Full text of "The Expositor's Bible"

See other formats

LIBRARY

-Brightfm Young U niveWitq

FROM G.H*...Cr.ashy

S1 -Jfc *£ 28009

THE EXPOSITORS BIBLE. Edited by Rev.
W. B, Nicoll, D.D., Editor of London Expositor.

1 st Series in 6 Vols.

MACLAREN, Rev. Alex.— COLOSSIANS— PHILEMON.
DODS, Rev. Marcus.— GENESIS.

CHAD WICK, Rev. Dean ST. MARK. ft2

BLAIKIE, Rev. W. G.— SAMUEL, 2 Vols. q ~ •

EDWARDS, Rev. T. C— HEBREWS. " S. J

2d Series in 6 Vols. So- 2

SMITH, Rev. G. A ISAIAH, Vol. I. - . •=

ALEXANDER, Bishop.— EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. 2 % 5-
PLUMMER, Rev. A.— PASTORAL EPISTLES.
FINDLAY, Rev. G. G.-GALATIANS.

MILLIGAN, Rev. W REVELATION.

DODS, Rev. Marcus.— 1st CORINTHIANS.

3d Series in 6 Vols.

SMITH, Rev. G. A.-ISAIAH, Vol. II.
GIBSON, Rev. J. M.— ST. MATTHEW.
WATSON, Rev. R. A. -JUDGES -RUTH.
BALL, Rev. C. J.— JEREMIAH. Chap. I-XX.
CHADWICK, Rev. Dean.— EXODUS.
BURTON, Rev. H.— ST. LUKE.

4th Series in 6 Vols.

KELLOGG, Rev. S. H.— LEVITICUS.

STOKES, Rev. G. T.— ACTS, Vol. I.

HORTON, Rev. R. F.— PROVERBS.

DODS, Rev. Marcus.— GOSPEL ST. JOHN, Vol. I.

PLUMMER, Rev. A.— JAMES— JUDE.

COX, Rev. S.— ECCLESIASTES.

5th Series in 6 Vols.
DENNEY, Rev. J.— THESSALONIANS.
WATSON, Rev. R. A.— JOB.
MACLAREN, Rev. A.- PSALMS, Vol. I.

STOKES, Rev. G. T ACTS, Vol. II.

DODS, Rev. Marcus.— GOSPEL ST. JOHN, Vol. II.
FINDLAY, Rev. C. G.— EPHESIANS.

6th Series in 6 Vols.

RAINY, Rev. R.— PHILIPPIANS.

FARRAR, Archdeacon F. W.— 1st KINGS.

BLAIKIE, Rev. W. G.— JOSHUA.

MA CLAREN, Rev. A.— PSALMS, Vol. II.

LUMBY, Rev. J. R — EPISTLES OF ST. PETER.

ADENEY, Rev. W.F.— EZRA— NEHEMIAH-ESTHER. ^ 0 -

7th Series in 6 Vols. "*

MOULE, Rev. H. C.G.— ROMANS.
FABRAR, Archdeacon F. W.— 2d KINGS.

BENNETT, Rev. W. H 1st and 2d CHRONICLES.

MACLAREN, Rev. A.— PSALMS, Vol. III.

DENNEY, Rev. James 2d CORINTHIANS.

WATSON, Rev. R. A.— NUMBERS.

8th and Final Series in 7 Vols.

FARRAR, Archdeacon F. TV.— DANIEL.

SKINNER, Rev. John EZEKIEL.

BENNETT, Rev. W. H.- JEREMIAH.

HARPER, Rev. Prof.-DEUTERONOMY.

ADENEY, Rev. W. F»— SOLOMON AND LAMENTATIONS.

SMITH, Rev. G. A.— THE MINOR PROPHETS, 2 Vols.

>■%

«/)

£>

J5^

—

■»

a»

.2
a.

■d

•*■»

'i_

-c

■

<*»

tt>

C7>

•a

THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE
CORINTHIANS.

BY THE REV.

MARCUS DODS, D.D.

NEW YORK;
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON,
51 East Tenth Street, near Broadway.

1899

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER L

PAOK

Introduction .-5.-- - - ..3

CHAPTER II.
The Church in Corinth - 17

CHAPTER TIL
The Factions • • - - - - - "33

CHAPTER IV.
The Foolishness of Preaching - 49

CHAPTER V.
Divine Wisdom -------.-6$

CHAPTER VI
God's Husbandry and Building ... . 83

CHAPTER VII.
The Ministry -------- 99

CHAPTER VIII.
EXCOMMUNICAHON J OR, PURGING OUT THE OLD LEAVEN - 115

vi CONTENTS,

CHAPTER IX.

PAGE

On Going to Law -------- 131

CHAPTER X.
Fornication - ~ ~ - - 147

CHAPTER XL
Marriage ---------- 165

CHAPTER XII.
Liberty and Love - - - - - - - -179

CHAPTER XIII.
Maintenance of the Ministry - - - - - 197

CHAPTER XIV.
Not all who Run Win ------- 213

CHAPTER XV.
Fallacious Presumptions ------ 229

CHAPTER XVI.
The Veil ------- - . - 243

CHAPTER XVII.
Abuse of the Lord's Supper ------ 261

CHAPTER XVIII.
Concerning Spiritual Gifts ------ 277

CHAPTER XIX.
No Gift like Love -------- 295

CONTENTS. vfl

CHAPTER XX.

TAGS

Spiritual Gifts and Public Worship- • - - 313

CHAPTER XXI.
The Resurrection of Christ ----•• 327

CHAPTER XXII.
The Resurrection of Christ {continued) - • - 341

CHAPTER XXIII.
Consequences of denying Resurrection - 357

CHAPTER XXIV.
T.ie Spiritual Body ---.-«- 373

CHAPTER XXV.
The Poor 389

LNIRODUCTION,

'After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to
Corinth ; and found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus,
lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla ; (because that Claudius
had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome :) and came unto
them. And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them,
and wrought : for by their occupation they were tentmakcrs. And
he reasoned in the synagogue everysabbath, and persuaded the Jews
and the Greeks. And when Silas and Timotheus were come from
Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the
Jews that Jesus was Christ. And when they opposed themselves,
and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your
blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will
go unto the Gentiles. And he departed thence, and entered into
a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped God,
whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Crispus, the chief
ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house ;
and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.
Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid,
but speak, and hold not thy peace ; for 1 am with thee, and no man
shall set on thee to hurt thee ; for I have much people in this city.
And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word
of God among them. And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia,
the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and
brought him to the judgment seat, saying, This fellow persuadeth
men to worship God contrary to the law. And when Paul was
now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were
a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would
that I should bear with you : but if it be a question of words
and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge
of such matters. And he drave them from the judgment seat. Then
all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and
beat him before the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none
of those things. And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while,
and then took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence into Syiia,
and with him Priscilla and Aquila ; having shorn his head in
Cenchrea : for he had a vow." — Acts xviii. 1-18.

INTRODUCTION.

CORINTH was the first Gentile city in which Paul
spent any considerable time. It afforded him the
opportunities he sought as a preacher of Christ. Lying
as it did on the famous Isthmus which connected
Northern and Southern Greece, and defended by an
almost impregnable citadel, it became a place of great
political importance. Its position gave it also com-
mercial advantages. Many traders bringing goods from
Asia to Italy preferred to unlade at Cenchrea and
carry their bales across the narrow neck of land rather
than risk the dangers of doubling Cape Malea. So
commonly was this done that arrangements were made
for carrying the smaller ships themselves across the
Isthmus on rollers ; and shortly after Paul's visit Nero
cut the first turf of an intended, but never finished,
canal to connect the two seas.

Becoming by its situation and importance the head
of the Achaian League, it bore the brunt of the con-
queror's onslaught and was completely destroyed by
the Roman general Mummius in the year 146 B.C. For
a hundred years it lay in ruins, peopled by few
but relic-hunters, who groped among the demolished
temples for bits of sculpture or Corinthian brass. The
pll-disrerninp" eve of Julius Caesar however could not

4 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

overlook the excellence of the site ; and accordingly he
sent a colony of Roman freedmen, the most industrious
of the metropolitan population, to rebuild and replenish
the city. Hence the names of Corinthians mentioned
in the New Testament are mainly such as betoken a
Roman and servile origin, such as Gaius, Fortunatus,
Justus, Crispus, Quartus, Achaicus. Under these
auspices Corinth speedily regained something of its
former beauty, all its former wealth, and apparently
more than its original size. But the old profligacy
was also to some extent revived ; and in Paul's day
"to live as they do at Corinth" was the equivalent for
living in luxury and licentiousness. Sailors from all
parts with a little money to spend, merchants eager to
compensate for the privations of a vo}Tage, refugees and
adventurers of all kinds, were continually passing
through the city, introducing foreign customs and con-
founding moral distinctions. Too plainly are the innate
vices of the Corinthians reflected in this Epistle. On
the stage the Corinthian was usually represented drunk,
and Paul found that this characteristic vice was allowed
to follow his converts even to the communion table.
In the letter there are also discernible some reminis-
cences of what Paul had seen in the Isthmian and
gladiatorial contests. He had noted, too, as he walked
through Corinth, how the fire of the Roman army had
consumed the meaner houses of wood, hay, stubble,
but had left standing, though charred, the precious
marbles.

Nowhere do we see so clearly as in this Epistle the
multifarious and delicate work required of one on whom
lay the care of all the Churches. A host of difficult
questions poured in upon him : questions regarding
conduct, questions of casuistry, questions about the

i. I.] INTRODUCTION.

ordering of public worship and social intercourse, as
well as questions which struck to the very root of the
Christian faith. Are we to dine with our heathen
relatives ? May we intermarry with those who are
not yet Christian ? may we marry at all ? Can slaves
continue in the service of heathen masters ? What
relation does the Communion hold to our ordinary
meals ? Is the man who speaks with tongues a
superior kind of Christian, and must the prophet who
speaks with the Spirit be allowed to interrupt other
speakers ? Paul in a previous letter had instructed the
Corinthians on some of these points, but they had mis-
understood him ; and he now takes up their difficulties
point by point, and finally disposes of them. Had
nothing been required but the solution of practical
difficulties, Paul's part had not been so delicate to play.
But even through their request for advice there shone
the ineradicable Greek vices of vanity, restless intellec-
tualism, litigiousness, and sensuality. They even seemed
to be on the perilous brink of glorying in a spurious
liberality which could condone vices condemned by the
heathen. In these circumstances the calmness and
patience with which Paul pronounces on their entangle-
ments are striking. But even more striking are the
boundless intellectual vigour, the practical sagacity, the
ready application to life, of the profoundest Christian
principles. In reading the Epistle, one is amazed at
the brevity and yet completeness with which intricate
practical problems are discussed, the unerring firmness
with which, through all plausible sophistry and falla-
cious scruples, the radical principle is laid hold of,
and the sharp finality with which it is expressed.
Nor is there any lack in the Epistle of the warm, rapid,
and stirring eloquence which is associated with the

6 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

name of Paul. It was a happy circumstance for the
future of Christianity that in those early days, when
there were almost as many wild suggestions and
foolish opinions as there were converts, there should
have been in the Church this one clear, practical
judgment, this pure embodiment of the wisdom of
v Christianity.

