2. By reality. Our speech here, like that of children, is frequently nothing more than the vehicle of mental fantasies and conjecture. Words only embody and reveal the unsubstantial dreams of the mind. But speech in eternity is the organ of reality. Words there are things. They are truths made vocal.
3. By comprehensiveness. How meagre the vocabulary of a child! Our speech here, like that of children, is limited to a very small range of things. When it conveys truth, the truths are but very few; and they relate to a mere speck in the great universe of intelligence. Not so in heaven. The soul will range over the whole domain of facts, receive true impressions of all, and speak them out.
4. By sublimity. Our speech here, like that of children, is not of the most exalted and soul-inspiring character. The best only talk of the rudiments of truths which have become more or less theological platitudes. In heaven speech will be the vehicle of the most soul-inspiring and soul-unlifting realities. Every word will be electric, every sentence radiant and quickening as the sunbeam.
II. This is the case in relation to UNDERSTANDING. "I understood as a child." The Christian's understanding here is like that of a child in several respects.
1. In feebleness. The child's intellect, like his body, gets strength by nutriment and exercise. In the first stages it is very feeble. It is incapable of any great effort. It is thus with the Christian here. We say of such a man, "He has a great intellect." But in reality the greatest is very weak. How little the effort that the greatest intellect can make in search of knowledge! What a small amount of truth can the most vigorous hold within his grasp! In heaven the understanding will be strong, unencumbered by matter, unchecked by disease, unclouded by sin. It will grow young with age and strong with exercise,
2. In sensuousness. A child's understanding is under the control of the senses. It judges by appearances; it is taken up with the forms of things. Is it not so with the Christian. He is prone to "mind earthly things," "to judge after the flesh." The theology and the ritualism even of the most spiritual are coloured by sensuousness. The hell and heaven of Christendom are sensuous worlds.
3. In relativeness. The child judges of all things by their relation to himself. His father may be an author thrilling the intellect of his age, or a statesman directing the destinies of a nation, but the child knows nothing of him in those relations, As a father only he knows him. So with the understanding of a Christian, His conceptions of God are purely relative—Redeemer, Father, Master. Thus only is he regarded. Of what he is in himself, what he is in the universe, what he is in immensity, he understands nothing. In eternity we shall "see him as he is."
4. In servility. The child yields his understanding up to others, often allows it to be used as "clay in the hands of a potter." So it is often with Christians here. They are not generally independent in their inquiries. They put themselves in the hands of Churches and priests, and call them masters, Not so in heaven. Each with a full consciousness of his individuality will be independent in his investigations and conclusions.
III. This is the case in relation to REASONING. "I thought as a child." In the margin the word reasoned is put for "thought." The child reasons Logic is not mere art, it is an instinct in human nature. How does the child reason?
1. From an insufficiency of data. Having neither the power nor the opportunity of making an adequate observation and comparison, he draws his conclusions from passing impressions and unfounded conjectures. Thus it is often with the Christian here. His knowledge of the facts of God and the universe on which he reasons, is so limited that his conclusions are often inconclusive and puerile. The grave and. pompous discussions of our most learned theologues on the ways of God must appear to the ear of an angel as absurd as the prattle of children on the affairs of kingdoms does to us.
2. From the impulse of desire. In all cases the wish is the father to the thought. It is too often so with Christians here. Their likings control their logic. Not so in heaven. How sublime the difference between the Christian in time and the Christian in eternity! How vast the disparity between the speech, understanding, and reasoning of Saul, the little Jewish boy, and "Paul, the aged," the great theologian and sublime apostle! This is only a faint type of the difference between the Christian here and the Christian yonder.
CONCLUSION. This subject teaches:
1. The educational character of this life. The true view of this life is that it is a school for eternity. Here all souls are in a state of pupilage. Some are deriving the true advantages from the discipline, and some are not. Whilst thousands leave this school from year to year unimproved, incorrigible, utterly unfit for the services of eternity, worthless to God and the universe, others are being made "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." Brother disciples, be reconciled to this state. School days are not always the most pleasant. There are restrictions, disciplines, and studies, more or less painful. Struggle on till you "put away childish things," all that is childish in speech and understanding and reasoning. We shall leave this school soon for the family mansion and the grand inheritance.
