III. A DEFERENCE TO THE CONSCIENCES OF OTHERS SHOULD ALWAYS BE RENDERED. "If any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake," etc. When at the table with meats spread before you which have been sacrificed to idols, and a fellow guest conscientiously abstains from touching them, and he reminds you of the fact, then, out of deference to his weak conscience, do not you touch them. However delicious they may appear, however fragrant in aroma, however hungry you may be, out of regard to that weak brother's conscience deny yourself. The most sacred thing under these heavens is the conscience. The weakest conscience should be respected; to wound the conscience is to wound the man. What are meats and drinks in comparison with a human conscience?
IV. SUPREME REGARD FOR THE GLORY OF GOD SHOULD RULE US IN ALL. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "These words embrace all life. The definite acts of eating and drinking are mentioned expressly, as they are the subject immediately under consideration. They are, however, to be regulated by the same principle which guides all true life. The modern idea of some acts being religious and some secular is neither here nor elsewhere recognized by St. Paul. No act of life is in itself either religious or secular. The quality of each act depends on the spirit which guides it and the motives from which it springs. The commonest thing may be done in a highly Christian spirit; the greatest deed may spring from a low and selfish motive. A religious act done in a secular spirit is secular; a secular thing done in a religious spirit is religious. This is the first great principle of Christian life."
V. THE GOOD OF OTHERS, AND NOT THE GRATIFICATION OF SELF, SHOULD BE OUR CONSTANT AIM. "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth." "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God: even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved."
HOMILIES BY C. LIMPSCOMB
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Subject continued; arguments from the Old Testament; warning against false security.
Reference had been made in the preceding chapter to the law of Moses respecting oxen, and to the priests of the temple, for whose support there was a special provision. But St. Paul had introduced a striking illustration from Grecian life to show the importance of earnest and exact discipline in matters pertaining to the soul's salvation. The body, with its infirmities and sins, was a very serious danger, and, unless kept under by the power of grace, would acquire mastery over the spirit. Even he, though an apostle, might become "a castaway." The terrible liability was before him as a personal thing, the idea lingered and demanded a fuller emphasis, and how could he contemplate himself without considering the hazardous exposure of his brethren? Every fibre of his private heart was a public tie that bound him to others, and hence he could not see his own peril and be blind to the peril of the Church. Under the pressure of this anxiety, his mind reverts to the history of the Jewish Church. Historical examples are very powerful, and where could he find them except in the Old Testament? Grecian games pass out of view, and the stately procession of wonders, beginning in the deliverance of the elect race from Egyptian bondage 'rod progressing through the events of the desert, moves before his eye. "Our fathers" indicates how true he was to ancestral blood, and this warmhearted sense of country, in which patriotism and piety interblended, exemplifies the origin and tenacity of the feeling that prompted him in the previous chapter to put in the foreground this fact, "Unto the Jews I became as a Jew." Let us remember that his peculiar state of mind at the moment took its colouring from one single thing, viz. the hazards of moral probation because of the body. How predominant this idea was appears in the instances enumerated to show the unfaithfulness of God's people to their covenanted engagements. Such words as "lust," "lusted," "eat and drink," "rose up to play," "commit fornication," are significant of his intense feeling, and they are as reverberations from what was to him an awful term "castaway," "rejected," "fail shamefully of the prize." According to his conception, brain and nerves, all the facts of the physical organism, had to be taken into account in looking at the practical side of Christianity. And it was a practical question, because it rested on a broad generalization of man's place, order, and destiny in the universe. No empiric was he, but a thinker of most penetrating insight, far in advance of his times, in advance too of our century; and while he was not a psychologist nor a physiologist in our sense of the terms, yet no man has ever seen so clearly, so deeply, into the principles underlying psychology and physiology in their relations to spiritual life. His own personal experience turned his thoughts to this study. Providence made him this sort of a student, and the Holy Ghost enlarged and sanctified his investigations. Such thinkers generally come as precursors to scientists and philosophers; but St. Paul was much more than a precursor, for we find in him, not merely a knowledge of facts, but of truths, and a facility in applying them altogether remarkable. What a volume on this subject lay open in his own consciousness! A temperament of singular impressionableness; a natural activity that sprang quite as much from the interaction of his mental faculties and their quick sympathy with one another as from the accesses of the outer world; feeble health, and yet that kind of weakness in certain functions which is sometimes connected with other organs of great strength, and is consistent with astonishing power of endurance; the "thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet" him; add to all this the manner of life he led, and the physical sufferings that enemies inflicted on him;—and how could he help being reminded what a factor the body was in his manhood and apostleship? Think of the effect on the associating and