It is in this Epistle we get the clearest view of the
actual difficulties encountered by Christianity in a
heathen community. We here see the religion of
Christ confronted by the culture, and the vices, and the
various social arrangements of paganism ; we see the
ferment and turmoil its introduction occasioned, the
changes it wrought in daily life and common customs,
the difficulty men honestly experienced in compre-
hending what their new principles required ; we see
how the higher aims and views of Christianity sifted
the social customs of the ancient world, now allowing
and now rejecting ; and, above all, we see the principles
on which we ourselves must proceed in solving the
social and ecclesiastical difficulties that embarrass our-
selves. It is in this Epistle, in short, that we see the
Apostle of the Gentiles in his proper and peculiar
element, exhibiting the applicability of the religion of
Christ to the Gentile world and its power, not to satisfy
merely the aspirations of devout Jews, but to scatter
the darkness and quicken the dead soul of the pagan
\ world.

Paul's experience in Corinth is full of significance.
On arriving at Corinth, he went, as usual, to the syna-
gogue ; and when his message was rejected by the Jews,
he betook himself to the Gentiles. Next door to the
synagogue, in the house of a convert called Justus, the
Christian congregation was founded ; and, to the annoy-

i. i.] INTRODUCTION.

ance of the Jews, one of the rulers of the synagogue,
Crispus by name, attached himself to it. The Jewish
irritation and envy smouldered until a new governor
came from Rome, and then it found vent. This new
governor was one of the most popular men of his time,
the brother of Nero's tutor, the well-known Seneca.
He was himself so markedly the representative of
" sweetness and light" that he was commonly spoken of
as " the sweet Gallio." The Jews in Corinth evidently
fancied that a man of this character would be facile
and would desire to make favour with all parties in
his new province. They accordingly appealed to him,
but were met with a prompt and decided rebuff. Their
new governor assured them he had no jurisdictioi
over such questions. As soon as he hears it is not
a matter in which the property or persons of his
lieges is implicated he bids his lictors clear the court.
The rabble that always gathers round a courthouse,
seeing a Jew ignominiously dismissed, set upon him
and beat him under the very eye of the judge, the
beginning of that furious, unreasoning, brutal out-
rage which has pursued the Jews in all countries of
Christendom.

Gallio has become the synonym for religious indiffer-
ence. We call the easy-going, good-natured man who
meets all your religious appeals with a shrug of the
shoulders or a genial, bantering answer a Gallio. This
is perhaps a little hard upon Gallio, who no doubt
attended to his own religion in much the same spirit
as his friends. When the narrative says that " he
cared for none of those things," it means that he gave
no heed to what seemed a common street brawl. It
is rather the haughtiness of the Roman proconsul than
the indifference of the man of the world that appears

8 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

in his conduct. These squabbles among Jews about
matters of their law were not affairs he could stoop to
investigate or was by his office required to investigate.
And yet it is not Gallio's proconsulship of Achaia nor
his relationship to Roman celebrities that has made his
name familiar to the modern world, but his connection
with these wretched Jews that appeared before his
small chair that morning. In Paul's little, insignificant,
worn figure it was not to be expected he should see any-
thing so remarkable as to stimulate inquiry ; he could
not have comprehended that the chief connection in
which his name would afterwards appear would be in
connection with Paul ; and yet had he but known, had
he but interested himself in what evidently so deeply
interested his new subjects, how different might his
own history have become, and how different, too, the
history of Christianity. But filled with a Roman's dis-
dain for questions of which the sword could not cut
the knot, and with a Roman's reluctance to implicate
himself with anything which was not sufficiently of
this world to be adjusted by Roman law, he cleared his
court and called the next case. The " sweet Gallio,"
patient and affable to every other kind of complainant,
had nothing but disdain and undisguised repugnance
for these Eastern dreamers. The Roman, who could
sympathize with almost every nationality and find
room for all men in the wide lap of the empire, made
himself detested in the East by his harsh contempt for
mysticism and religion, and was met by a disdain deeper
than his own.

** The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world ;
The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
And on her head was hurled :

i. I.] INTROD UCTION.

The East bowed low before the blast

In patient, deep disdain ;
She let the legions thunder past,

And plunged in thought again."

Now in the Englishman there is much that closely
resembles the Roman character. There is the same
ability for practical achievement, the same capacity for
conquest and for making much ox conquered peoples,
the same reverence for law, the same faculty for dealing
with the world and the human race as it actually is !
the same relish for and mastery ot the present system
of things. But along with these qualities there go in
both races their natural defects : a tendency to forget
the ideal and the unseen in the seen and the actual ; to
measure all things by material standards ; to be more
deeply impressed with the conquests of the sword than
with those of the Spirit, and with the gains that are
counted in coin rather than with those that are seen in
character; and to be far more intensely interested in
whatever concerns politics than in anything that con-
cerns religion. So pronounced is this materialistic, or
at any rate worldly, tendency in this country, that it
has been formulated into a system for the conduct of
life, under the name of secularism. And so popular
has this system become, especially among working-men,
that the chief promoter of it believes that his adherents
may be numbered by hundreds of thousands.

The essential idea of secularism is " that precedence
should be given to the duties of this life over those
which pertain to another life," the reason being that
this life is the first in certainty, and should therefore
be the first in importance. Mr. Holyoake carefully
states his position in these words : u We do not say
that every man ought to give an exclusive attention to

io THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

this world, because that would be to commit the old
sin of dogmatism, and exclude the possibility of another
world and of walking by different light from that by
which alone we are able to walk. But as our knowledge
is confined to this life, and testimony, and conjecture,
and probability are all that can be set forth with respect
to another life, we think we are justified in giving
precedence to the duties of this state and of attaching
primary importance to the morality of man to man."
This statement has the merit of being undogmatic, but
it is in consequence proportionately vague. If a man
is not to give exclusive attention to this world, how
much attention is he to give to another ? Would Mr.
Holyoake think the amount of attention most Christians
give to the other world excessive ? If so, the attention
he thinks suitable must be limited indeed.

But if this theoretical statement, framed in view of
the exigencies of controversy, be scarcely intelligible,
the position of the practical secularist is perfectly in-
telligible. He says to himself, I have occupations and
duties now that require all my strength ; and if there is
another world, the best preparation for it I can have is
to do thoroughly and with all my strength the duties
now pressing upon me. Most of us have felt the
attraction of this position. It has a sound of candid,
manly common-sense, and appeals to the English
character in us, to our esteem for what is practical.
Besides, it is perfectly true that the best preparation
for any future world is to do thoroughly well the duties
of our present state. But the whole question remains,
What are the duties of the present state ? These can
not be determined unless we come to some decision
as to the truth or untruth of Christianity. If there is
a God, it is not merely in the future, but now, that we

i. I.] INTRODUCTION. ix

have duties to Him, that all our duties are tinged with
the idea of His presence and of our relation to Him.
It is absurd to defer all consideration of God to a future
world ; God is as much in this world as in any : and if
so, our whole life, in every part of it, must be, not a
secular, but a godly, life — a life we live well and can
only live well when we live it in fellowship with Him.
The mind that can divide life into duties of the present
and duties that concern the future entirely misappre-
hends the teaching of Christianity, and misconceives
what life is. If a man does not know whether there is
a God, then he cannot know what his present duties
are, neither can he do these duties as he ought. He
may do them better than I can ; but he does not do
them as well as he himself could were he owning the
presence and accepting the gracious, sanctifying influ-
ences of the Divine Spirit.

To the help of secularism comes also in our case an-
other influence, which told with Gallio. Even the gentle
and affable Gallio felt annoyed that so squalid a case
should be among the first that came before him in Achaia.
He had left Rome with the good wishes of the Imperial
Court, had made a triumphal procession of several
weeks to Corinth, had been installed there with all the
pomp that Roman officials, military and civil, could
devise ; he had been met and acknowledged by the
authorities, had sworn in his new officers, had caused
his tesselated pavement to be laid and his chair of
state set down : and as if in mockery of all this cere-
mony and display of power came this pitiful squabble
from the synagogue, a matter of which not a man of
standing in his court knew or cared anything, a matter
in which Jews and slaves alone were interested.
Christianity has always found its warmest supporters

12 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

in the lower strata of society. It has not always been
quite respectable. And here again Englishmen are
like Romans : they are strongly influenced by what is
respectable, by what has position and standing in the
world. If Christianity were zealously promoted by
princes, and leading officials, and distinguished pro-
fessors and writers of genius, how much easier would
it be to accept it , but its most zealous promoters are
so commonly men of no education, men with odd
names, men whose grammar and pronunciation put
them beyond the pale of good society, men whose
methods are rough and whose views are unphiloso-
phical and crude. As in Corinth, so now, not many
wise, not many mighty, not many noble, are called ; and
we must beware therefore of shrinking, as Gallio did,
from what is essentially the most powerful agent for
good in the world because it is so often found with
vulgar and repulsive adjuncts. The earthen vessels,
as Paul reminds us, the pots of coarsest clay, chipped
and crusted with coarse contact with the world, may
yet hold treasure of priceless value.

It is always a question how far we should endeavour
to become all things to all men, to win the wise of this
world by presenting Christianity as a philosophy, and
to win the well-born and cultured by presenting it in
the dress of an attractive style. Paul as he left Athens,
where he had met with so little success, was apparently
exercised with this same question. He had tried to
meet the Athenians on their own ground, showing his
familiarity with their writers; but he seems to think
that at Corinth another method may be more successful,
and, as he tells them, " I determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." It
was, he says, with much fear and trembling he adopted

i. i.] INTRODUCTION. 13

this course; he was weak and dispirited at the time,
at any rate ; and it is plain that his resolve to abandon
all such appeals as might tell with rhetoricians cost
him an effort and made a deep impression upon him.
He himself saw so clearly the foolishness of the Cross ;
he knew so well what a field for mockery was presented
to the Greek mind by the preaching of salvation through
a crucified person. He was very conscious of the poor
appearance he made as a speaker among these fluent
Greeks, whose ears wTere as cultivated as musicians', and
whose sense of beauty, trained by seeing their picked
young men contend in the games, received a shock
from "his weak and contemptible bodily presence/' as
they called it. Yet, all things considered, he made up
his mind that he would trust his success to the simple
statement of facts. He would preach "Christ and
Him crucified." He would tell them what Jesus had
been and done. He felt jealous of anything which
might attract men to his preaching save the Cross of
Christ. And he was more successful in Corinth than
he had been elsewhere. In that profligate city he was
obliged to stay eighteen months, because the work so
grew under his hand.

