; not the theories of theologians about him.

II. The grand subject of his ministry is TO HIM SOUL ABSORBING. "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." The man who has some paramount sentiment looks at the universe through it, ay, and values the universe so far as it reflects and honours that sentiment. Hence to Paul Christ was "all in all." All other subjects—political and philosophical—dwindled into insignificance in its presence; it swallowed up his great soul.

III. The grand subject of his ministry makes him INDIFFERENT TO ALL RHETORICAL CONSIDERATIONS. "I… came not with excellency of speech." In order to exhibit this theme to men, he never thought of brilliant sentences and polished periods and studied composition; not he. The theme was independent of it, infinitely too great for it. Does the splendid apple tree in full blossom require to be decorated with gaudy ribbons? Christ crucified is eloquence, mighty eloquence. Tell the story of his life in plain vernacular, with the notes of nature, however rough, and in vital sympathy with its spirit; and your discourse will be a thousand times mightier than the orations with which Demosthenes shook the proud democracy of Greece.

IV. The grand subject of his ministry SUBDUES IN HIM ALL SELF CONSCIOUSNESS. "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." This Paul was naturally a strong, intrepid soul, but in the presence of this grand theme he felt weak and trembling. "Who is sufficient for these things?" he exclaims. Vanity in any man is a vile and disgusting incongruity, but in a preacher it is a thousand times worse. A vain preacher is an anomaly, an impostor. He has failed to realize the grand theme about which he prates.

V. The grand subject of his ministry INVESTS HIM WITH DIVINE POWER OVER MAN. "My preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, hut in the rower of God." There is as truly Divine power in the ministry of a true preacher as there is in the heaving of ocean or the rolling of planets; but a higher power withal, power over mind, it is "the power of God unto salvation."

"Would I describe a preacher such as Paul," etc.

(Cowper.)

1 Corinthians 2:6, 1 Corinthians 2:7

The gospel: its description, preachers, and hearers.

"Howbeit we speak wisdom," etc. In these words we have three things concerning the gospel.

I. A DESCRIPTION OF ITS NATURE. Paul calls it the" wisdom of God." The wisdom of a system may be determined by two things.

1. By the character of the end it contemplates. A system which aims at an insignificant or unworthy end would scarcely be considered wise. What is the end the gospel aims at? The restoration in human souls of supreme sympathy with God. The absence of this sympathy is the cause of all the crimes, evils, and sorrows that curse humanity.

2. By the fitness of the means it employs. Though a system contemplate a grand end, yet if the means it employs are unadapted, it could scarcely be called wise. What are the means Christianity employs to generate this love for God in unloving souls? Ask what the souls destitute of this love must have in order to get it, and our answer will be three things:

These things we think essential in the nature of the case, and these three things the gospel gives. It is, therefore, emphatically the "wisdom of God."

II. A RULE FOR ITS PREACHERS. "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect." The apostle clearly means by the word "perfect" those in the Christian community who were more advanced in the knowledge of Christ, who stood most in contrast with those who are but" babes in Christ." One of these ideas may be attached to the language of the apostle. Either that he had an exoteric and esoteric doctrine for men, or that the most advanced Christian alone could discern the wisdom of his doctrine, or that he adapted his teaching to the capacity of his hearers. The last is the idea which I think we are to accept as the meaning. In another place he tells the Christians at Corinth that he had hitherto "fed them with milk, and not with meat, because they were not able to bear it" His conduct is, I take it, a rule for all true preaching.

III. AN OBLIGATION UPON ITS HEARERS. If the higher aspects of gospel religion can only be appreciated by these who are "perfect," those who have attained to a high stage of Christian knowledge, it is manifestly their duty to advance beyond the "first principles of the oracles of God." This duty hearers owe

1 Corinthians 2:8, 1 Corinthians 2:9

Spiritual ignorance the cause of immense evil and the occasion, of immense good.