suggestive faculty, on the imagination, on his use of language both for thought and expression, that this mass of disturbed sensibility must have produced, and for which there was no earthly anodyne. Observe, moreover, how the wisdom of God manifests itself in the temperament of this man and its specific discipline. Probably temperament is the secret of individuality, but whether so or not, it must be reckoned as of no little significance as to the influence of the books we read, the teachers that instruct, and the other countless agencies which make up the total of educative forces. Now, in this particular, mark the contrast between St. Peter and St. Paul. The fisherman of Galilee, healthy, robust, abounding in the instinctive joyousness of natural sensations, trustful to an extreme of his emotions, pliant towards himself, singularly impulsive; what a problem was in that temperament and its physiological laws, when the Lord Jesus began to educate his nerves, arteries, brains, for discipleship, and through the disciple to develop the apostle of the "Rock" and the "Keys"! Yet it was done, and done thoroughly, so that the changed body of St. Peter is quite as noteworthy as the changed mind, the same body but functionally subdued to a well-governed organism. During the forty days between the Lord's resurrection and ascension, the man and the apostle emerged from the chrysalis. At Pentecost, what a commanding figure he presents! No haste, no spasmodic action, now, but equipoise and cool wisdom and the courage of repose. In temperament, no less than in official position, St. Peter is the antecedent of St. Paul. And their difference herein, according to providential ordination, was carried out in their training and culture, so that diversity, jealous of its rights in all things, is only self insistent for the sake of prospective unity. Now, St. Paul wishes to put this subject of danger on the bodily side of human life in the strongest possible light for his own benefit and that of the Corinthians. What then? A nation rises before him. By the arm of Jehovah, Egypt has been smitten, the Red Sea has opened a pathway to their triumphant march, and waves and winds have chanted the anthem of a victory in which they had no share. And this nation "passed through the sea," and "were all baptized ante Moses," as their mediatorial leader, "in the cloud and in the sea." Nay, more; the typical idea is still further wrought out, and baptism and the Lord's Supper are conjoined. "All did eat the same spiritual meat; all did drink the same spiritual drink;" the meat and drink were from above; the Holy Ghost was present as the source of the miracles and the Divine Agent of blessing; the "spiritual" is insisted on, for "that Rock was Christ." There was a revelation to the senses and there was a revelation to the spirit. To deny the supersensuous element is to destroy the force of the analogy, since it is not a resemblance to the imagination alone, but a real likeness to the reason, Christianity and its sacraments being prominent in St. Paul's view. It was not, then, a mere miracle to the body and for the body. It was likewise a supernatural demonstration, a gracious influence from the Holy Ghost, a prelusive blessedness brought within reach of experience in that dispensation of types and shadows. It was not our spirituality; nevertheless, it was spiritual, since "that Rock was Christ." Our Lord said in his Capernaum discourse, just after his great miracle that fed thousands, "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." Did not the miracle, wrought so lavishly for the public, wrought without solicitation, seem to the excited multitude a sign that Christ was the national Messiah their hearts craved to have? Next day, he disenchanted them by sweeping away the secular illusion and telling them plainly, "I am that Bread of life." The contrast between the manna of the wilderness and the bread of life was stated and enforced at a time, in a way, under circumstances, calculated to secure its object. It did not effect its purpose. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him;" and henceforth the popular expectation of a worldly Messiah was a waning moon in a darkening night. And this contrast was recognized by St. Paul even while adhering most closely to the parallelism. On the ground of the parallelism, he argues the eminent privileges of the Jews, the opportunities enjoyed, the Divine manifestation, the spiritual influence secured to the nation in the desert. They failed to understand and appreciate their position. Appetite, lust, idolatry, overcame them; "they were overthrown in the wilderness," and so swift was God's wrath and so overwhelming, that there "fell in one day three and twenty thousand." Here was a supernatural economy; here was a religion that provided for bodily necessities, and even gave "angels' food;" here, at the same time that the claims of a true and proper sensuousness were divinely met, a "spiritual" agency was established and administered—here, in the solitudes of sand and rock, where the chosen people were alone with God, and where neither day nor night was allowed to wear its accustomed face because of the presence of the pillar cloud of glory; and yet amid such displays of the providence and Spirit of God, men fell into idolatry, murmured against God, tempted him, and perished under miraculous judgments. It is not simply a lesson from individuals to individuals. It is a warning from a community to a community. Vice as personal, vice as social, vice as an epidemic in the air,—this is the vice of bodily degradation as it exhibits its raging enormity in lust, fornication, and idol worship. "These things were our examples," "for ensamples," "written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come," the coalescence of the ages in the grand demonstration of Christianity as the completed revelation to mankind of God in Christ. "Wherefore... take heed." We have more light; larger privileges, nobler opportunities, but there is no mechanical security in these things. The crisis age has come, the crisis trial has come with it. