IV. THE SUPREME ARGUMENT OF LOVE IS IN CHRIST CRUCIFIED. At the cross God commends his love to us, and Christ proves himself the good Shepherd in giving his life for the sheep. The plea for love among Christians is thus put by St. Paul: "Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up," etc. (Ephesians 5:2).
V. THE SUPREME EXAMPLE OF PATIENCE IS IN CHRIST CRUCIFIED. (See 1 Peter 2:20-24.) Thus it is that many sufferers have learned submission from considering the unmurmuring endurance of the Lamb of God, who, under all the pressure of the last sufferings, made no complaint—"opened not his mouth."
VI. ENMITY TO HIS CROSS IS REPRESENTED AS A FATAL SIN. In Hebrews 10:29 contempt of "the blood of the covenant" is referred to as deserving of the sorest punishment. In Philippians 3:18, Philippians 3:19, St. Paul writes, not without tears, of the destruction which awaits those who are "enemies of the cross of Christ." Men are such enemies when, being self righteous, they will not put their trust for salvation in Christ crucified; or when, being self willed and earthly minded, they refuse the sanctifying power of the cross, and will not have their "old man crucified with Christ." It is no light matter or venial offence to ignore or despise the "one Sacrifice for sins." For all these reasons, the modern preacher should resolve as St. Paul resolved, and let no passing fashion of the time shake his resolution. Great works of God around us have a certain freshness and immortality. The flow of rivers, the surging of the sea, the course of the seasons, the splendour of the sun, and the bright order of the stars are the same now as when man first observed them. So also it is with the great work of God in Christ for our salvation, finished on the cross. Its wisdom and righteousness and love are as worthy of adoring praise today as they were in the days when apostles, prophets, and evangelists went to and fro among wondering cities of the East, determined to know nothing among the people save Jesus Christ and him crucified.—F.
1 Corinthians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 2:10
The true wisdom.
Often in the Epistles there is a single word on which the whole discussion turns. In the letter to the Romans, it is "righteousness;" to the Colossians, it is "fulness;" to the Hebrews, it is "perfection." In the letter to the Corinthians, it is "wisdom." Those Greeks sought after wisdom. It was nothing to them that the gospel might relieve a troubled conscience or reform an unworthy life, if it did not correspond with their ideas of philosophy. But St. Paul had an answer to give them for which they were not at all prepared. He calmly affirmed that they were incompetent judges of a heavenly wisdom, and that in his gospel to the people there was a philosophy beyond their power of apprehension—"the manifold wisdom of God." Greek philosophy at its best sought to ascertain how man may, by knowledge and the pursuit of virtue, reach up towards the highest good. But the gospel taught that the highest Good had come down to dwell among men; and that, by union in faith to that highest Good, man becomes more than a philosopher—a saint.
I. THE INAPTITUDE OF MAN TO RECEIVE THE DIVINE WISDOM OF THE GOSPEL. This is expressed by a quotation from the Old Testament (Isaiah 64:4): "Eye hath not seen it." The reference is not, as in a well known poem, to "the better land," but to the wisdom of God. When Jesus, the incarnate Wisdom, was on earth, many eyes saw him that could not discern the glory of God in him. And many an eye today sees the position of Christianity in the world, the width of its influence, and the dignity of its institutions, yet does not "see Jesus," and the things which God has prepared in Jesus for those that love him. "Ear hath not heard it." That organ which receives so impartially all communications fails to drink in the wisdom of the gospel. It is closed by earthliness of mind, till the power of God's Spirit unstops it, so to hear that the soul may live. "Neither have entered into the heart," etc. (verse 9). The heart is hardened, as well as the eye closed and the ear stopped. The spirit of a man of itself knows only "the things of a man," conceives of wisdom and goodness after the manner and measure of man, and so fails to conceive the ways and thoughts of God, and the things which are freely given by him. So the apostle denied that a man untaught by the Spirit, even though he were a Greek, could rightly estimate the gospel. He could remind the disputers and rhetoricians of Greece that their philosophy might sound as jargon to the unlettered, who could not bring to it a sufficient intellectual appreciation. In like manner, the gospel which he preached might seem to them a jargon or a piece of "foolishness," merely because they were out of moral sympathy with it, and had not sufficient spiritual enlightenment to discern and value it. It was the same lesson which our Lord impressed on Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." He can see Churches, preachers, forms of service, but not the kingdom which is "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," till he is born again.