"Which none of the princes of this world," etc. The words lead us to look on spiritual ignorance—i.e., ignorance of God and our obligations to him—in two very opposite aspects.

I. AS THE CAUSE OF IMMENSE EVIL. These "princes of the world," through ignorance, "crucified the Lord of glory." A greater crime was never perpetrated. It involved:

1. Because it is in itself an evil, and like will produce like. There is an ignorance that is a calamity. When mind and means are absent, ignorance is a calamity; but when they are present, it is always a crime. These "princes" had both. Their ignorance was a sin, and sin, like virtue, is propagated. That this spiritual ignorance was the cause of evil is clear from the fact that:

2. Had it not existed, such an evil could never have been perpetrated. The words lead us to look at spiritual ignorance

II. AS THE OCCASION OF IMMENSE GOOD. Paul tells us that this Crucifixion introduced things that "eye had never seen nor ear heard." Divine pardon, spiritual purity, immortal hopes, are all things that come through the Crucifixion. From the subject learn:

1. That the sinner is always engaged in accomplishing that which he never intended. These "princes" did two things they never intended.

2. That whatever good a man may accomplish contrary to his intention, is destitute of all praiseworthiness. What oceans of blessings come to the world through the Crucifixion! Yet who can ever praise the crucifiers?

3. That no man should act without an intelligent conception of what he is doing. How many act from prejudice and blind impulse! how few trove a right conception of what they are doing!

1 Corinthians 2:10-16

The gospel school.

"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit," etc. Because man naturally craves for knowledge and deeply needs it, schools abound everywhere throughout the civilized world, especially here in England—schools of science, schools of philosophy, schools of art, etc.. But there is one school that transcends all—the gospel school. Three facts are suggested concerning this school.

I. That here the student is INSTRUCTED IN THE SUBLIMEST REALITIES. "Deep things of God." Things, not words, not theories. "Deep things;" deep because undiscoverable by human reason; deep because they come from the fathomless ocean of Divine love. What are these deep things? The primary elements of the gospel, and the necessary condition of soul restoration. These "deep things" we are here told are:

1. The free gifts of Heaven. "Freely given to us of God."

2. Freely given to be communicated. "Which things also we speak," etc. He who gets these things into his mind and heart, not only can communicate, but is bound to tell them to others, and that in plain natural language, free from the affectations of rhetoric, the language which the "Holy Ghost teacheth," language which is suggested by "comparing spiritual things with spiritual." Men think in words; thoughts come dressed in their own language; the intellectual thoughts have their own language, and spiritual thoughts have a language all their own.

II. That here the student is TAUGHT BY THE GREATEST TEACHER. Who is the Teacher? The Divine Spirit himself, here called the "Spirit of God" and the" Holy Ghost."

1. This Teacher has infinite knowledge. "The Spirit searcheth all things." The word "searcheth" must not be taken, I presume, in the sense of investigation, but rather in the sense of complete knowledge. In the last clause of the next verse it is said, "The things of God knoweth no matt, but the Spirit of God." He knoweth those things of God; he knows them in their essence, number, issues, hearings, relations, etc.

2. This Teacher is no other than God himself. "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." The implication is that this Spirit is as truly God as man's mind is man. No one knows the things in man's mind but man himself; no one knows the "deep things of God" but God himself. "Who teacheth like God?" He knows thoroughly the nature of the student, and how best to indoctrinate that nature with his own "deep things."