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." To encourage their holy endeavours, he assures them that there is no fatality in temptation. Oftentimes it happens that men are morally disabled before the struggle, before an incitement to do evil has fairly set in. By this proneness to believe in fate, they surrender in advance. Remote causes are frequently more potent than proximate causes, and many a man has been the victim of a false philosophy of morals long before he has fallen as an actual prey to Satan. Bodily sins have something in them which renders their subjects uncommonly liable to this destructive belief, and "I could not help it; I cannot help it," are words that easily rise to their lips. But the doctrine of St. Paul is a protest against such a demoralizing idea. "No trial has come upon you beyond man's power to bear" (Conybeare and Howson). "God is faithful." The laws of the universe and their administration, the presence of the Spirit as the universal Helper, and the glory of Christianity as the consummation of the ages, are so many Divine assurances that no man is doomed beforehand to fall into the snare of the devil. Satan himself is only Satan, man's adversary, within certain limits. God holds him in check. At first, the influence of evil takes effect on the involuntary nature, sensations are awakened, passions excited, but it becomes a temptation when these lower instruments are brought to bear on the consent of the will. "God is faithful" to the human will. There is nothing in man which is so constantly quickened and energized as a defensive force. And, furthermore, as a positive and aggressive force, what resources are at its command! If temptation is subtle and insinuating, who knows the number and Variety of the Spirit's secret avenues to the will? There is always "a way to escape," and this way is provided by our heavenly Father, who is evermore answering the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."—L.
1 Corinthians 10:14-33
Argument further enforced; fellowship with Christ by means of the communion; idolatrous feasts a communion with demons; law, expediency, conscience.
"Wherefore," says St. Paul, as a deduction from the foregoing argument, "my dearly beloved," his heart kindled anew towards his brethren, "flee from idolatry." This dread of idolatry is the key to what follows. Idolatry, in those days, was a sin that included all sins, and Corinth was behind no city in the charm and splendour it threw around this iniquity. Bodily indulgences of the worst sort were notorious. Throughout Greece, Corinth was the common synonym of the most shameful vices, and that too, not in despite of idolatry, but as a constituent of religious worship, especially of Venus. Art among the Greeks had done its utmost to destroy the uglier features of the old heathenism, had called beauty and culture into the service of the priests and the ceremonial of the temples, and had succeeded in making the aesthetic a reproach to pure taste and a mocking insult to every moral virtue. Corinth was a leading centre of all the corrupting and lascivious influence of idolatry, and hence St. Paul's tender and fervent entreaty, "My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." The connection with his foregoing argument is clear. If the athlete must subject himself to a severe and protracted discipline; if God's elect race so largely perished in the wilderness by reason of transgression; if any and every temptation may be successfully resisted, so that neither the throng of evil doers nor the show and fascination of a pompons idol worship can be an excuse for sin;—with what force could he urge, "Flee from idolatry"! St. Paul knew the strength of his appeal. And he credited these Corinthians with insight sufficient to see this strength, for he bade them hear him "as wise men," and "judge" what he said. Is he satisfied to leave the argument at this stage? Observation of current facts, historical examples preserved from oblivion for their warning, God's faithfulness, have been brought to bear on the question; and yet, so far from being content to dismiss the subject, he resumes it with new vigour of thought and a deepened intensity of emotion. The language changes. Few or no metaphoric words occur. Throughout the paragraph, it is the vocabulary of pure feeling and impassioned earnestness that he employs, for the imagination has retired from its task and left the heart to consummate the work. he begins with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, binding the argument to the point whence he had digressed at the opening of the ninth chapter. "This liberty of yours," he had said, "might prove ruinous to weak brethren 'for whom Christ died,'" and therefore such an abuse of freedom was a sin "against the brethren" and a "sin against Christ." What is the special connection of the Lord's Supper with the completion of the argument? Obviously the position it occupies in the logic of the case is one of eminence, St. Paul having reserved it for his conclusion. It would seem that he had before his mind one particular and engrossing idea in relation to the Supper, which, although perfectly consistent with other ideas of the sacrament, and, indeed, essential to their import, was detached at the moment and set forth with very distinct and commanding prominence. It is the idea of the communion. "Cup of blessing," "bread which we break," the thanksgiving, the faith and love exercised, the recollected obligations, the spiritual conception of "the blood" and "the body of Christ" as means of an inward holiness; are not these a communication, a participation, an entering into Christ's death, a true and real fellowship with him as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"? If so, it means separation from all evil compliances and from all dangerous associations. "Separate from sinners" was a distinguishing fact in Christ's life;" not only "holy, harmless, undefiled," but, by his separation from men, exhibiting in the fullest and most effective way the three