And so it has ever been since. As matter of fact,
it is not Christ's teaching, but His death, which has
kindled the enthusiasm and the devotion of men. It is
this which has conquered and won them, and delivered
them from the bondage of self, and set them in a larger
world. It is when we believe that this Person has
loved us with a love stronger than death that we
become His. It is when we can use Paul's words
11 who loved me and gave Himself for me " that we fee],
as Paul felt, the constraining power of this love. It is
this that forms between the soul and Christ that secret

14 THE FIRST EriSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

tie which has been the strength and happiness of so
many lives. If our own life is neither strong nor
happy, it is because we are not admitting the love of
Christ, and are striving to live independently of Him
who is our Life. Christ is the perennial fountain of
love, of hopefulness, of true spiritual life. In Him theie
is enough to puntfy, and brighten, and sustain all human
life. Brought into contact with the intellectualism and
the vice of Corinth, the love of Christ proved its reality
and its overcoming strength ; and when we bring it
into contact with ourselves, burdened, and perplexed,
and tempted as we are, we find that still it is the power
of God unto salvation. *

THE CHURCH IN CORTNTH

u Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will
of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is
at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be
saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, both their's and our's : Grace be unto you, and peace, from
God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God
always on your belialf, for the grace of God which, is given you by
Jesus Christ; that in everything ye are enriched by him, in all
utterance, and in all knowledge : even as the testimony of Christ was
confirmed in you : so that ye come behind in no gift ; waiting for the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall also confirm you unto
the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Sen
Jesus Christ our Lord." — I Cor. i. 2-9.

II.

THE CHURCH IN CORINTH.

IN the year 58 a.d., when Paul wrote this Epistle,
Corinth was a city with a mixed population, and
conspicuous for the turbulence and immorality commonly
found in seaports frequented by traders and seamen
from all parts of the world. Paul had received letters
from some of -the Christians in Corinth which disclosed
a state of matters in the Church far from desirable.
He had also more particular accounts from some mem-
bers of Chloe's household who were visiting Ephesus,
and who told him how sadly disturbed the little com-
munity of Christians was by party spirit and scandals
in life and worship.

In the letter itself the designation of the writer and
of those addressed first claims our attention.

The writer identifies himself as " Paul, an Apostle
of Jesus Christ by call, through the will of God." An
Apostle is one sent, as Christ was sent by the Father.
*' As the Father sent Me, even so send I you." It was
therefore an office no one could take to himself, nor
was it the promotion resulting from previous service.
To the apostleship the sole entrance was through the
call of Christ ; and in virtue of this call Paul became,
as he says, an Apostle. And it is this which explains
one of the most prominent of his characteristics : the

18 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

singular combination of humility and authority, of
self-depreciation and self-assertion. He is filled with
a sense of his own unworthiness ; he is "less than the
least of the Apostles," "not worthy to be called an
Apostle." On the other hand, he never hesitates to
command the Churches, to rebuke the foremost man in
the Church, to assert his claim to be listened to as the
ambassador of Christ.

, This extraordinary humility and equally lemarkable
boldness and authority had one common root in his
perception that it was through Christ's call and by
God's will he was an Apostle. The work of going to
all the busiest parts of the world and proclaiming
Christ was to his mind far too great a work for him to
aspire to at his own instance. He could never have
aspired to such a position as this gave hrm. But God
called him to it ; and, with this authority at his back,
he feared nothing, neither hardship nor defeat.

And this is for us all the true and eternal source of
humility and confidence. Let a man feel sure that he
is called of God to do what he is doing, let him be
fully persuaded in his own mind that the course he
follows is God's will for him, and he will press on
undauntedly, even though opposed. It is altogether a
new strength with which a man is inspired when he is
made conscious that God calls him to do this or that,
when behind conscience or the plain requirements of
human affairs and circumstances the presence of the
living God makes itself felt. Well may we exclaim,
with one who had to stand alone and follow7 a solitary
path, conscious only of God's approval, and sustained
by that consciousness against the disapproval of all,
11 Oh that we could take that simple view of things as
to feel that the cne thing which lies before us is to

i. 1-9.] THE CHURCH IN CORINTH. 19

please God ! What gain is it to please the world, to
please the great, nay even to please those whom we
love, compared with this ? What gain is it to be ap-
plauded, admired, courted, followed, compared with
this one aim of not being disobedient to a heavenly
vision?" — —

In addressing the Church at Corinth, Paul unites
with himself a Christian called Sosthenes. This was
the name of the chief ruler of the synagogue at Corinth
who was beaten by the Greeks in Gallio's court, and
it is not impossible that it was he who was now with
Paul in Ephesus. If so, this would account for his
being associated with Paul in writing to Corinth. What
share in the letter Sosthenes actually had it is impossible
to say. He may have written it to Paul's dictation ;
he may have suggested here and there a point to be
touched upon. Certainly Paul's easy assumption of a
friend as joint writer of the letter sufficiently shows
that he had no such stiff and formal idea of inspiration
as we have. Apparently he did not stay to inquire
whether Sosthenes was qualified to be the author of a
canonical book ; but knowing the authoritative position
he had held among the Jews of Corinth, he naturally
conjoins his name with his own in addressing the new
Christian community.

Ihe persons to whom this letter is addressed are
identified as " the Church of God which is at Corinth."
With them are joined in character, if not as recipients
of this letter, " all that in every place call upon the
name of Jesus Christ our Lord." And therefore we
should perhaps not be far wrong if we were to gather
from this that Paul would have defined the Church as
the company of all those persons who " call upon the
name of Jesus Christ." Calling upon the name of any

20 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

one implies trust in him ; and those who call upon the
name of Jesus Christ are those who look up to Christ
as their supreme Lord, able to supply all their need.
It is this belief in one Lord which brings men together
as a Christian Church.

But at once we are confronted with the difficulty that
many persons who call upon the name of the Lord do
so with no inward conviction of their need, and con-
sequently with no real dependence upon Christ or
allegiance to Him. In other words, the apparent Church
is not the real Church. Hence the distinction between
the Church visible, which consists of all who nominally
or outwardly belong to the Christian community, and
the Church invisible, which consists of those who in-
wardly and really are the subjects and people of Christ.
Much confusion of thought is avoided by keeping in
mind this obvious distinction. In the Epistles of Paul
it is sometimes the ideal, invisible Church which is
addressed or spoken of; sometimes it is the actual,
visible Church, imperfect, stained with unsightly blots,
calling for rebuke and correction. Where the visible
Church is, and of whom composed, wTe can always say ;
its members can be counted, its property estimated,
its history written. But of the invisible Church no
man can fully write the history, or name the members,
or appraise its properties, gifts, and services.

From the earliest times it has been customary to say
that the true Church must be one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic. That is true if the Church invisible be
meant. The true body of Christ, the company of
persons who in all countries and ages have called upon
Christ and served Him, do form one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic Church. But it is not true of the Church
visible and disastrous consequences have at various

i. 1-9.] THE CHURCH IN CORINTH. 21

times followed the attempt to ascertain by the applica-
tion of these notes which actual visible Church has the
best claim to be considered the true Church.

Without concerning himself explicitly to describe the
distinguishing features of the true Church, Paul heie
gives us four notes which must always be found7-: —

1. Consecration. The Church is composed of " them
that have been sanctified in Christ Jesus."

2. Holiness : " called to be saints."

3. Universality : " all that in every place call on the
name," etc.

4. Unity : " both their Lord and ours."

1. The true Church is, first of all, composed of con-
secrated people. The word " sanctify " bears here a
somewhat different meaning from that which we com-
monly attach to it. It means rather that which is set
apart or destined to holy uses than that which has
been made holy. It is in this meaning the word is
used by our Lord when He says, " For your sakes I
sanctify " — or set apart — " Myself." The Church by its
very existence is a body of men and women set apart
for a holy use. The New Testament word for Church,
ecclesia, means a society " called out " from among
other men. It exists not for common purposes, but to
witness for God and for Christ, to maintain before the
eyes and in all the common ways and works of men
the ideal life realized in Christ and the presence and
holiness of God. It becomes those who form the
Church to meet God's purpose in calling them out of
the world and to consider themselves as devoted and
set apart to attain that purpose. Their destination is
no longer that of the world ; and a spirit set upon the

1 Com p. F. W. Robertson's Lectures on Corinthians.

22 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

attainment of the joys and advantages the world gives
is wholly out of place in them.

2. More particularly those who compose the Church
*re called to be " saints." Holiness is the unmistakable
characteristic of the true Church. The glory of God,
inseparable from His essence, is His holiness, His
eternally willing and doing only what is the very best.
To think of God as doing wrong is blasphemy. Were
God even once to do other than the best and right, the
loving and just thing, He would cease to be God.
It is the task of the Church to exhibit in human life and
character this holiness of God's. Those whom God calls
into His Church, He calls to be, above all else, holy.

The Church of Corinth was in some danger of
forgetting this. One of its members in particular had
been guilty of a scandalous breach even of the heathen
code of morals ; and of him Paul uncompromisingly
says, " Put away from among yourselves that wicked
person." Even with sinners of a less flagrant sort,
no communion was to be held. " If any man that is
called a brother " — that is, claiming to be a Christian —
"be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer,
or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one you
must not even eat." No doubt there is risk and
difficulty in administering this law. The graver hidden
sin may be overlooked, the more obvious and venial
transgression be punished. But the duty of the Church
to maintain its sanctity is undeniable, and those who
act for the Church must do their best in spite of all
difficulty and risk.

The prime duty, however, lies with the members,
not with the rulers, in the Church. Those whose
function it is to watch over the purity of the Church
would be saved from all doubtful action were the

i. 1-9.] THE CHURCH IN CORINTH. 23

individual members alive to the necessity of holy living.
This, they should bear in mind, is the very object of
the Church's existence and of their being in it.

3. Thirdly, it is ever to be borne in mind that the
true Church of Christ is to be found, not in one country
nor in one age, not in this or that Church, whether it
assume the title of " Catholic " or pride itself on being
national, but is composed of u all that in every place
call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.'1 Happily
the time is gone by when with any show of reason
any one Church can claim to be catholic on the ground
of its being coextensive with Christendom. It is true
that Cardinal Newman, one of the most striking figures
and probably the greatest Churchman of our own
generation, attached himself to the Church of Rome on
this very ground : that it possessed this note of catho-
licity. To his eye, accustomed to survey the fortunes
and growth of Christ's Church during the early and
mediaeval centuries, it seemed that the Church of Rome
alone had any reasonable claim to be considered the
Church catholic. But he was betrayed, as others
have been, by confounding the Church visible with the
Church invisible. No one visible Church can claim to
be the Church catholic. Catholicity is not a matter
of more or less ; it cannot be determined by a majority.
No Church which does not claim to contain the whole
of Christ's people without exception can claim to be
catholic. Probably there are some who accept this
alternative, and do not see it to be absurd to claim for
any one existing Church that it is coextensive with
the Church of Christ.