II. THE REVELATION OF THE HEAVENLY WISDOM BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.
1. It was made known to holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. By them it was communicated to the Churches. But all who heard them required the unction of the Spirit, that they might receive and know the truth. No one can say that this is unreasonable. Every kind of knowledge requires for its reception a healthy state of the human understanding; and, when it relates to morals, a healthy condition of the imagination, conscience, and affections, because of the effect which these have on the understanding. In like manner, spiritual things can be interpreted only to spiritual men. The all searching Spirit of God must act on the spirits of men to whom the gospel is proclaimed, and so enlighten and empower them to receive "the deep things of God." Thus boasting is excluded at every point. Boasting of our righteousness is excluded by the work of the Son of God, all sufficient for us; and boasting of our wisdom by the work of the Spirit of God, all sufficient in us. By the Spirit all things are made new. Eye and ear and heart are new. The eye can see, the ear hear, the heart conceive, "the things which are freely given to us of God." What a dignity is this! What a joy! "We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God." We are taught of God, so as to enter with a new power of discernment into the secret of his covenant and the glory of his gospel.—F.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
1 Corinthians 2:2
The subject of the Pauline ministry.
The power of preachers is very various. Some depend on the rhetorical form in which they present their message. Their appeal is rather to feeling than to intellect, and they are stronger in the persuasive than in the instructive faculties. Very important spheres open to such men, though their work always needs careful and wise following up and supplementing. Others depend almost wholly upon the value of their subject matter, and even fail to win the acceptance they might in consequence of their so entirely neglecting to culture rhetorical and persuasive forms of speech. In over civilized people, such as were found at Corinth, there usually grows up a great passion for the merely rhetorical, as pleasing to the ear and to the artistic feeling. The Apostle Paul, in his zeal and intensity, despises all mere arts of rhetoric, and relies wholly on the grandeur of his theme, and the spiritual power with which its announcement is to be accompanied. His subject was—
I. A PERSON. "Jesus Christ." The first work of the apostles was to declare the Christian facts, which are the basis of the Christian system. Those facts concern the life, teaching, miracles, sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of all these things the apostles had precise and accurate knowledge, and concerning them they could render personal testimony. Of all these things they took care that adequate and satisfactory records should be preserved (2 Peter 1:15, 2 Peter 1:16). But their interest did not lie in the mere facts, but in those facts as throwing light upon the person, the mission, and the Divine saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation, they declared, comes by personal trust in Christ; and that he may be trusted he must be known, fully known. Therefore the apostle went everywhere preaching Christ, setting forth Christ, glorifying Christ, bidding men bow to him, confess to him, and receive forgiveness and eternal life from him. It is still true for us that the preaching of the Christian facts must set forth before men Christ, the person, and the unfolding of the Christian doctrines must glorify the "living Christ," who has all power to save.
II. THAT PERSON'S HISTORY. In view of the tendency to form myths and legends in those days, and to explain everything by theories of myth and legend in our days, it is important that we press the historical value of the records we have concerning Christ. It may be effectively urged that, apart from the question of the miracles, which demand a separate treatment, there is no feature of our Lord's life that is in any way unnatural, or likely to offend the historical faculty. No hero of the historic page can be received as real if a like acceptance be not given to the story of Christ; for the records we have of him will stand as welt as any others the severest historical tests. In our day it is necessary to lay firmly again the old foundations of a real human life and human relations. We must begin with the "Man Christ Jesus." It may further be urged that, apart from higher considerations, the human history of the Lord Jesus Christ presents features of supreme and fascinating interest, as the records of a child, a man, a teacher, a physician, and a sufferer.