III. That here the student MUST DEVELOP HIS HIGHER NATURE. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Man has a threefold nature, designated by St. Paul as soma, psyche, and pneuma—body, soul, and spirit. The first is the animal, the second is the mental, and the third the moral or spiritual. This is the conscience, with its intuitions and sympathies, and this is the chief part of man, nay, the man himself, the core of his being, that which Paul calls" the inner man," the man of the man. Now, this part of the man alone can receive the "things of the Spirit of God." Set these things before the "natural man," his mere body; they are no more to him than Euclid to a brute. Set them before the mere psychical or intellectual man, and what are they? Puzzles over which he will speculate; nay, they are "foolishness unto him." Mere intellect cannot understand love, cannot appreciate right. It concerns itself with the truth or falsehood of propositions, and the advantages and disadvantages of conduct—nothing more. Moral love only can interpret and feel the things of moral love, the "deep things of God." Hence this moral pneuma, this spiritual nature, this conscience must be roused from its dormancy, and become the ascendant nature before the "things of the Spirit" can be "discerned," and then the man shall judge all things, all spiritual things, whilst he himself will not be judged rightly by any "natural man." "For who hath known the mind of the Lord?" Who, thus uninstructed, can "know the mind of the Lord"?

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

How St. Paul preached the gospel.

A great truth is capable of manifold presentations. To be seen fully it must be viewed in various aspects, each of which is relative to the wholeness of the idea, while supplying to the student an increased sensibility to its excellence. Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks of his disappointment when he first saw the painting of the Transfiguration, but it grew upon him and educated his eye, the mind in the eye, to appreciate its sublimity. Hazlitt mentions a similar experience in his own case. Such impressions are not due to simple recipiency; the active intellect is aroused, and the thinker himself becomes a voluntary party to the object affecting him. Evidently, now, St. Paul's idea of preaching, as given in the first chapter, returned upon him and solicited further consideration. Accordingly, we find him in the second chapter detailing his personal history as a preacher while at Corinth, and, as usual in his Epistles, the autobiographical clement discloses its presence in his logic. Whenever there was an important issue in his ministry, we see the man in the fulness of his proportions and look into his very heart, so that we are at no loss to understand the reason of his impassioned energy. In this instance he declares that he did not come to the Corinthians "with excellency of speech or of wisdom," as the world regarded speech and wisdom. But he was with them "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." It was not the "weakness" of cowardice, nor the "fear" that brings a snare, nor the "trembling" that conies from an apprehension of criticism and hostility. Agitation and solicitude were the product of his fine sensibility, not rising from below, but descending from the highest realm of his being, the ideal of duty and responsibility so vast within him as to oppress the capacity of performance. A most blessed "weakness" this, the best possible assurance of truthful power, the most reliable token our latent nature offers as a promise of success. The throb of the engine in a huge Atlantic steamship sends its own quiver into every plank and bolt of the vessel. There is a "trembling" in all its compartments, but it is the trembling of power. St. Paul had no gift more remarkable than the gift of feeling to the utmost the doctrines of the gospel. Christ in him, Christ as the self of self, was the Christ he preached; and hence no discourse he ever delivered, no letter he ever wrote, affected others as much as they affected him. Effective speakers and writers are never on a level with their hearers and readers. They see more, feel more, than those whom they impress, and their personality is no small constituent in the effect produced. Rightly enough, St. Paul specializes "my speech and my preaching." The "my" means a man "determined not to know anything… save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Self exaltation he had none; for self exaltation is always a parody on the truthfulness of one's nature, and Christ was so real to St. Paul that he could not be other than real to himself in his ministerial work. And, in accordance with this fact, his manner of preaching the gospel is itself evidential of the divineness of the gospel. It was a "demonstration of the Spirit and. of power." Of what avail that the "Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom"? Give them the "sign" and the "wisdom:" what then? The belief, or "faith," if you so call it, is the man's own product, standing in his own strength, the pride of his own intellect, the joy of his own vanity. Not so the doctrine of "Christ crucified." The way it comes to the soul proves its infinite truth. It does not approach a man on the sense side of his nature, but on the spiritual side. Unlike education and culture, which begin with the intellect of the senses and develop upward, Christianity arises from the instant of its initial contact with the human soul at the highest moral capacity, and recognizes this soul as it stands related to God its Father, to Christ its Redeemer, to the Holy Ghost its Convincer and Sanctifier. Man as the image of the natural universe is regarded subsequently. Therefore the emphasis of St. Paul on the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," and therefore the strength and glory of faith, which stands, not "in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."—L.