characteristics mentioned. Near, very near, to all about him, and yet the nearer he was the further removed he stood in the dignity of his person and the exclusiveness of his office, so that the mysterious awe which invested him was profoundly felt by his friends even while ignorant of his nature and mediatorship as Son of God and Son of man, and on various occasions acknowledged by his enemies. And this separateness appeared even more conspicuously in his vicarious and propitiatory death. His life was a new revelation of life; his death was a new revelation of death. "Separate" was that death from all deaths actual and possible. He spoke of it as he never spake of aught else involving himself. He had feelings concerning it that he never indicated as touching other personal interests. For its loneliness and secret agony, for its public dishonour and humiliation, for its apparent triumph of his foes and its seeming discomfiture of himself, for its Jewish and Roman and world wide aspects, for its self sacrifice, for it as the divinely ordained means to reconcile God to man and man to God, he prepared himself as one who realized the infiniteness of the act. Previously to the great passion hour, nature had given him, of her own accord, no recognition of his Divine majesty. It was his act, not hers, when miracles transpired. But, at his death, she put forth the power of her attestation to the fact that he was "separate from sinners," and by the darkness, and the earthquake, and the opened graves, and the rent veil, signified that, "Truly this man was the Son of God." Now, in St. Paul's view, partaking of the Lord's Supper is partaking spiritually of the blood and body of Christ, and if so, it is communion with him, the communion—a special form of confessing him, a particular and most solemn act of acknowledging him as our Redeemer and Lord, in a word, a sacrament. Wine and bread are symbols; but the sacrament must not be limited to ordinary symbolism. It is a fact, a vital and absolute fact, a Divine reality, to the believer's soul, a spiritual realization of Christ. Nothing magical and superstitious, nothing mechanical, nothing that derives virtue from priest and ceremonials in the form of sacerdotal consecration, belongs to its nature, use, and end. It is simple, it is personal to the faith and love of the humble disciples of the cross, it is sublime because so perfectly spiritual in the union and fellowship with Christ which it is intended to secure. But is this all? By no means; it is communion and fellowship among believers. "We are all partakers of that one bread." Now, there are common ties among Christians that grow out of their relation to one another in Christ considered as Son of man. If he was Philanthropist, Benefactor, Friend, Healer, Teacher, Inspirer, he has left us an example that we should follow in his steps, and this example is beautifully potent when we cooperate in these beneficent duties. Yet there is a higher expression of our union when we partake of the Lord's Supper, since this recognizes his atoning death as the bond that makes us one. And as Christ's works of power and mercy throughout Galilee and Judaea went forward and attained their fullest manifestation in the atonement of Calvary, so our sympathies with one another and harmonious activity in daily acts of kindness must be ratified and scaled by being "partakers of that one bread." Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." No such drawing power did he claim for his miracles, nor for other marvellous forces that radiated in every direction from him as the great Centre of blessing in his day to the poor, the diseased, the demoniac. Where he is mightiest we are most mighty; for it pleased him, in varying the manifestations of his omnipotence and adapting them to the different instincts of man as he dealt one by one with these primal qualities, it pleased him, we say, to leave similar channels of activity for us to occupy. Therefore it is that the cross lifts us up into a higher companionship with one another. Even in common life, there is no such reconciler as death. A corpse in a divided household is a peace maker. We are all brothers at a funeral. The presence of death lingers not in the senses, nor pauses in the imagination, nor rests in the understanding, but goes down into the great original instincts, where the sense of humanity lies embedded under the shadow of the infinite. Of what immeasurable value, then, is the death of Christ as a uniting influence in behalf of brotherhood! And what an appeal the communion makes to that social sentiment which is so precious to Christianity! And who can go in a devout frame of mind to the table of the Lord without feeling that "life's poor distinctions vanish here," without a larger consciousness of the Divine loveliness of forbearance, and of patience with others, and of forgiveness of enemies, and of the blessedness unspeakable and full of glory in charity when charity as "the greatest" possesses intellect, heart, and life? God be praised for such hours! Finer spheres than sun and planets measure their coming, their stay, and. their going. Nor does the argument rest at this point. "To partake of a Jewish sacrifice as a sacrifice, and in a holy place, was an act of Jewish worship" (Hodge). Here are "our fathers," "Israel after the flesh," and they were "partakers of the altar;" and here are we, to whom "the ages" have brought their light and privileges and been perfected in the epoch of Christianity, and who "are all partakers of that one bread." Shall we be found feasting in idol temples? This is heathenish idolatry, this is communion with devils, this is fatal to brotherhood, this is treachery to the Lord Jesus Christ. What do I say? Do I declare that the idol is anything or the sacrifice anything? I, Paul, say to you, that ye cannot "drink the cup" consecrated to the Lord and "drink the cup" consecrated by the heathen to their demons deities to the Gentiles, evil spirits to Jews and Christians. For this use of the cup is an acknowledgment of fellowship with these "evil