III. THAT PERSON'S WHOLE HISTORY. "And him crucified." The apostle might have been tempted to withhold portions of our Lord's story. His town intense Jewish feeling would make him revolt from having to preach salvation by One crucified. "We can scarcely realize now the stumbling block which the preaching of a crucified Christ must have been to Jews and Greeks, the enormous temptation to keep the cross in the background, which the early teachers would naturally have felt, and the sublime and confident faith which must have nerved St. Paul to make it the central fact of all his teaching." He must have had a revelation of the glory of the mystery of the Crucifixion.
He must have seen how it "behoved Christ thus to suffer." He knew that this was the necessary completion of his earthly mission, the last earthly step, to be followed by a footfall in the "heavenly places" where he should receive authority and power to save. The "history" would be incomplete without the Crucifixion. The "mission" would have been altogether a failure without the Crucifixion. The Christian doctrine would be a moral scheme, and not a Divine salvation, without the Crucifixion.
IV. THAT IN WHICH CHRIST'S WHOLE HISTORY CULMINATED. St. Paul could not stay and rest in a human Christ, however attractive the records of his life and doings, or however quickening to human sympathy the story of his suffering death. He says, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him [thus] no more." The earth story culminated in this, viz. that he is exalted, a Prince and a Saviour. He is endowed with a present saving power. Crucified in weakness, he liveth by the power of God. From the cross he went to the throne, and St. Paul himself saw him at the right hand of God. St. Paul's subject was—The once crucified Christ, who can save to the uttermost now.
Impress that men find shame in the Crucified until they can read the mystery of the cross; then they glory in the shame, glory even in the cross. There will always, for true Christian hearts, be darkness and sadness hanging all about the cross, and yet the darkness is dispelled with streams of holy, loving light, and the sadness of our sympathy passes, giving place to songs of joyous triumph.
"We sing the praise of him who died,
Of him who died upon the cross."
R.T.
1 Corinthians 2:3-5
Personal weakness and spiritual strength.
In both the ordinary daily concerns and in the special religious service of life, a man may he just himself alone, confident in his own powers, self centred, self satisfied, reliant, on his own health of body, vigour of mind, well trained habits, quick judgment, and sound wisdom. Titan, no matter how sate and strong he may seem to be, he is really weak; and, as life advances and testing times take new and severer forms, his weakness will be proved and his pride effectively humbled. A man may even now be moved and possessed by an evil spirit. Still the solemn fact remains that man's soul' lies open to malign spiritual influences, which work through the bodily lusts and passions. Then the man himself is weak indeed, and the alien force within him shows strength only unto things that are debasing and evil. A man may be God's agent, having the Spirit of God dwelling in him and working through him. Then, no matter what may be the bodily frailties or the untoward earthly surroundings, the man will be found really strong, efficient to all spiritual work, which the indwelling Spirit may move him to undertake. This last is St. Paul's experience, Men saw in him great human weakness. tie felt within him great spiritual power, for he was the agent of the Holy Ghost.
I. THE IMPRESSION MADE BY ST. PAUL'S APPEARANCE. There can be little doubt that he was diminutive in stature, frail in health, unskilful as a rhetorician, and probably he was suffering from some disease or infirmity which made his appearance even unsightly. Of this his enemies were prepared to take undue advantage. The various descriptions of St. Paul's person should be considered, and the various theories concerning the special infirmity from which he suffered, Many of God's most devoted servants have, like Richard Baxter, Robert Hall, and many others, had to bear the heavy burden of constitutional disease, of intense physical suffering. But these things have been overruled, as in St. Paul's case, for good, so that they have become the very forces that have fitted the men for the nobler discharge of their great life works.
II. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF FRAILTY WITH WHICH ALL HIS WORK WAS DONE. There was not only the fact of suffering, but also the feeling of frailty. There was the sense of" fear," and there was much "trembling." He did not overmaster his trouble, but actually worked with it ever pressing upon him. "There was no self confidence, nothing but self mistrust, anxiety, the deepest sense of unworthiness". "There was a large element of that self distrust which so noble and sensitive a nature would feel in the fulfilment of such an exalted mission as the preaching of the cross." We may to some extent realize at how great a cost Christian ministers master bodily infirmity in order to do us service for Christ's sake; but few can know how much intenser is the struggle with inward fear and hesitation, and with the overwhelming sense of unworthiness and unfitness. Only in the strength and grace of God are these diffidences and inward fears overcome.
III. THE GLORIOUS RESULTS REACHED BY ST. PAUL'S WORK. These are implied in his appeal to the Corinthians that his work had been "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Those results were of two kinds—
Men received Christ as St. Paul unfolded his claims and his love. The Church was built up in the faith through the Pauline instructions. Subsidiary results, such as overthrow of idolatry, and change of daily moral life and relations, may be further considered. The Corinthians were themselves among the most interesting results of his divinely inspired labours.
IV. THE SECRET OF HIS SUCCESS IN HIS OPENNESS TO DIVINE LEAD. Men would have found it in his "accent of conviction," his intensity, his natural gift of leadership, the newness of his subject, the preparedness of the times, or the appeal to men's feelings; but none of these would have satisfied St. Paul. He would have said, when all had passed by, "You have not found out my secret." None of these explanations could satisfy any of us who carefully judged the phenomena. St. Paul was an endowed man. He was open to the Divine leadings. He was inspired by the Divine Spirit. God wrought with him, and these were the signs following. True spiritual work has still no other explanation. Men are mighty in the measure of their openness to the Divine lead. And the maintenance of this openness is the supreme anxiety of all earnest Christian workers. There must be, for all noble and lasting issues, the "demonstration of the Spirit."
Impress the mysterious power which some men have in conversation and in preaching; yet how often they are men or women of frail bodies, sensitive nerves, and wearying disease! They are under all kinds of disabilities; but these seem only to culture the higher spiritual power. Illustrate, e.g., McCheyne, Henry Martyn, F. Ridley Havergal, etc. This openness to the agency of the Holy Ghost is to be won. Our Lord taught us how. Such power comes through prayer and fasting: prayer, or closeness and intimacy of communion with God; fasting, or watchfulness, self denial, and mastery of bodily passion. We may win the joy of being "coworkers together with God."—R.T.
1 Corinthians 2:6
Who are the perfect?
The word is used in various senses in the New Testament. Our Lord applied it to God, saying, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." It is used to express what a Christian ought to he, and is pledged to be, and is striving to be, very much as the term "saints" is used in the Old Testament. Perfection, as presented by the apostles, is the idea, the aim, to be kept in the soul of the Christian, there to work as a perpetual inspiration to the seeking of perfection in the life. St. Paul presents the distinction between full grown men and little children. The full grown men are the perfect; they have reached the fulness, the standard of Christian manhood. St. John has a similar kind of expression; he addresses several classes—the fathers, the young men, the little children; viewing these as different stages on the way to the perfect, that "perfect" being kept as the thought and aim in the soul of each. In one passage we read, "That ye may be perfect and entire." The idea of "perfect" comes out more plainly when it is set beside another word. A man "entire:" is one who has preserved or regained a lost completeness, or one in whom no grace is wanting that ought to be found in a Christian man; but a man really "perfect" is one who has attained his moral end, the standard according to which he was made; or one in whom no grace that ought to be found in a Christian is lacking, none are imperfect or weak, but all have reached a certain ripeness and maturity. St. Paul's idea of the "perfect," to whom he could speak freely the "wisdom," the higher spiritual mysteries of the gospel, may be considered under three figures—they are the whole, the sound, and the full grown. It was not likely that the young Church at Corinth could furnish very many answering to this description; for most of them the simpler instruction in the commonplaces of gospel truth was still needful.