1 Corinthians 2:6-13

Contents of the revelation.

But the apostle claims "wisdom" for the gospel. The counterfeit has been exposed, and the genuine coin is now presented. And how does he proceed to verify his right to use a term that, in the estimation of all thinkers, commanded respect and admiration? He will honour the Word; he will restore its meaning and clear it of obscurity, nay, expand its significance and invest it with a charm not known before. Solomon had used his splendid intellect to give the word "wisdom" a wide currency among his people, and Socrates had laboured for the Greeks in a similar way, each of them an agent of Providence, to teach intellect its legitimate uses and rescue it from bondage to the senses. And there was that old world in which these men, under very different circumstances and sharing very unlike illumination, had taught their countrymen what they knew of wisdom, and this remnant of its former state—the mere effigy of earlier grandeur—stood confronting St. Paul at Corinth, with its conceits, prejudices, and animosities, arrayed most of all against him, because he resisted, so bravely its earthly arts and methods. From a far loftier standpoint than Greeks and Jews acknowledged, an infinite distance, indeed, between the disputants of either side, he preached wisdom that came from God—a wisdom long hidden and hence called "a mystery," but now revealed in the fulness of the times. Yet, during the ages when this wisdom had been concealed, when eye and ear and the subtlest imagination had been unable to probe the secret, when human thought had exhausted itself in vain research, and had sunk at last into unnatural content with its own imbecility,—through all this probation of intellect in the school of the senses, God had reserved "the hidden wisdom" for "our glory." The demonstration of man's utter weakness had to be made, and Judaea and Greece had been chosen to make it. Rome's task was to gather up the results and exhibit them in a solidified form; nor could there have been such a Rome as that of the Caesars unless the experiment with the "wisdom of this world," and of the "princes of this world," had proved a failure disastrous in the extreme. That time had passed. And now this "hidden wisdom" had been made known as a spiritual certainty, which was nothing less than a "demonstration of the Spirit and of power." "There is a spirit in man," and it "knoweth the things of a man." Who can gainsay its consciousness? Who can appeal from its testimony to anything higher in himself? So too the Spirit of God "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God," and, furthermore, the Holy Spirit is given to our spirit so that we "might know the things that are freely given to us of God." Just before St. Paul had stated that the mystery, the hidden wisdom, had been held back for "our glory." And is not the truth of that statement now attested? Understand wherein "our glory" lies. It is in this—man has a spirit, and God communicates his own secret intelligence unto it in the shape of a "demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Not wisdom alone, not only perception and reflection, but realization and assimilation in the attending form of power, the act of the recipient of grace not being the functional act of a faculty, but of the whole mind; "comparing spiritual things with spiritual"—the spirit of the renewed man most fully conscious of itself, because of the presence of God's Spirit and the expansion thereby of its own consciousness, What a comparing power suddenly wakens! What an outreaching process begins! This capacity of comparing, beginning our development in childhood and continuing till old age, is one of the mind's foremost activities. It is susceptible of more culture than any mental property. The inventive genius of poets and artists, the skill of the great novelist, the discriminating power of the sagacious statesman, are alike dependent on the diversified energy of comparison. Accuracy of judgment, depth of insight, breadth of sympathy so essential to largeness of view, are mainly due to this quality. Give it fair treatment, and three score and ten years witness its beautiful efflorescence. But its spiritual uses are its noblest uses. "Comparing spiritual things with spiritual" is its grandest office. When the human spirit receives the Divine Spirit, what a glorious enlargement, by reason of the superaddition of "the things of God," to the domain of thought, emotion, impulse! Calmly the mind works on; its laws never disturbed, its strength invigorated, its ideal of greatness opened in fuller radiance, its range and compass widened by a new horizon, a motive power brought to bear it never knew, and the repose of strength deepening evermore in the peace of Christ.—L.

1 Corinthians 2:14-16

Natural man and spiritual man.