4. The fourth note of the Church here implied is its
unity. The Lord of all the Churches is one Lord ; in
this allegiance they centre, and by it are held together

24 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

in a true unity. Plainly this note can belong only to
the Church invisible, and not to that multifaricus
collection of incoherent fragments known as the visible
Church. It is indeed doubtful whether a visible unity
is desirable. Considering what human nature is and
how liable men are to be overawed and imposed upon
by what is large, it is probably quite as conducive to
the spiritual well-being of the Church that she is
broken up into parts. Outward divisions into national
Churches and Churches under different forms of
government and holding various creeds would sink
into insignificance, and be no more bewailed than the
division of an army into regiments, were there the
real unity which springs from true allegiance to the
common Lord and zeal for the common cause rather
than for the interests of our own particular Church.
When the generous rivalry exhibited by some of our
regiments in battle passes into envy, unity is destroyed ;
and indeed the attitude sometimes assumed towards
sister-Churches is rather that of hostile armies than
of rival regiments striving which can do most honour
to the common flag. One of the hopeful signs of our
times is that this is generally understood. Christian
people are beginning to see how much more important
are those points on which the whole Church is agreed
than those often obscure or trivial points which split
the Church into sects. Churches are beginning to own
with some sincerity that there are Christian gifts and
graces in all Churches, and that no one Church com-
prises all the excellences of Christendom. And the
only outward unity that is worth having is that which
springs from inward unity, from a genuine respect and
regard for all who own the same Lord and spend them-
selves in His service.

I. I-9-] THE CHURCH IN CORINTH. 25

Paul, with his usual courtesy and instinctive tact,
introduces what he has to say with a hearty acknow-
ledgment of the distinctive excellences of the Corinthian
Church : "I thank my God always on your behalf, for
the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus,
that in everything ye have been enriched in Him, in
all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testi-
mony of Christ was confirmed in you." Paul was one
of those large-natured men who rejoice more in the
prosperity of others than in any private good fortune.
The envious soul is glad when things go no better
with others than with himself, but the generous and
unselfish are lifted out of their own woes by their
sympathy with the happy. Paul's joy — and it was no
mean or shallow joy — was to see the testimony he had
borne to Christ's goodness and power confirmed by
the new energies and capacities which were developed
in those who believed his testimony. The gifts which
the Christians in Corinth exhibited made it manifest
that the Divine presence and power proclaimed by
Paul were real. His testimony regarding the risen
but unseen Lord was confirmed by the fact that those
who believed this testimony and called upon the name
of the Lord received gifts not previously enjoyed by
them. Further argument regarding the actual and
present power of the unseen Lord was needless in
Corinth. And in our day it is the new life of believers
which most strongly confirms the testimony regarding
the risen Christ. Every one who attaches himself to
the Church either damages or aids the cause of Christ,
propagates either belief or unbelief. In the Corinthians
Paul's testimony regarding Christ was confirmed by
their reception of the rare gifts of utterance and know-
ledge. It is indeed somewhat ominous that the in-

26 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

corruptible honesty of Paul can only acknowledge their
possession of " gifts/' not of those fine Christian graces
which distinguished the Thessalonians and others of
his converts. But the grace of God must always adjust
itself to the nature of the recipient ; it fulfils itself by
means of the material which nature furnishes. The
Greek nature was at all times lacking in seriousness,
and had attained little moral robustness ; but for many
centuries it had been trained to admire and excel in
intellectual and oratorical displays. The natural gifts of
the Greek race were quickened and directed by grace.
Their intellectual inquisitiveness and apprehensiveness
enabled them to throw light on the grounds and results
of the Christian facts ; and their fluent and flexible
speech formed a new wealth and a more worthy em-
ployment in their endeavours to formulate Christian
truth and exhibit Christian experience. Each race has
its own contribution to make to complete and full-grown
Christian manhood. Each race has its own gifts ; and
only when grace has developed all these gifts in a
Christian direction can we actually see the fitness of
Christianity for all men and the wealth of the nature
and wrork of Christ, which can appeal to and best
develop all.

, Paul thanked God for their gift of utterance. Per-
haps had he lived now, within sound of an utterance
dizzying and ceaseless as the roar of Niagara, he might
have had a word to say in praise of silence. There is
more than a risk nowadays that talk take the place of
thought on the one hand and of action on the other.
But it could not fail to occur to Paul that this Greek
utterance, with the instrument it had in the Greek
language, was a great gift to the Church. In no other
language could he have found such adequate, intelli-

i. 1-9.] THE CHURCH IN CORINTH. 27

gible, and beautiful expression for the new ideas to
which Christianity gave birth. And in this new gift
of utterance among the Corinthians he may have seen
promise of a rapid and effective propagation of the
Gospel. For indeed there are few more valuable gifts
the Church can receive than utterance. Legitimately
may we hope for the Church when she so apprehends
her own wealth in Christ as to be stirred to invite all
the world to share with her, when through all her
members she feels the pressure of thoughts that de-
mand utterance, or when there arise in her even one
or two persons with the rare faculty of swaying large
audiences, and touching the common human heart, and
lodging in the public mind some germinant ideas. New
epochs in the Church's life are made by the men who
speak, not to satisfy the expectation of an audience, but
because they are driven by an inward compelling force,
not because they are called upon to say something, but
because they have that in them which they must say.

But utterance is well backed by knowledge. Not
always has it been remembered that Paul recognises
knowledge as a gift of God. Often, on the contrary, has
the determination to satisfy the intellect with Christian
truth been reprehended as idle and even wicked. To
the Corinthians the Christian revelation was new, and
inquiring minds, could not but endeavour to harmonize
the various facts it conveyed. This attempt to under-
stand Christianity was approved. The exercise of the
human reason upon Divine things was encouraged.
The faith which accepted testimony was a gift of God,
but so also was the knowledge which sought to recom-
mend the contents of this testimony to the human mind.

But however rich in endowments the Corinthians
were, they could not but feel, in common with all other

28 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

men, that no endowment can lift us above the necessity
of conflict with sin or put us beyond the hazard which
that conflict entails. In point of fact, richly endowed
men are often most exposed to temptation, and feel more
keenly than others the real hazard of human life.
Paul therefore concludes this brief introduction by
assigning the reason of his assurance that they will be
blameless in the day of Christ ; and that reason is that
God is in the matter : " God is faithful, by whom ye
were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ
our Lord." God calls us with a purpose in view, and
is faithful to that purpose. He calls us to the fellow-
ship of Christ that we may learn of Him and become
suitable agents to carry out the whole will of Christ.
To fear that, notwithstanding our hearty desire to
become of Christ's mind and notwithstanding all our
efforts to enter more deeply into His fellowship, we
shall yet fail, is to reflect upon God as either insincere
in His call or inconstant. The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance. They are not revoked on
further consideration. God's invitation comes to us,
and is not withdrawn, even though it is not met with
the hearty acceptance it deserves. All our obstinacy
in sin, all our blindness to our true advantage, all our
lack of anything like generous self-devotion, all our
frivolity, and folly, and worldliness, are understood
before the call is given. By calling us into the fellow-
ship of His Son God guarantees to us the possibility
of our entering into that fellowship and of becoming
fit for it.

Let us then revive our hopes and renew our belief
in the worth of life by remembering that we are called
to the fellowship of Jesus Christ. This is satisfying ;
all else that calls us in life is defective and incomplete.

*k<xo o 9

i. 1-9.] THE CHURCH IN CORINTH. 29

Without this fellowship with what is holy and eternal,
all we find in life seems trivial or is embittered to us
by the fear of loss. In worldly pursuits there is excite-
ment ; but when the fire burns out, and the cold ashes
remain, chill and blank desolation is the portion of the
man whose all has been the world. We cannot reason-
ably and deliberately choose the world ; we may be
carried away by greed, or carnality, or earthliness to
seek its pleasures, but our reason and our better nature
cannot approve the choice. Still less does our reason
approve that what we cannot deliberately choose we
should yet allow ourselves to be governed by and
actually join in fellowship of the closest kind. Believe
in God's call, listen to it, strive to maintain yourself in
the fellowship of Christ, and every year will tell you
that God, who has called vou, is faithful and is bringing
you nearer and nearer to wnat is stable, happy, and
satisfying.

TBE FACTIONS,

' ' Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name oi our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no
divisions among you ; but that ye be perfectly joined together in
the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared
unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of
Chloe, that there are contentions among you. New this I say, that
every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of
Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified
for you ? or were ye baptized in the name oi Paul ? I thank God
that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; lest any should
say that I had baptized in mine own name. And I baptized also
the household of Stephanas : besides, I know not whether I baptized
any other." — I Cor. i. 10-16.

III.

THE FACTIONS.

THE first section of this Epistle, extending from the
tenth verse of the first chapter to the end of the
fourth chapter, is occupied with an endeavour to quench
the factious spirit which had shown itself in the
Corinthian Church. Paul, with his accustomed frank-
ness, tells the Corinthians from whom he had received
information regarding them. Some members of the
household of Chloe who were then in Ephesus were
his informants. Chloe was evidently a woman well
known in Corinth, and probably was resident there,
although it has with some reason been remarked that
it " is more in harmony with St. Paul's discretion to
suppose that she was an Ephesian known to the
Corinthians, whose people had been in Corinth and
returned to Ephesus."1 The danger of this factious
spirit, which in subsequent ages has so grievously
weakened the Church and hindered her work, seemed
to Paul so urgent that he abruptly adjured them to
unity of sentiment and of confession by that name
which was at once " the bond of union and the most
holy name by which they could be entreated." Before
speaking of the important topics he wished to discuss,
he must first of all give them to understand that he

1 Evans.

34 THE FIRST EriSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

does not write to a party, but seeks to win the e ir of
a whole and united Church.

The parties in the Corinthian Church had not as yet
outwardly separated from one another. The members
were known as belonging to this or that party, but
they worshipped together and had not as yet renounced
one another's communion. They differed in doctrine,
but their faith in one Lord held them together.

Of these parties Paul names four. There were first
of all those who held by Paul himself and the aspect
of the Gospel he had presented. They owed to him
their own salvation ; and having experienced the efficacy
of his gospel, they could not believe that there was any
other efficacious mode of presenting Christ to men.
And gradually they became more concerned to uphold
Paul's authority than to help the cause of Christ.
They probably fell into the mistake to which all mere
partisans are liable, and became more Pauline than
Paul himself, magnifying his peculiarities and attaching
importance to casual sayings and private practices ot
his which were in themselves indifferent. There was
apparently some danger that they might become more
Pauline than Christian, should allow their indebtedness
to Paul to obscure their debt to Christ, and should so
pride themselves in the teacher as to neglect the thing
taught.

There was a second party, grouped round Apollos.
This learned and eloquent Alexandrian had come to
Corinth after Paul left, and what Paul had planted
he so successfully watered that many seemed to owe
everything to him. Until he came and fitted the
Gospel into their previous knowledge, and showed
them its relations to other faiths, and opened up to
them its ethical wealth and bearing on life, they had

i. 10-16.] THE FACTIONS. 35

been unable to make full use of Paul's teaching. He
had sown the seed in their minds ; they had owned the
truth of his statements and accepted them ; but until
they heard Apollos they could not lay hold on the
truth with sufficient defkiiteness, and could not boldly
act upon it. The teaching of Apollos was not opposed
to Paul's, but supplementary of it. At the end of this
letter Paul tells the Corinthians that he had asked
Apollos to revisit them, but Apollos had refused, and
refused very probably because he wTas aware that a
party had been formed in his name, and that his
presence in Corinth would only foster and increase it.
It is obvious therefore that there was no jealousy
between Paul and Apollos themselves, whatever rivalry
might exist among their followers.