2. The organic unity of man through all the scenes and stages of his being. Though the man here talks and. judges and reasons very differently to what he did when a child, he is nevertheless the same being. He is but the child more fully developed. He is but the sapling grown into the tree. It is so with the Christian in the other world. He is the same being as he was here, he is but the child grown into the man, freed from "all childish things." Man in heaven is but the child matured. We shall never be greater than men. Whatever is brilliant and great for us in the future will be but the development of the germs that slumber in us now.
3. The necessity of modesty in the maintenance of our theological views. In the light of this subject, how preposterous it is for poor frail, fallible man to set himself up as an authority in theological matters, to assume the priest, the bishop, the pope! "I do not know," says Sir Isaac Newton, "what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself by now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
1 Corinthians 13:12
The body the dark medium of spiritual vision.
"For now we see through a glass, darkly," etc. It needs no illustration to show that our vision of spiritual things is very dim. The cause of this is our subject—the medium is dark, that medium is the body. Through the five senses we gather all the lights that flash on our consciousness and form within us ideas. But why is it dark?
I. The body tends to MATERIALIZE THE CONCEPTIONS OF THE MIND. We "judge after the flesh."
II. The body tends to SWAY THE DECISIONS OF THE MIND. The desires of the flesh often move and master the soul.
III. The body tends to CLOG THE OPERATIONS OF THE MIND. Business, sleep, refreshment, exercise, disease,—all these interrupt the soul. Our visions of spiritual things being so dim:
1. None should pride themselves in their knowledge.
2. Atone should arrogate infallibility of judgment.
3. All should anticipate higher and fuller visions.
When the medium is removed, we shall see "face to face."
1 Corinthians 13:13
Love the greatest power in mind.
"And now abideth faith, hope, charity," etc. Love is here brought into comparison with two other great things in mind—faith and hope.
I. The CORRESPONDENCE between these three. The words imply:
1. That they are all great. The apostle speaks of the "greatest." "Faith" is a great thing. It implies reason, truth, and. the investigation of evidence. It is a great thing in business, in science, in society, as well as in religion. "Hope" is a great thing, too. It implies the recognition of good, a desire for good, and an expectation of good. It makes the greatest trials of the present bearable by bringing into the spirit the blessedness of the future.
2. That they are all permanent. There "abideth" faith and hope. In virtuous souls they are as lasting as life, as lasting as mind itself.
II. The SUPERIORITY of one over the others. "The greatest of these is charity." Why is it the greatest?
1. It is a virtue in itself. There is no moral virtue in faith and hope. They are, under certain conditions, necessary states of mind. But love—disinterested, godly love—is in itself a virtue.
2. It is that quality which alone gives virtue to all other states of mind. Where this love is not, faith and hope are morally worthless.
3. It is that state of mind by which the soul subordinates the universe to itself. The loving soul alone can interpret the universe.
4. It is that state of mind which links the spirit to all holy intelligences. Love is the attractive power that binds all holy spirits together.
5. It is that state of mind which includes the highest faith and hope. Love implies the both.
6. It is that state of mind which is in itself happiness. Love is happiness. We cannot say so of either faith or hope.
7. Love is the most God-like state of the soul. God is not faith or hope; "God is love." The Eternal does not believe or anticipate, but he does love—he is love. Love is the life of the soul. It warms every vein and beats in every pulse.
HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Negative view of love.