spirits," and a fraternization with their worshippers. Such conduct is utterly unjustifiable; it will "provoke the Lord to jealousy," and to a jealousy like that when wedded love has proved faithless to its holy vow. And can ye Corinthians withstand such a devouring flame of anger? Then he recurs to the statement made in 1 Corinthians 6:12, "All things are lawful," etc., and reaffirms the ethical principle of restraint on personal liberty. And with the mightier impulse which has just accented its deep tones of warning, the thought of expediency widens its application. What is the great tap root of all our evils? Selfishness. And this selfishness assumes manifold forms, intellectual and social, physical and commercial. Subtle one moment and palpable the next; disguised and then open; endless in shifts and turns; inexhaustible in resources; skilled in every variety of means; sharp, vigilant, unwearied; its five senses multiplied in its unnumbered agents;—what save Christianity, would entertain such a hope of the human race as to warrant the strong utterance, "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth"? This is laying the axe to the root of the gigantic tree with its trunk and branches. Anything less than unselfish love will not satisfy the argument at this stage. Whither has the fiery logician been? Where has he arrested his course and paused to meditate and analyze? The death of Christ and the memorials of that death, fellowship with his sufferings, communion with the "great High Priest that is passed into the heavens;" and, along with this theme, the communion with brethren and the burdening sense of that unity of believers which all great souls aspire to, but have to mourn over as a postponed reality;—such were the truths that had engaged the strength of his intellect and the ardour of his feelings. Could he tolerate the idea of one making himself the supreme object of consideration? Could he think of a man in Christ shutting himself out of the very heart of Christ? Only in such words as these can he appease the yearnings of his nature: "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth." Suppose, then, that these Corinthian Christians were at a private feast, enjoying the hospitality of a friend; would it be proper for the man of scruples to inquire into the meats? Nay, this is not a "communion," though a social union, and hence you are at liberty to eat; "asking no question for conscience sake." Sentiment has its obligations no less than conscience, and, in fact, conscience is honoured when you remember that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." If, however, some one says to you, "This is offered in sacrifice unto idols," the matter takes another aspect. For the sake of a brother guest whose scruples are wide awake, do not eat. It is his conscience that your conscience is to respect, and therefore abstain. If a weak brother were to ask you to do something or avoid something for the sake of his conscience that your own conscience would not suffer you to do or to forbear, resist him and by no means comply. Weakness may be yielded to simply as the infirmity of another, but if it become dogmatic and aggressive, seeking to impose its restraints on our convictions, Christianity never requires of us to submit to such meddling dictation. Condescension to an infirm mind is very proper and commendable, provided it do not make us infirm. Easy compliances of this lax sort are dangerous snares. In the one case, the compliance is on principle; in the other, the non compliance is on principle; and, in each instance, conscience is upheld. Then the apostle rises again to a broad, general truth, "Do all to the glory of God." For this statement, that extends the sentiment of a spiritual mind over all duties, he had already prepared the way. Twice had he said, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and, in the third chapter of the Epistle, he had declared, "All is yours." We are not like trees that can only grow in certain soils and climates. We are not like animals that are found exclusively on this or that continent. We are not creatures limited to their immediate surroundings. To form a human soul, a world and a universe of worlds are needed. Influences acting on us are not counted and tabulated by the intellect of the senses. These senses shut us up in the body. They are for today and for appropriating what is at hand. Intellect is under stern limitations. Yet the sphere of the inner life is for ever widening beyond the sphere of sensuous existence, and on the eves of "three score and ten" the stars shine with a home light unknown to young manhood, Growth is within, but there is no self nutrition. All the materials that nourish and build up the man come from without, and, hence, it is not by looking merely at ourselves and our capacities, but by regarding the world and the universe as furnishing the occasions and supplying the means of development, that we learn to measure our ability by the grace of God stored up in all things for our enrichment. Where we are interprets what we are. Now, in view of this, St. Paul lays down the principle, "Whether... ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." The range is immense; the world is not to be cut up into fragments, and the "glory of God" identified solely with them; but, as the primary condition of glorifying him, we are to believe that his Divine presence is in whatever he has created. There is nothing speculative and remote in this doctrine. How are we to glorify God? By being most truly human; by realizing that others are a part of ourselves and we a part of them; by acting on the truth that individuality attains its perfection in brotherhood; and therefore we should "please all men in all things." Nothing selfish must appear in it; "not seeking mine own profit." Nothing of effeminacy, nothing of calculating acquiescence, must taint its purity, and we must please others for their profit, that they may be saved.—L.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
1 Corinthians 10:4
"That spiritual Rock."