I. THE WHOLE; or the entire, the complete. Those having all the Christian faculties and graces, and all of them harmoniously cultured. The figure suggests the complete animal, with every limb well formed, and every organ efficiently working. Too often we find Christians who are incomplete; some sides of their natures are quite uncultivated, and some axe over cultivated; they are strong in some things, but weak in others. Just as we see in animals, there are Christian "monstrosities," one sided growths, deficiencies of some important members. Wholeness, perfectness, requires the due culture of the large as well as the small graces and powers. And such "completeness," when reached, is a most important witness to Christ's grace, and appeal to men to seek their perfection through him.
II. THE SOUND; that is, the healthy. It is not enough that the different parts are present, and fitted together in good and practically efficient proportions; all the parts must be free from disease and full of vitality. Perfection demands health as well as completeness. Christians often fail of the standard by reason of sin disease affecting various organs of their spiritual life, e.g. their prayer; their activity in Christian service; their watchfulness over personal habits, or their tendency to depression and doubt. St. John very tenderly writes to the well beloved Gains, "I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."
III. THE FULL GROWN; or the developed and matured, who have quite passed out of the infantile or childish stage. This is probably the precise form of the figure as it was presented to the mind of the apostle. He elsewhere speaks of adapting his teachings to the uncultured and unspiritual, making them like milk that is suited to the nourishment of babes. He means to press on the Corinthians that, while it is quite right that they should be babes, and as such be fed with the simplicities of Christian doctrine, it is not right that they should remain babes; they should reach Christian manhood, and want man's food of truth and mystery.
Impress how reasonable these views of the "perfect" are, and how contrasted with the vague and sentimental notions of an absolute freedom from sin, of which enthusiasts sometimes dream.—R.T.
1 Corinthians 2:8
What would have prevented Christ's crucifixion?
Attention is directed to the second clause of the verse: "For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." From the point of view of merely worldly policy, the crucifixion of Christ was a profound mistake. Martyrdom never effects the objects sought by the persecutors. It tends rather to glorify, in the popular sentiment, the cause for which the martyrs died. "Not a single calculation of those who compassed the Saviour's death was destined to be fulfilled. Pilate did not escape the emperor's displeasure. Caiaphas (John 11:50) did not save Jerusalem. The scribes and Pharisees did not put down the doctrine of Jesus." Christ's crucifixion may be regarded from several points of view. As we understand how it actually came about, we are prepared to consider what might conceivably have prevented it.
1. It occurred in the order of Divine providence. Every man's life is a plan of God. Each event is fitted, and its influence used or overruled. A man's incoming to life, and outgoing from life, are arranged by the Divine wisdom. The time, the place, and the mode of a man's death are Divine ordering. This is true of every man; it is recognized and made a secret of calm trustfulness for all the future by the Christian man; it is in sublime and glorious manner true of God's own Son, in the life on earth, which was a special Divine mission.
2. It occurred as a natural result of operating causes. In considering this point, we put on one side the Divine overrulings, make a fair estimate of the influence exerted by Christ's character, example, and teaching upon the various classes constituting the people among whom he lived and laboured. When national prejudices are duly weighed, and the character of the public sentiment concerning the expected Messiah, it no longer seems strange that our Lord excited an opposition which culminated in his death.
3. It occurred as a consequence of our Lord's own conduct. He did not, in any determined way, avoid those circumstances and situations which tended to bring about his death. He might, humanly speaking, have remained in Galilee, or hidden himself in Bethany, or fled from Gethsemane as the arresting party approached. Instead, we find him day by day following the Divine lead; in no way forcing his circumstances, though the issue of them was evident enough to himself. His example in this has not been sufficiently considered, though it bears so directly on his characteristic submission, and on the virtue of his sacrifice as purely a voluntary act. Enemies of Christ endeavour to set this to his disadvantage, but a glorifying light shines upon it from the consideration that he knew the cross to be then and there the consummation of his earthly life as designed by the Father. Yet the apostle suggests that the cross might conceivably have been avoided. We can see three possible ways in which this might have been.