Again and again, in St. Paul's writings, we have an epistle within the Epistle. Thus, the summation of practical duties (Romans 12:1-21.), the argument on the resurrection (1 Corinthians 14:1-40.), and the portraiture of love in this chapter. By this means we get a well defined view of the object without losing its connections. It is not as if we were looking at the Peak of Teneriffe rising out of the loneliness of the sea, but rather a Mont Blanc, one with the Alps, and yet a solitary form of majesty. Grandeur, as distinct from beauty and sublimity, requires some degree of isolation so as to produce an adequate impression. Here, then, the apostle makes a space for this grand delineation, every feature of which may be seen in concentrated light, and not a thing allowed to distract the eye. This is in itself a call to attention, a summons to the activity of our whole nature, and, in accordance herewith, he presents something more than a mere sketch or profile of love. It is a complete portrait. The features are individually given, and, at the same time, the expression which combines them in a most striking unity. First, then, we have the supreme excellence of love in contrast with the worthlessness of other gifts unaccompanied by its presence. Great stress was laid at that time on the gift of tongues. We are all 'Relined to set a high value on an exceptional endowment of speech. Eloquence passes for much even in a rude age; the North American Indian and the barbarous tribes of Asia acknowledge its power, while cultivated society is never stinted in admiration of its influence. And the possessor of it seldom fails to exaggerate its worth. Stated roughly, eloquent men appear to have a peculiar intensity of consciousness as respects this gift. They are singularly open to the seductions of popular applause, so much so, indeed, that the public approval which a scientific man, or a statesman, or a military hero would he unharmed by, is often ruinous to an orator. Not the common air, but the breath of the multitude, fragrant with adulation, feeds his lungs. This it is that arterializes his blood and sends it hot and poisonous to his brain. Of course, these Corinthians were the very persons to overvalue the gift of tongues. It was in the channel of their tastes and traditions. But the apostle teaches them that this wonderful power holds a subordinate rank. tie does not depreciate it; no, he appreciates it to the full: "tongues of men" are associated with "the tongues of angels;" and yet, without love, the endowment is as "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." What is it but mere noise, an idle tumult of the air? Unless love to God and man attend the gift, restrain its selfishness, destroy its vanity making tendency, and sanctify it to the welfare of others, it is worthless. But the second verse enlarges the thought. One may have the gift of prophecy and use his intellect with amazing skill and force so as to excite and captivate his hearers, and this, too, under the teachings of revelation, and, further, one may have insight into Divine secrets, and "understand all mysteries," and have them at command as "knowledge;" yet what is he without love? Can it be possible that this resplendent power could exist, and that other light kindled by love be utterly wanting? Observe, it is "all" mysteries and knowledge; the man explores every height and depth, and he has the freedom of the universe. Nay, superadd all faith, so that material nature falls in homage at your feet and the "mountains "remove in obedience to your will; but of what avail this expenditure of mighty energy, where the holiness of love is lacking? If, then, the man endowed with universality of utterance—"tongues of men and of angels;" and if the prophet with his clear and broad insight into the counsels of God, and before whose eye the panorama of distant events moves as a spectacle of today; if the miracle worker who transcends all natural capacities and exercises the delegated power of Jehovah in producing supernatural phenomena;—if these men and their gifts are compared to "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal," and verily are "nothing;" and though they are known as apostles, prophets, miracle workers, heroes of faith, instruments of the supernatural: if all these are nothingness itself without love, can anything more be said to intensify the excellence of love as a Divine principle and sentiment and impulse? The third verse answers this question. Charity, almsgiving, philanthropy, even self sacrifice at the stake, here come into view. How far may one go in the benevolent appropriation of earthly property and yet fall below the highest motive? St. Paul replies that he may "dole out" all he owns, do it gradually, do it cautiously, do it to the exhaustion of his resources, yet do it unmindful of that sovereign law which gathers into itself all other laws and imparts to them a virtue that makes them Divine. Nor is this all. One may have the philanthropic idea and sensibility so largely developed as to accept martyrdom, have the courage to face it unblenched, and to endure it with fortitude; but he may surrender life without the highest love. Love may be there—love of a truth, love of a cause, love of humanity—not necessarily the love, however, here under discussion; and hence, this distinctive Christian love, which includes the Divine and the human, being absent, the martyrdom is not for Christ's sake, and consequently is nugatory as to its Christian character. "It profiteth me nothing." If, now, such a doctrine as this rested on a ground solely ethical, we confess our inability to see how it could be accepted as a trustworthy view of human nature. Logic in itself has no fundamental principle from which it can be deduced. Philosophy as such, and as confined to what it finds in our constitution, would be compelled to reject a conclusion so alien to its spirit. On the other hand, the doctrine may be easily and heartily received On the score of Christian logic and philosophy. For, in the scheme of Christianity, human nature is a revelation from God. It is the Divine thought of this nature which we are to embrace, to cherish, to act upon. And if we admit, as we ought to do in the presence of such satisfactory evidence, that God has spoken to man of man, and disclosed to him the once hidden mystery of himself, as well as that other and infinitely greater "hidden mystery" of his redeeming purpose in Christ—if we acknowledge this, then we cannot impeach the wisdom, the justness, the stern truthfulness, of St, Paul's argument. The argument assumes that Christianity is of God, and, as such, advances to this point, namely, Christianity alone gives a full and complete view of our nature. Its ethical teachings, their reasons and motives and ends, are founded in Christ and in his relations to us. Our relations to him and to one another are subsequent considerations, and take their quality and bearings simply, solely, altogether, from him, the "Image of the invisible God," and the "Firstborn of every creature." Inasmuch, then, as the ideal of our nature is not as we see it in and by our own unaided consciousness, but in and by a consciousness illuminated and guided by the Holy Ghost, how could it be otherwise than that new intuitions occur, and that demands are made on us never imagined before? On this foundation St. Paul stands when he affirms that those endowments which charm, those splendid gifts that win enthusiastic admiration, even self sacrifice itself at the bidding of earth-born instincts, are nothing without that love which is purely a responsive affection, or, as St. John expresses it, "We love him because he first loved us.—L.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
The nature and operation of love.