There is no need, in explaining this passage, to suppose a reference on the part of the writer to the Jewish fable that the rock in question was rolled along with the advancing camp of Israel through the wilderness of wandering, and that upon the chant of the chiefs," Spring up, O well!" the water gushed forth for the supply of the thirsting tribes. There seems to be no need. even to adopt the common supposition that water sprang miraculously from rocks at every station of the wonderful journey. It is enough to accept the plain record that the miraculous event did happen, once at the commencement and once towards the close of the pilgrimage of the chosen people. The apostle's mind was filled with memories of the consecrated nation, and so clear before that mind was the unity of the two dispensations, that it seemed most natural to him, in drawing a parallel between the Israelites and the Corinthian Christians, to assert that the spiritual Rock was Christ—the Source and Author of all blessings in every period of history and in all circumstances of humanity. The assertion may be regarded—
I. HISTORICALLY. As a matter of fact, the Word, the Wisdom of God, was the Angel of the Church in the wilderness. It is the privilege of the Christian to trace his Saviour's presence throughout the whole of human history. He who was the Rock of salvation to the tribes ready to die from thirst, is the same to all mankind in every age. His presence never removes and. his grace never fails. He is Jehovah, the Rock of eternal ages.
II. SPIRITUALLY. Evidently the apostle draws his readers' attention to the supply of ether than physical necessities. To Israel and to the Church of this dispensation of grace the Lord Christ is the all sufficient channel of Divine mercy and blessing.
1. Generally speaking, there is an obvious aptness in the similitude.
2. Specially, and upon the suggestion of the incident referred to, it must be remarked that Christ is the Rock because he is the Source of living waters. This is no doubt the central thought of the passage, and the resemblance is very striking and very full and rich. Thus it is apparent:
III. SACRAMENTALLY. The allusion is unmistakable to the communion of the Lord's Supper. Both the streams in the wilderness and the cup of the Eucharist symbolize the spiritual participation, which is the privilege of those to whom the Word of the Lord. is addressed, in the supply afforded by the Divine and living Rock. The voice of heaven reaches our grateful ear: "Eat, O friends; drink,… O beloved!" The superiority of the new covenant is manifest: the Israelites drank of water; Christ is not only the Stream of water in the desert, he is the Cup of wine at the banqueting table. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?"—T.
1 Corinthians 10:6
"Our examples."
The force of example, both to encourage and to deter, is familiar and admitted. The principle is used. in education, in the arts, in government and law. It is justly believed that a readier and deeper impression is produced by living characters and. real events than by abstract propositions. The principle is employed by religion. The Bible is full of examples of sin, punishment, repentance, virtue, reward. The Old Testament has been termed the picture book accompanying and illustrating the lessons of the New Testament. The text assumes the special applicability of the history of Israel in the wilderness to the spiritual instruction, first of the Corinthians, and. then also of all professed Christians. Paul points and emphasizes his appeals to diligence, purity, cheerfulness, etc., by referring to the well known incidents of the journey of Israel from Egypt to the land of promise.
I. ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WARNING.
1. Against murmuring, which, it is to be feared, never appears to many Christians to be of the nature of sin, and. against which accordingly many are not upon their guard. But murmuring is against Divine appointment, and is therefore against God himself.