I. BY AN EXERCISE OF GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. It might have pleased God to save mankind in another way. While we see the wonder and the grace of the way God did choose, we are not justified in affirming that it was the only way Divine wisdom could have devised. Or, in God's sovereignty, he might have read the perfect willingness and obedience of Jesus, and spared him the actual shame and pain of the cross. If such exercise of Divine sovereignty was not made, we may be sure that concern for us and for our full redemption made God send his "Lamb to the slaughter." That which was abstractly possible was impossible to him who "so loved the world" as to make even so extreme a sacrifice that it might be saved and won.
II. BY CHRIST'S WILFULNESS. He might have failed in obedience under this last and extreme test. He might have refused the cross, and put away from him his Father's cup. tie was a free agent, and such wilfulness was possible. But the consequences would have been so serious as to be most painful for us to conceive. Man's salvation, though in part accomplished by our Lord's teaching and life, would at last have failed utterly. Christ could have won no saving power. He would have been no more titan a Moses, a Zoroaster, a Socrates, or the Buddha; he could not have been the one only and all sufficient Sin bearer and Saviour.
III. BY THE RULERS' KNOWLEDGE OF WHO HE WAS AND WHAT HIS MISSION WAS. This is St. Paul's point here in the text. The rulers could only put Christ to death while deceiving themselves or deceived as to his character and claims. They could not have put Messiah to death. The whole hope of their race centred in him. But for that very reason their feelings were the more intense against a man of despised Nazareth, who claimed to be the Messiah, and, they thought, dishonoured the very idea of the Messiahship by his imposture. Had they known—had they seen his glory, they too would have bowed the knee to him, and crowned him with the many crowns. Had they known, they would have sought no false witnesses, nor started the cruel shout, "Crucify him! crucify him!" Often we go over in our thought what might have been, and wish things had been other than they were; and yet God so overrules for good that we may even rejoice in that they, "crucified the Lord of glory."
From our meditations two things come impressively to view.
1. Our Lord's death was no accidental circumstance, but a Divine ordination; and this is true though the outworking of the events show what may be called the usual, or common, orderings of Providence.
2. Our Lord's death was entirely a voluntary act. His will was set on fully carrying out the Divine will, whatever of bearing, doing, or suffering that will might have in it. The virtue of the sacrifice lay partly in the sublime nature of the Victim; partly in the representative character he had taken; but partly also in the flee surrender of his will and life to God, and the unforced voluntariness of his obedience, as tested by a painful and ignominious death. "By the which will we are sanctified."—R.T.
1 Corinthians 2:9
The surprising freshness of the new dispensation.
The precise words, as quoted by the apostle, are not found in the Old Testament. They are probably Isaiah 64:4, given from memory and modified by the thought of phrases found in other parts of Isaiah. Only an unreasonable sentiment concerning verbal inspiration would make difficulty about the inexactness of quotations given from memory. The sense of a passage may be precisely indicated when the words are set in a different order and form. This text has often been used as the basis of elaborate descriptions of heaven, but such treatment is only possible when verse 9 is separated from verse 10. The apostle is plainly dealing with some glory which has been revealed and is now realized, lie conceived of the Divine dealings with men as having been arranged in "ages," or "dispensations." We may thus distinguish the Adamic, Patriarchal, Mosaic, Davidic, Exilic, and post-Exilic. In the passage before us St. Paul shows, not merely that the Christian is another and a succeeding dispensation, but also that, in important respects, it differs from others, and is superior to others. Previous dispensations have given only faint suggestions of the surpassing glory of this one, just as Solomon's magnificent temple did but hint the exceeding glory of that later and spiritual temple, Christ's Church. We may dwell on some of those points in which the Christian revelation seems so new, so surprisingly fresh, so utterly beyond what human imagination could have conceived or human experience suggested.
I. RELIGION IS NOT A CEREMONIAL, BUT A LIFE. To a Jew this was so fresh a conception as to be even bewildering. A less thoughtful Jew would be in peril of cherishing the sentiment that religion was only a ceremonial, a round of ordinances, festivals, and sacrifices. And this view of religion had become the general and prevailing notion in the time of our Lord. A more thoughtful and pious Jew would connect personal godliness with outward ceremonial, and strive to culture an inner life of trust, obedience, and communion with the outward observance of rites and ceremonies. But the new thing revealed in Christianity is, that religion is, essentially and only, the soul's life, and that all ceremonial is mere expression and agency in the work of culture. The relations are manifestly reversed. Formerly there must be ceremonial, and there ought to be life now there must be life, and there may be ceremonial. On fully maintaining these later relations, the health and vigour of Christianity must ever depend.