The negative view having been presented, the apostle considers the mature and operations of this love, And one characteristic of it, he puts in the foreground of its excellences. It can suffer. A virtue that cannot suffer is hardly a virtue at all. Certainly it is not a virtue that can lay the least claim to divineness. Wedded love, parental love, philanthropic and patriotic love, have to undergo a discipline of pain and sorrow even to symbolize the higher affection of Divine love. This holy love, of which this chapter is so laudatory, derives its very essence from the "Man of sorrows." Short of realizing, in its measure, the agony in the lonely garden and the yet lonelier cross, it dare not, it cannot stop, since only there is its test found. A beautiful aestheticism, moral, perchance semi-spiritual, may follow the lowly Jesus of Nazareth through the windings of his Galilean and Judaean journeys, cling reverently to his person, spread the palm branches in his pathway, and shout its glad hosannas to his Name, and, after all, "forsook him and fled" may be the final record of its weakness. Only when he rises to the sacrificial height of his anointing as the Christ of God's Law and the Christ of God's love, and bears our sins in his own body on the tree—only here, where Jehovah "lets the lifted thunder drop," can the human soul be reconciled first to its own disciplinary sufferings, and learn afterwards, by many conflicts with self, to glory in the cross. But love not only suffers, it "suffereth long." It is patient—patient towards others, and, what is quite as important, patient with itself. And under all its sufferings, instead of being irritable, it is kind. Unsanctified suffering is usually morbid. It broods over its ills; it magnifies its afflictions; often, indeed, it makes us misanthropic. Sweetness of temper and tender outgoings of sympathy are not the common results of painful experiences, but the fruits of the Holy Spirit in them. Fortitude may be shown, and it may be naught but homage at the shrine of self. This love is of God. It takes to its heart God s thought of suffering as chastening, as correction, as the supreme moral necessity of a probationary life, through which we must pass to get any deep knowledge of ourselves. For it is never pleasure, but pain, that holds the key to the secret chambers, where the latent man awaits the voice of God bidding him arise and gird himself with immortal strength. Now, what effect on this love would ensue from suffering that had become habitual and wrought patience and silent enduringness into character? By suppressing a morbid regard for self and quickening the sympathies that give width to the inner life, what would be the specific result on the relations sustained to others? These Corinthians, as we have frequently noticed, were pulling down one and putting up another, were thoroughgoing partisans, were censorious and depreciatory towards those with whom they were disinclined to affiliate. What change for the better would love bring about? St. Paul answers, "Love envieth not." Observe how quickly he turns again to the negative aspects of this "supremely excellent way," and what vigour is imparted to the argument. At every step, contrast aids him by suggesting what love excludes, while its true qualities are set in bolder relief. Envy is pain at the sight of superior excellence in another, and is always a mark of blinding selfishness. According to one s temperament, it is displeasure or something worse, and usually contains an element of hatred.
"Men, that make
Envy and crooked malice nourishment,
Dare bite the best."