The third party gloried in the name of Cephas ; that
is, Peter, the Apostle of the circumcision. It is possible
that Peter had been in Corinth, but it is not necessary
to suppose so. His name was used in opposition to
Paul's as representing the original group of Apostles
who had companied with the Lord in His lifetime,
and who adhered to the observance of the Jewish law.
How far the party of Cephas in Corinth indulged in
disparagement of Paul's authority we cannot exactly
say. There are indications, however, in the Epistle
that they cited against him even his self-denial, arguing
that he did not dare either to ask the Church to
maintain him or to marry, as Peter had done, because
he felt that his claim to be an Apostle was insecure.
It may be imagined how painful it must have been for
a high-minded man like Paul to be compelled to defend
himself against such accusations, and with what mingled
indignation and shame he must have written the words,
u Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as

36 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

well as other Apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord
and Cephas ? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we
power to forbear working?" This party then had in
it more dangerous elements than the party of Apollos.
Extreme Judaizers would find among its members a
soil prepared for their apparently conservative and
orthodox but really obstructive and pernicious teaching.

Of the fourth party, which named itself " of Christ,"
we learn more in the Second Epistle than in the First.
From a striking and powerful outburst in that Epistle
(2 Cor. x. 7 — xii. 18), it would appear that the Christ
party was formed and led by men who prided them-
selves on their Hebrew descent (xi. 22), and on having
learned their Christianity, not from Paul, Apollos, or
Cephas, but from Christ Himself (1 Cor. i. 12 ;
2 Cor. x. 7). These men came to Corinth with letters
of commendation (2 Cor. iii. 1), probably from Palestine,
as they had known Jesus, but not from the Apostles
in Jerusalem, for they separated themselves from the
Petrine party in Corinth. They claimed to be apostles
of Christ (2 Cor. xi. 13) and " ministers of righteous-
ness" (xi. 15); but as they taught " another Jesus,"
"another spirit," "another gospel" (xi. 4), Paul does
not hesitate to denounce them as false apostles and
ironically to hold them up as " out-and-out apostles."
^As yet, however, at the date of the First Epistle, they
had either not so plainly shown their true colours,
or Paul was not aware of all the evil they were
doing.

The Apostle hears of these four parties with dismay.
What then would he think of the state of the Church
now? There was as yet in Corinth no schism, no
secession, no outward disruption of the Church ; and
indeed Paul does not seem to contemplate as possible

i. 10-16.] THE FACTIONS. 37

that which in our day is the normal condition : a Church
broken up into little sections, each of which worships
by itself, and looks upon the rest with some distrust
or contempt. It did not as yet appear possible that
the members of the one body of Christ should refuse
to worship their common Lord in fellowship with one
another and in one place. The evils attaching to such
a condition of things may no doubt be unduly magnified;
but we are probably more inclined to overlook than to
magnify the mischief done by disunion in the Church.
The Church was intended to be the grand uniter of
the race. Within its pale all kinds of men were to
be gathered. Distinctions were to be obliterated ; dif-
ferences were to be forgotten ; the deepest thoughts
and interests of all men were to be recognised as
common ; there was to be neither Jew nor Gentile,
Greek nor barbarian, bond nor free. But instead
of uniting men otherwise alienated, the Church has
alienated neighbours and friends ; and men who will
do business together, who will dine together, will not
worship together. Thus the Church has lost a large
part of her strength. Had the kingdom of Christ been
visibly one, it would have been supreme and without
a rival in the world. Had there been union where
there has been division, the rule and influence of Christ
would have so far surpassed every other influence that
peace and truth, right and justice, godliness and mercy,
would have everywhere reigned. But instead of this
the strength of the Church has been frittered away in
civil strife and party warfare, her ablest men have
spent themselves in controversy, and through division
her influence has become insignificant. The world
looks on and laughs while it sees the Church divided
against itself and wrangling over petty differences

38 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

while it ought to be assailing vice, ungodliness, and
ignorance. And yet schism is thought no sin ; and
that which the Reformers shuddered at and shrank
from, that secession which they feared to make even
from a Church so corrupt as that of Rome then was,
every petty ecclesiastic now presumes to initiate.

Now that the Church is broken into pieces, perhaps
the first step towards a restoration of true unity is to
recognise that there may be real union without unity of
external organization. In other words, it is quite pos-
sible that Churches which have individually a separate
corporate existence — say the Presbyterian, Indepen-
dent, and Episcopalian Churches — may be one in the
New Testament sense. The human race is one ; but this
unity admits of numberless varieties and diversities in
appearance, in colour, in language, and of endless subor-
dinate divisions into races, tribes, and nations. So the
Church may be truly one, one in the sense intended by
our Lord, one in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of
peace, though there continue to be various divisions and
sects. It may very well be argued that, constituted as
human nature is, the Church, like every other society
or institution, will be the better of a competing, if not
an opposing, rival ; that schism, divisions, sects, are
necessary evils ; that truth will be more thoroughly
investigated, discipline more diligently and justly
maintained, useful activities more vigorously engaged
in, if there be rival Churches than if there be one.
And it is certainly true that, so far as man can foresee,
there is no possibility, not to say prospect, of the
Church of Christ becoming one vast visible organiza-
tion. Oneness in that sense is prevented by the very
same obstacles that hinder all States and governments
on earth from being merged into one great kingdom.

i. io-i6.] THE FACTIONS. 39

But as amidst all diversities of government and
customs it is the duty of States to remember and
maintain their common brotherhood and abstain from
tyranny, oppression, and war, so it is the duty of
Churches, however separate in creed or form of
government, to maintain and exhibit their unity. If
the sects of the Church will frankly and cordially
recognise one another as parts of the same whole, if
they will exhibit their relationship by combining in
good works, by an interchange of ecclesiastical civilities,
by aiding one another when aid is needed, this is, I
conceive, real union. Certainly Churches which see it
to be their duty to maintain a separate existence ought
to be equally careful to maintain a real unity with all
other Churches.

Again, it is to be borne in mind that there may be
real union without unity in creed. As Churches
may be truly one though, for the sake of convenience
or of some conscientious scruple, they maintain a
separate existence, so the unity required in the New
Testament is not uniformity of belief in respect to all
articles of faith. This uniformity is desirable ; it is
desirable that all men know the truth. Paul here and
elsewhere entreats his readers to endeavour to agree
and be of one mind. It is quite true that the Church
has gained much by difference of opinion. It is true
that were ail men to be agreed there might be a danger
of truth becoming lifeless and forgotten for want of
the stimulus it derives from assault, and discussion,
and cross-questioning. It is undoubtedly the fact that
doctrine has been ascertained and developed precisely
in proportion and in answer to the errors and mistakes
of heretics ; and were all assault and opposition even
now to cease, there might be some danger of a lifeless

40 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

treatment of truth ensuing. And yet no one can
desire that men be in error ; no one can wish heresies
to multiply that the Church may be stimulated. A
visitation of cholera may result in cleanliness and
carefulness, but no one desires that cholera may come.
Opposition in Parliament is an acknowledged service to
the country, yet each party desires that its sentiments
become universal. So, too, notwithstanding every good
result which may flow from diversity of opinion regard-
ing Divine truth, agreement and unanimity are what all
should aim at. We may even see reason to believe
that men will never all think alike ; we may think that
it is not in the nature of things that men of diverse
natural disposition, diverse experience and upbringing,
should think the same thing ; if it is true, as a great
thinker has said, that " our system of thought is very
often only the history of our heart," then the effort to
bring men to precise uniformity of thought is hopeless :
and yet this effort must be made. No man who
believes he has found the truth can forbear disseminat-
ing it to the utmost of his ability. If his favourite
views are opposed in conversation, he does what he
can to convince and make converts of his antagonists.
There is truth, there is a right and a wrong, and it is
not all the same whether we know the truth or are
in error ; and doctrine is simply truth expressed : and
though the whole truth may not be expressed, yet even
this partial expression of it may be much safer and
nearer what we ought to believe than some current
denial of the truth. Paul wishes people to believe
certain things, not as if then they would be fully
enlightened, but because so far they will be enlightened
and so far defended against error.

But the question remains, What truths are to be made

i. ioi6.] THE FACTIONS. 41

terms of communion ? Is schism or secession ever
justifiable on the ground that error is taught in the
Church ?

This is a question most difficult to answer. The
Church of Christ is formed of those who are trusting to
Him as the power of God unto salvation. He is in
communion with all who thus trust Him, whether
their knowledge be great or small ; and we cannot
refuse to communicate with those with whom He is in
communion. And it may very reasonably be ques-
tioned whether any part of the Church has a right to
identify herself with a creed which past experience
proves that the whole Church will never adopt, and
which therefore necessarily makes her schismatic and
sectarian. As manifestoes or didactic summaries of
truth, confessions of faith may be very useful.
Systematic knowledge is at all times desirable; and as
a backbone to which all the knowledge we acquire may
be attached a catechism or confession of faith is part
of the necessary equipment of a Church. But no
doctrinal error which does not subvert personal faith
in Christ should be allowed to separate Churches.
Theology must not be made more of than Chris-
tianity. We cannot pay too much attention to
doctrine or too earnestly contend for the faith ; we
cannot too anxiously seek to have and to disseminate
clear views of truth : but if wre make our clear views a
reason for quarrelling with other Christians and a bar to
our fellowship with them, we forget that Christ is more
than doctrine and charity better than knowledge.

Paul certainly was contemplating Christ, and not a
creed, as the principle and centre of the Church's unity,
when he exclaimed, " Is Christ divided ? " The indi-
visible unity of Christ Himself is in Paul's mind the

42 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

sufficient argument for the unity of the Church. If
you can divide the one Christ, and if one Church can
live on one part, another on another, then you may
have several Churches ; but if there be one Christ in-
divisible, then is there but one Church indivisible. In
all Christians and in all Churches the one Christ is the
life of each. And it is monstrous that those who are
vitally united to one Person and quickened by one Spirit
should in no way recognise their unity.

It is with something akin to horror that Paul goes
on to ask, " Was Paul crucified for you ? " He implies
that only on the death of Christ can the Church be
founded. If those who prided themselves on being
followers of Paul were in danger of exalting him into
the place of Christ, they were forfeiting their salvation,
and had no right to be in the Church at all. Take
away the death of Christ and the personal connection
of the believer with the crucified Redeemer, and you
take away the Church.