II. SALVATION BY A SUFFERING AND DYING SAVIOUR. This is indeed a fresh and surprising thing. Triumph is to lie in defeat. Glory is to blossom out of shame. A sublime mission is to be accomplished by a seeming failure. Life for men is to come forth out of death for Christ. It is the introduction of a new force, a moral force. Christ lifted up is to draw men. The story of the crucified One is to melt men into penitence, win their faith, and ensure such a love as shall make even self sacrifice for Christ possible. Men knew before of love that would work for those it loved, and love that would fight for those it loved, and love that would bear for those it loved; but it was new that love should die such a death, not for the loved only, but for the ungodly and enemies by wicked works. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
III. SANCTIFICATION BY THE PRESENT POWER OF HIM WHO DIED. This is altogether new. Christ, as the exalted One, by his Spirit, is now carrying out his redeeming purpose in all hearts and lives that are open to him by faith. We do not struggle for righteousness by unaided personal efforts. Unseen, indeed, still the Living Christ is ever with us. Untraced, indeed, the mighty Spirit of Christ is ever working within us, sanctifying us wholly. And so, in face of all difficulties, perplexities, frailties, or hindrances to spiritual progress, we may calmly say, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" "Greater is he who is with us than all who can be against us."
IV. MAN THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD THROUGH THE SPIRIT. This is also new; for hitherto the common sentiment had been that God dwelt in places, on the mountain's crown, at the altar, in shining pillar clouds, in tabernacle or in temple. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the God man, shows us that God can dwell in man and make man's body his temple. He can even dwell in us; and an apostle may plead with his people, saying, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you?" Surely such an honour for us is beyond all that "eye has seen, ear heard, or heart conceived."
Illustrate that aged Simeon loved God and knew something of him, but he never could have dreamed what God had in store for him—even to hold the world's Babe Saviour in his own trembling arms. What could Abraham, who saw Christ's day; or Moses, who spoke of the great prophet to come; or David, who sang of his Lord making his foes his footstool,—have really known of the Christian glories, the spiritual mysteries of the revelation in Christ? These spiritual things broke more and more clearly on the minds of Peter and John and Paul, until, in utter ravishment and wonder, they exclaimed, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"—R T.
1 Corinthians 2:12-14
Speech in the power of the Spirit.
The personal references in St. Paul's Epistles are suitable to the epistolary style of correspondence, and necessary as the vindication of a man who was seriously attacked and slandered. Generally his allusions arc more or less directed to his claim as an apostle. Because this did not take precisely the same grounds as the claims of the earlier apostles, it was easy for his enemies to question and even deny his rights. St. Paul's chief argument is that the "signs of an apostle were wrought by him," and here, in our text, he urges that his teaching was manifestly inspired and sealed by the Holy Spirit, and that his apostolic claim was fully recognized by all "spiritual men." Wickliffe skilfully renders the last clause of 1 Corinthians 2:13, "Maken a liknesse of spyritual things to goostli men."
I. THE DIVINE PREPARATION FOR APOSTOLIC TEACHING.
1. The apostle must have received the Spirit of God. Personal experience of regeneration, and personal openness to the Divine incoming, are absolute essentials to all Christian service as teachers, in older days and now, in the lesser spheres as well as the greater. Judas can teach nobody; only as "converted" can St. Peter "strengthen the brethren" or "feed the lambs."
2. He must know the things of God through the Spirit's teaching. Here the adequacy of the Spirit to be the renewed man's Teacher may be shown.
The operations of the Divine Spirit as the renewed man's Teacher also require consideration. Generally it may be said that he unfolds the redemption mystery in its practical details and applications.