From this casual expression of Paul we see his
habitual attitude towards Christ ; and more distinctly
than from any laboured exposition do we gather that
in his mind the pre-eminence of Christ was unique,
and that this pre-eminence was based upon His cruci-
fixion. Paul understood, and was never slow to affirm,
the indebtedness of the young Christian Churches to
himself: he was their father, and without him they
would not have existed. But he was not their saviour,
the foundation on which they were built. Not for one
moment did he suppose that he could occupy towards
men the position Christ occupied. That position was
unique, altogether distinct from the position he occupied.
No one could share with Christ in being the Head of
the Church and the Saviour of the body. Paul did not

i. io-iv.] THE FACTIONS. 43

think of Christ as of one among many, as of the best
among many who had done well. He did not think
of Him as the best among renowned and useful teachers,
as one who had added to what previous teachers had
been building. He thought of His work as so tran-
scending and distinct from the work of other men that
it was with a kind of horror he saw that there was
even a possibility of some confounding his own apostolic
work with the work of Christ. He fervently thanks
God that he had not even baptized many persons at
Corinth, lest it should be supposed he had baptized
them into his own name, and so implied, as baptism
implies, that men were to acknowledge him as their
leader and head. Had the chief part of Christ's work
been its lesson in self-sacrifice, might not Paul's life
have very well rivalled it, and might not those who
had themselves seen the life of Paul and felt the power
of his goodness have been forgiven if they felt more
indebted to him than to the more remote Jesus ?

The ever-recurring disposition then to reduce the
work of Christ to the level of comparison with the
work done for the race by other men must take account
of this expression which reveals to us Paul's thought
about it. Certainly Paul understands that between his
work and the work of Christ an impassable gulf is
fixed. Paul was wholly devoted to his fellow-men, had
suffered and was prepared again to suffer any hardships
and outrage in their cause, but it seemed to him mon-
strous that any person should confound the influence
of his work with that of Christ's. And that which
gave Christ this special place and claim was His cruci-
fixion. We miss what Paul found in the work of
Christ so long as we look more to His life than to His
death. Paul does not say, Was Paul your teacher in

44 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

religion, and did he lead your thoughts to God ? did
Paul by his life show you the beauty of self-sacrifice
and holiness ? but " Was Paul crucified for you ? " It
was Christ's death for His people which gave Him the
unique claim on their allegiance and devotedness. The
Church is founded on the Cross.

It was not, however, the mere fact of His dying which
gave Christ this place, and which claims the regard and
trust of all men. Paul had really given his life for
men ; he had been more than once taken up for dead,
having by the truth he taught provoked the hatred of
the Jews, even as Jesus had done. But even this did
not bring him into rivalry with the unapproachable
Redeemer. Paul knew that in Christ's death there was
a significance his own could never have. It was not
only human self-sacrifice that was there manifested, but
Divine self-sacrifice. It was as God's Representative
Christ died as truly as He died as man's Representative.
This Paul could not do. In Christ's death there was
what there could be in none other : a sacrifice for the
sins of men and an atonement for these sins. Through
this death sinners find a way back to God and assur-
ance of salvation. There was a work accomplished by
it which the purest of men could not help Him in, but
must himself depend upon and receive the benefit of.
Christ by His death is marked off from all men, He
being the Redeemer, they the redeemed.

This exceptional, unique work then — what have we
made of it ? Paul, probably on the whole the most
richly endowed man, morally and intellectually, the
world has seen, found his true life and his true self in
the work of this other Person. It was in Christ Paul
first learned how great a thing human life is, and it
was through Christ and His work Paul first came into

i. io-iv.] THE FACTIONS. 45

fellowship with the true God. This greatest of men
owed everything to Christ, and was so inwardly con-
vinced of this that, heart and soul, he yielded himself to
Christ, and gloried in serving Him. How is it with
us ? Does the work of Christ actually yield to us
those grand results it yielded to Paul ? Or is the
greatest reality in this human world of ours wholly
resultless so far as we are concerned ? It filled Paul's
mind, his heart, his life ; it left him nothing else to
desire : this man, formed on the noblest and largest
type, found room in Christ alone for the fullest deve-
lopment and exercise of his powers. Is it not plain that
if we neglect the connection with Christ which Paul
found so fruitful, we are doing ourselves the greatest
injustice and preferring a narrow prison-house to liberty
and life ?

THE FOOLISHNESS OB PREACHING.

u For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel : not
with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of
none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the
wise ? where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ?
hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after that
in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For
the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : but
we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling ?lock, and
unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both
jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness
of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how
that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble, are called : but God hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base
things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen,
yea, and things'which are not, to bring to nought things that are :
that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him are ye
in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous-
ness, and sanctification, and redemption : that, according as it is
written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

" And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency
of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and
in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and 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, but in the power of God." — I Cor. i. 17-ii. 5.

IV.

THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING.

IN the preceding section of this Epistle Paul introduced
the subject which was prominent in his thoughts
as he wrote : the divided state of the Corinthian
Church. He adjured the rival parties by the name of
Christ to hold together, to discard party names and
combine in one confession. He reminded them that
Christ is indivisible, and that the Church which is
founded on Christ must also be one. He shows them
how impossible it is for any one but Christ to be the
Church's foundation, and thanks God that he had given
no pretext to any one to suppose that he had sought
to found a party. Had he even baptized the converts
to Christianity, there might have been persons foolish
enough to whisper that he had baptized in his own
name and had intended to found a Pauline, not a
Christian, community. But providentially he had
baptized very few, and had confined himself to preaching
the Gospel, which he considered to be the proper work
to which Christ had ft sent " him ; that is to say, for
which he held an Apostle's commission and authority.
But as he thus repudiates the idea that he had given
any countenance to the founding of a Pauline party,
it occurs to him that some may say, Yes, it is true
enough, he did not baptize ; but his preaching may

50 THE FIRST ETISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

more effectually have won partisans than even baptizing
them into his own name could have done. And so
Paul goes on to show that his preaching was not that of
a demagogue or party-leader, but was a bare statement
of fact, garnished and set off by absolutely nothing
which could divert attention from the fact either to the
speaker or to his style. Hence this digression on the
foolishness of preaching.

In this section of the Epistle then it is Paul's purpose
to explain to the Corinthians (i) the style of preaching
he had adopted while with them and (2) why he had
adopted this style.

I. His time in Corinth, he assures them, had been
spent, not in propagating a philosophy or system of
truth peculiar to himself, and which might have been
identified with his name, but in presenting the Cross
of Christ and making the plainest statements of fact
regarding Christ's death. In approaching the Corin-
thians, Paul had necessarily weighed in his own mind
the comparative merits of various modes of pre-
senting the Gospel. In common with all men who
are about to address an audience, he took into con-
sideration the aptitudes, peculiarities, and expectations
of his audience, that he might so frame his arguments,
statements, and appeals as to be most likely to carry
his point. The Corinthians, as Paul well knew, were
especially open to the attractions of rhetoric and
philosophical discussion. A new philosophy clothed
in elegant language was likely to secure a number of
disciples. And it was quite in Paul's power to present
the Gospel as a philosophy. He might have spoken
to the Corinthians in large and impressive language of
the destiny of man, of the unity of the race, and of
the ideal man in Christ. He might have based all he

i. 17 -ii. 5-3 THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING. 51

had to teach them on some of the accepted dicta or
theories of their own philosophers. He might have
propounded some new arguments for immortality or
the existence of a personal God, and have shown how
congruous the Gospel is to these great truths. He
might, like some subsequent teachers, have emphasized
some particular aspect of Divine truth, and have so
identified his teaching with this one side of Christianity
as to found a school or sect known by his name.
But he deliberately rejected this method of introducing
the Gospel, and " determined not to know anything
among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
He stripped his mind bare, as it were, of all his know-
ledge and thinking, and came among them as an
ignorant man who had only facts to tell.

Paul then in this instance deliberately trusted to the
bare statement of facts, and not to any theory about
these facts. This is a most important distinction, and
to be kept in view by all preachers, whether they feel
called by their circumstances to adopt Paul's method
or not. In preaching to audiences with whom the
facts are familiar, it is perfectly justifiable to draw
inferences from them and to theorize about them for
the instruction and edification of Christian people,
Paul himself spoke "wisdom among them that were
perfect." But what is to be noted is that for doing the
work proper to the Gospel, for making men Christians,
it is not theory or explanation, but fact, that is effective.
It is the presentation of Christ as He is presented in
the written Gospels, the narrative of His life and death
without note or comment, theory or inference, argu-
ment or appeal, wThich stands in the first rank of
efficiency as a means of evangelizing the world. Paul,
ever moderate, does not denounce other methods of

52 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIAN'S.

presenting the Gospel as illegitimate ; but in his circum-
stances the bare presentation of fact seemed the only
wise method.

No doubt we may unduly press Paul's words ; and
probably we should do so if we gathered that he
merely told his hearers how Christ had lived and died
and gave them no inkling of the significance of His
death. Still the least we can gather from his words is
that he trusted more to facts than to any explanation
of the facts, more to narration than to inference and
theory. Certainly the neglect of this distinction renders
a great proportion of modern preaching ineffective and
futile. Preachers occupy their time in explaining how
the Cross of Christ ought to influence men, whereas
they ought to occupy their time in so presenting the
Cross of Christ that it does influence men. They give
laboured explanations of faith and elaborate instructions
regarding the method and results of believing, while
they should be exhibiting Christ so that faith is
instinctively aroused. The actor on the stage does
not instruct his audience how they should be affected
by the play ; he so presents to them this or that scene
that they instinctively smile or find their eyes fill.
Those onlookers at the Crucifixion who beat their breasts
and returned to their homes with awe and remorse
were not told that they should feel compunction ; it was
enough that they saw the Crucified. So it is always ;
it is the direct vision of the Cross, and not anything
which is said about it, which is most effective in pro-
ducing penitence and faith. And it is the business of
the preacher to set Christ and Him crucified clear
before the eyes of men ; this being done, there will
be little need of explanations of faith or inculcation
of penitence. Make men see Christ, set the Crucified

>. 17-ii-S-] TUB FOOLISHNESS OF PRB ACHING. 53

clear before them, and you need not tell them to repent
and believe ; if that sight does not make them repent,
10 telling of yours will make them.

The very fact that it was a Person, not a system of
philosophy, that Paul proclaimed was sufficient proof
that he was not anxious to become the founder of a
school or the head of a party. It was to another
Person, not to himself, he directed the attention and
faith of his hearers. And that which permanently
distinguishes Christianity from all philosophies is
that it presents to men, not a system of truth to be
understood, but a Person to be relied upon. Christianity
is not the bringing of new truth to us so much as the
bringing of a new Person to us. The manifestation
of God in Christ is in harmony with all truth ; but
we are not required to perceive and understand that
harmony, but to believe in Christ. Christianity is for
all men, and not for the select, highly educated few ; and
it depends therefore, not on exceptional ability to see
truth, but on the universal human emotions of love and
trust.

II. Paul justifies his rejection of philosophy or
"wisdom" and his adoption of the simpler but more
difficult method of stating fact on three grounds. The
first is that God's method had changed. For a time
God had allowed the Greeks to seek Him by their own
wisdom ; now He presents Himself to them in the
fcolishness of the Cross (vers. 17 — 25). The second
ground is that the wise do not universally respond to
the preaching of the Cross, a fact which shows that it
is not wisdom that preaching appeals to (vers. 26 — 31).
And his third ground is that he feared lest, if he used
" wisdom" in presenting the Gospel, his hearers might
be only superficially attracted by his persuasiveness

54 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

and not profoundly moved by the intrinsic power of the
Cross (ii. I — 5).

I. His first reason is that God had changed His
method. "After that in the wisdom of God the
world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."
Even the wisest of the Greeks had attained only to
inadequate and indefinite views of God. Admirable
and pathetic are the searchings of the noble intellects
that stand in the front rank of Greek philosophy; and
some of their discoveries regarding God and His ways
are full of instruction. But these thoughts, cherished
by a few wise and devout men, never penetrated to the
people, and by their vagueness and uncertainty were
incapacitated from deeply influencing any one. To
pass even from Plato to the Gospel of John is really to
pass from darkness to light. Plato philosophizes, and
a few souls seem for a moment to see things more
clearly ; Peter preaches, and three thousand souls spring
to life. If God was to be known by men generally,
it was not through the influence of philosophy. Already
philosophy had done its utmost ; and so far as any
popular and sanctifying knowledge of God went,
philosophy might as well never have been. "The
world by wisdom knew not God." No safer assertion
regarding the ancient world can be made.

That which, in point of fact, has made God known
is the Cross of Christ. No doubt it must have seemed
foolishness and mere lunacy to summon the seeker
after God away from the high and elevating speculations
of Plato on the good and the eternal and to point him
to the Crucified, to a human form gibbeted on a
malefactor's cross, to a man that had been hanged.
None knew better than Paul the infamy attaching to

i. 17-H.5.] THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING. 55

that cursed death, and none could more distinctly
measure the surprise and stupefaction with which the
Greek mind would hear the announcement that it was
there God was to be seen and known. Paul under-
stood the offence of the Cross, but he knew also its
power. " The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks
seek after wisdom ; but we preach Christ crucified, unto
the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks
foolishness, but unto them which are called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the
wisdom of God."

As proof that God was in their midst and as a
revelation of God's nature, the Jews required a sign,
a demonstration of physical p nver. It was one of
Christ's temptations to leap from a pinnacle of the
Temple, for thus He would have won acceptance as the
Christ. The people never ceased to clamour for a
sign. They wished Him to bid a mountain be removed
and cast into the sea ; they wished Him to bid the sun
stand still or Jordan retire to its source. They wished
Him to make some demonstration of superhuman
power, and so put it beyond a doubt that God was
present. Even at the last it would have satisfied them
had He bid the nails drop out and had He stepped down
from the Cross among them. They could not under-
stand that to remain on the Cross was the true proof
of Divinity. The Cross seemed to them a confession
of weakness. They sought a demonstration that the
power of God was in Christ, and they were pointed to
the Cross. But to them the Cross was a stumbling-
block they could not get over. And yet in it was the
whole power of God for the salvation of the world.
All the power that dwells in God to draw men out of
sin to holiness and to Himself was actually in the

56 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Cross. For the power of God that is required to
draw men to Himself is not power to alter the course
of rivers or change the site of mountains, but power
to sympathize, to make men's sorrows His own, to
sacrifice self, to give all for the needs of His creatures.
To them that believe in the God there revealed, the
Cross is the power of God. It is this love of God that
overpowers them and makes it impossible for them to
resist Him. To a God who makes Himself known
to them in self-sacrifice they quickly and delightedly
yield themselves.

2. As a second ground on which to rest the justifica-
tion of his method of preaching Paul appeals to the
constituent elements of which the Church of Corinth
was actually composed. It is plain, he says, that it is
not by human wisdom, nor by power, nor by anything
generally esteemed among men that you hold your
place in the Church. The fact is that " not many wise
men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,
are called." If human wisdom or power held the gates
of the kingdom, you yourselves would not be in it. To
be esteemed, and influential, and wise is no passport to
this new kingdom. It is not men who by their wisdom
find out God and by their nobility of character commend
themselves to Him ; but it is God who chooses and
calls men, and the very absence of wisdom and posses-
sions makes men readier to listen to His call. " God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the things which are mighty, and
base things of the world, and things which are despised,
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to
bring to nought things which are ; that no flesh should
glory in His presence." It is all God's doing now ;

i. 1 7-ii. 5.1 THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING. 57

it is " Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus ; " it is God that
hath chosen you. Human wisdom had its opportunity
and accomplished little ; God now by the foolishness of
the Cross lifts the despised, the foolish, the weak, to a
far higher position than the wise and noble can attain
by their might and their wisdom.

Paul thus justifies his method by its results. He
uses as his weapon the foolishness of the Cross, and
this foolishness of God proves itself wiser than men.
It may seem a most unlikely weapon with which to
accomplish great things, but it is God who uses it,
and that makes the difference. Hence the emphasis
throughout this passage on the agency of God. " God
hath chosen " you ; " Of God are ye in Christ Jesus ; "
" Of God He is made unto you wisdom." This method
used by Paul is God's method and means of working,
and therefore it succeeds. But for this reason also all
ground of boasting is removed from those who are
within the Christian Church. It is not their wisdom
or strength, but God's work, which has given them
superiority to the wise and noble of the world. " No
flesh can glory in God's presence." The wise and
mighty of earth cannot glory, for their wisdom and
might availed nothing to bring them to God ; those
who are in Christ Jesus can as little glory, for- it is not
on account of any wisdom or might of theirs, but
because of God's call and energy, they are what they
are. They were of no account, poor, insignificant,
outcasts, and slaves, friendless while alive and when
dead not missed in any household ; but God called them
and gave them a new and hopeful life in Christ Jesus.

In Paul's day this argument from the general poverty
and insignificance of the members of the Christian
Church was readily drawn. Things are changed now ;

58 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and the Church is filled with the wise, the powerful,
the noble. But Paul's main proposition remains : who-
ever is in Christ Jesus is so, not through any wisdom
or power of his own, but because God has chosen and
called him. And the practical result remains. Let the
Christian, while he rejoices in his position, be humble.
There is something wrong with the man's Christianity
who is no sooner delivered from the mire himself than
he despises all who are still entangled. The self-
righteous attitude assumed by some Christians, the
11 Look at me " air they carry with them, their unsym-
pathetic condemnation of unbelievers, the superiority
with which they frown upon amusements and gaieties,
all seem to indicate that they have forgotten it is by
the grace of God they are what they are. The sweet-
ness and humble friendliness of Paul sprang from his
constant sense that whatever he was he was by God's
grace. He was drawn with compassion towards the
most unbelieving because he was ever saying within
himself, There, but for the grace of God, goes Paul.
The Christian must say to himself, It is not because I
am better or wiser than other men that I am a Chris-
tian ; it is not because I sought God with earnestness,
but because He sought me, that I am now His. The
hard suspicion and hostility with which many good
people view unbelievers and godless livers would thus
be softened by a mixture of humble self-knowledge.
The unbeliever is no doubt often to be blamed, the
selfish pleasure-seeker undoubtedly la}'s himself open
to just condemnation, but not by the man who is
conscious that but for God's grace he himself would
be unbelieving and sinful.

Lastly, Paul justifies his neglect of wisdom and
rhetoric on the ground that had he used " enticing

i.i7-ii.5-] THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING. 59

words of man's wisdom " the hearers might have been
unduly influenced by the mere guise in which the
Gospel was presented and too little influenced by the
essence of it. He feared to adorn the simple tale or
dress up the bare fact, lest the attention of his audience
might be diverted from the substance of his message.
He was resolved that their faith should not stand in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God ; that is
to say, that those who believed should do so, not
because they saw in Christianity a philosophy which
might compete with current systems, but because in
the Cross of Christ they felt the whole redeeming
power of God brought to bear on their own soul.

Here again things have changed since Paul's day.
The assailants of Christianity have put it on its defence,
and its apologists have been compelled to show that it
is in harmony with the soundest philosophy. It was
inevitable that this should be done. Every philosophy
now has to take account of Christianity. It has shown
itself to be so true to human nature, and it has shed
so much light on the whole system of things and so
modified the action of men and the course of civilization,
that a place must be found for it in every philosoplry.
But to accept Christianity because it has been a power-
ful influence for good in the world, or because it
harmonizes with the most approved philosophy, or
because it is friendly to the highest development of
intellect, may be legitimate indeed ; but Faul considered
that the only sound and trustworthy faith was produced
by direct personal contact with the Cross. And this
remains for ever true.

To approve of Christianity as a system and to adopt
it as a faith are two different things. It is quite
possible to respect Christianity as conveying to us a

60 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

large amount of useful truth, while we hold ourselves
aloof from the influence of the Cross. We may approve
the morality which is involved in the religion of Christ,
w7e may countenance and advocate it because we are
persuaded no other force is powerful enough to diffuse
a love of law and some power of self-restraint among
all classes of society, we may see quite clearly that
Christianity is the only religion an educated European
can accept, and yet we may never have felt the power
of God in the Cross of Christ. If we believe in
Christianity because it approves itself to our judgment
as the best solution of the problems of life, that is well ;
but still, if that be all that draws us to Christ, our
faith stands in the wisdom of men rather than in the
power of God.

In what sense then are we Christians ? Have wre
allowed the Cross of Christ to make its peculiar impres-
sion upon us ? Have we given it a chance to influence
us ? Have w7e in all seriousness of spirit considered
what is presented to us in the Cross ? Have we
honestly laid bare our hearts to the love of Christ?
Have we admitted to ourselves that it was for us He
died ? If so, then we must have felt the power of God
in the Cross. We must have found ourselves taken
captive by this love of God. God's law we may have
found it possible to resist; its threatenings we may
have been able to put out of our mind. The natural
helps to goodness which God has given us in the
family, in the world around us, in the fortunes of life,
we may have found too feeble to lift us above tempta-
tion and bring us into a really high and pure life. But
in the Cross we at length experience what Divine power
is ; we know the irresistible appeal of Divine self-sacri-
fice, the overcoming, regenerating pathos of the Divine

i. 17-H.5.] THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING, 61

desire to save us from sin and destruction, the
upholding and quickening energy that flows into our
being from the Divine sympathy and hopefulness in
our behalf. The Cross is the actual point of contact
between God and man. It is the point at which the
fulness of Divine energy is actually brought to bear
upon us men. To receive the whole benefit and
blessing that God can now give us we need only be in
true contact with the Cross : through it we become
direct recipients of the holiness, the love, the power, of
God. In it Christ is made to us wisdom, and righteous-
ness, and sanctification, and redemption. In very truth
all that God can do for us to set us free from sin and
to restore us to Himself and happiness is done for us
in the Cross ; and through it we receive all that is
needful, all that God's holiness requires, all that His
love desires us to possess.

DIVINE WISDOM.

"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not
the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that
come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world
unto our glor}' : which none of the princes of this world knew:
for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcbeth all things, yea, the deep
things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save
the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the citings of God knoweth
no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit which is 01 God ; that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things
also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things
with spiritual. 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 aie spiritually discerned. But he that
is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct
him ? But we have the mind of Christ."

"And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but
as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with
milk, and not with meat : for hitherto ye were not able to bear it,
neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal : for whereas
there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not
carnal, and walk as men ? For while one saith, I am of Paul ; and
another, I am of Apollos ; are ye not carnal ? " — I Cor. ii. 6-iii. 4.

DIVINE WISDOM.

IN the preceding paragraph Paul has explained why
he had proclaimed the bare facts regarding Christ
and His crucifixion and trusted to the Cross itself to
impress the Corinthians and lead them to God, and
why he had resisted the temptation to appeal to the
Corinthian taste for rhetoric and philosophy by
exhibiting Christianity as a philosophy. He believed
that where conversion was the object of preaching no
method could compare in efficiency with the simple
presentation of the Cross. But sometimes he found
himself in circumstances in which conversion could not
be his object. He was occasionally called, as preachers
in our own day are regularly called, to preach to those
who were already Christians. And he tells us that in
these circumstances, speaking " among the perfect," or
in presence of fairly mature Christians, he made no
scruple of unfolding the " wisdom " or philosophy of
Christ's truth. To expound the deeper truths revealed
by Christ was useless or even hurtful to mere " babes "
in Christ or to those who as yet were not even born
again ; but to the adolescent and to those who might lay
claim to have attained some firm manhood of Christian
character, he was forward to teach all he himself knew.
These words, " Howbeit we speak wisdom among them

66 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

that are perfect/' he makes the text of the following
paragraph, in which he proceeds to explain (i) what
the wisdom is; (2) how he speaks it; (3) to whom he
speaks it.

I. First, the wisdom which he speaks among the
perfect, though eminently deserving of the name, is not
on a level with human philosophies, nor is it of a
similar origin. It is not just one more added to human
searches after truth. The princes of this world, its
men of light and leading, have had their own theories
of God and man, and yet have really "come to nought."
The incompetence of the men and theories that actually
control human affairs is put beyond a doubt by the
crucifixion of Christ. In the person of Christ the glory
of God was manifested as a glory in which man was to
partake ; had there been diffused among men any true
perception of the real nature of God, the Crucifixion
would have been an impossibility. The fact that
God's incarnate glory was crucified is a demonstration
of the insufficiency of all previous teaching regarding
God. But the wisdom taught by Paul is not just
one theory more, devised by the speculative ingenuity
of man ; it is a disclosure made by God of knowledge
unattainable by human endeavour. The three great
sources of human knowledge — seeing, hearing, and
thought — alike fail here. " Eye hath not seen, ear
hath not heard, it has not entered into the heart of
man to conceive," this wisdom. Hitherto it has
been a myster}', a thing hidden ; now God has Him-
self revealed it.

What the contents of this wisdom are, wre can readily
perceive from such specimens of it as Paul gives us
in his Epistle to the Ephesians and elsewhere. It is
a declaration of the Divine purpose towaids man, or of

ii. 6-iii.4.] DIVINE WISDOM. 67

"the things which God hath prepared for them that
love Him." Paul delighted to expatiate on the far-
reaching results of Christ's death, the illustrations it
gives of the nature of God and of righteousness, its
place as the grand moral centre, holding together and
reconciling all things. He delights to show the superio-
rity of the Gospel to the Law and to build up a philo-
sophy of history which sheds light on the entire plan
of God's training of men. The purpose of God and
its fulfilment by the death of Christ he is never weary
of contemplating, nor of showing how out of destitution,
and disease, and war, and ignorance, and moral ruin, and
what seemed a mere wreck of a world there were to be
brought by this one healing element the restoration of
man to God and to one another, fellowship with God
and peace on earth, in short a kingdom of God among
men. He clearly saw how through all that had pre-
viously happened on earth and through ail that men
had thought preparation had been made for the fulfilment
of this gracious purpose of God. These were " the
deep things of God" which caused him to see how
different was the wisdom of God from the wisdom of
men.

This " wisdom " which Paul taught has had a larger
and more influential place in men's minds than any
other system of human thought. Christendom has
seen Christ through Paul's eyes. He interpreted Chris-
tianity to the world, and made men aware of what
had been and was in their midst. Men of the largest
faculty, such as Augustine and Luther, have been unable
to find a religion in Christ until they entered His school
by Paul's door. Stumbling at one or two Jewish
peculiarities which attach to Paul's theology, some
modern critics assure us that, "after having been for

68 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

three hundred years" — and they might have said
for fifteen hundred years — " the Christian doctor
par excellence, Paul is now coming to an end of his
reign." Matthew Arnold, with truer discernment, if
not on sounder grounds, predicts that u the doctrine of
Paul will arise out of the tomb where for centuries it
has lain buried. It will edify the Church of the future.
It will have the consent of happier generations, the
applause of less superstitious ages. All will be too
little to pay half the debt which the Church of God
owes to this ' least of the Apostles, who was not fit to
be called an Apostle, because he persecuted the Church
of God.

We may find in Paul's 'writings arguments which,
however convincing to the Jew, are not convincing to
us ; we may prefer his experimental and ethical to his
doctrinal teaching ; some estimable people can only
accept him when they have purged him of his Calvinism ,
others shut their eyes to this or that which seems to
them a blot in his writings ; but the fact remains that
it is to this man we owe our Christianity. It was he
who disengaged from the dying body of Judaism the
new-born religion and held it aloft in the eye of the
world as the true heir to universal empire. It was he
whose piercing intellect and keen moral discernment
penetrated to the very heart of this new thing, and
saw in it a force to conquer the world and to rid men
of all bondage and evil of every kind. It was he who
applied to the whole range of human life and duty the
inexhaustible ethical force which lay in Christ, and
thus lifted at one effort the heathen world to a new
level of morality. He was the first to show the
superiority of love to law, and to point out how God
trusted to love, and to summon men to meet the trust

li. 6-ni. 4.] DIVINE WISDOM. 69

God thus reposed in them. We cannot measure Paul's
greatness, because the light he has himself shed has
made it impossible for us to put ourselves back in
imagination into the darkness through which he had
to find his way. We can but dimly measure the
strength that was required to grasp as he grasped the
significance of God's manifestation in the flesh.

""Paul then used two methods of teaching. In ad-
dressing those who had yet to be won to Christ, he
used the foolishness of preaching, and presented to
them the Cross of Christ. In addressing those who
had already owned the power of the Cross and made
some growth in Christian knowledge and character, he
enlarged upon the significance of the Cross and the
light it threw on all moral relations, on God and on
man. And even in this department of his work he
disclaims any desire to propagate a philosophy of his
own. The system of truth he proclaims to the Chris-
tian people is not of his own devising. It is not in
virtue of his own speculative ability he has discovered
it. It is not one of the wisdoms of this world, having
its origin in the brain of an ingenious theorist. On
the contrary, it has its origin in God, and partakes
therefore of the truth and stability attaching to the
thoughts of God.

II. But if it be undiscoverable by man, how does
Paul come to know it ? To the Corinthian intelligence
there seemed but these three ways of learning any-
thing : seeing, hearing, or thinking ; and if God's wisdom
was attainable by none of these, how was it reached ?
Paul proceeds to show how he was enabled to "speak"
this wisdom. He does this in vers. 10 — 13, in which
his chief affirmations are that the Spirit of God alone
knows the mind of God, that this Spirit has been given

70 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

to him to reveal to him God's mind and to enable him
to divulge that mind to others in suitable words.

I. The Spirit of God alone knows the mind of God
and searches its deep things, just as none but the
spirit of man which is in him knows the things of man.
" There is in every man a life hidden from all eyes, a
world of impressions, anxieties, aspirations, and struggles,
of which he alone, in so far as he is a spirit — that is
to say, a conscious and personal being — gives account
to himself. This inner world is unknown to others,
except in so far as he reveals it to them by speech." 1
And if we are baffled often and deceived regarding
human character and find ourselves unable to penetrate
to the " deep things " of man, to his inmost thoughts and
motives, much more is it true that " the deep things "
of God are wholly beyond our ken and are only known
by the Spirit of God which is in Him. A vague and
uncertain guess, possibly not altogether wrong, probably
altogether wrong, is all we can attain to.

And still more certainly true is this of God's purposes.
Even though you flatter yourself you know a man's
nature, you cannot certainly predict his intentions.
You cannot anticipate the thoughts of an able man
whom you see designing a machine, or planning a
building, or conceiving a literary work ; you cannot say
in what form a vindictive man will wreak his vengeance;
nor can you penetrate through the abstracted look of
the charitable and read the precise form his bounty will
take. Every great work even of man comes upon us
by surprise ; the various inventions that facilitate
business, the new pcems, the new books, the new
works of art, have never been conceived before. They

1 Godet.

ii,6-iii.4.] DIVINE WISDOM. 71

were hidden mysteries until the originating mind dis-
closed them. And much more were God's intentions
and His method of accomplishing inconceivable by any
but Himself. What God's purpose was in creating
man, what He designed to accomplish through the
death of Christ, what was to be the outcome of all
human life, and temptation, and struggle — these things
were God's secret, known only to the Spirit of God
that was in Him.

2. This Spirit, Paul declares, was given to him, and
revealed to him God's purposes, " the things which are
freely given to us of God." He had received " not the
spirit of the world," which would have enabled him
only to theorize, and speculate, and create another
" wisdom of this world ; " but he had received " the
Spirit which is of God," and this Spirit had revealed to
him " the things which God hath prepared for them
that love Him."

We may think of revelation either as the act of
God or as it is received by man. God reveals Himself
in all He does, as man discloses his character in all
he does. With God's first act therefore in the re-
motest past revelation began. As yet there was none
to receive the knowledge of God, but God showed His
nature and His purpose as soon as He began to do
anything. And this revelation of Himself has continued
ever since. In the world around us and the earth on
which we live God reveals Himself; "the things which
are made," as Paul says, " give us clearly to see and
understand the invisible things of God, His unseen
nature, from the creation of the world." Still more
fully is God's nature revealed in man : in conscience,
distinguishing between right and wrong ; in the spirit
craving fellowship with the Eternal. In the history

72 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS

of nations, and especially in the history of that nation
which founded itself upon its idea of God, He revealed
Himself. By guiding it, by delivering it from Egypt,
by punishing it, God made Himself known to Israel.
And at length in Jesus Christ God gave the fullest
possible manifestation of Himself. The veil was en-
tirely lifted, and God came as much as possible into
free intercourse with His creatures. He put Himself
within reach of our knowledge.

But it was not enough that God be revealed objec-
tively in Christ ; there must also be a subjective
revelation within the soul of the beholder. It was not
enough that God be manifested in the flesh and men
be allowed to draw such inferences as they could from
that manifestation ; but, in addition to this, God gave
His Spirit to Paul and others that they might see the
full significance of that manifestation. It was quite
possible for men to be witnesses of the objective reve-
lation without understanding it. The open eye is
needed as wTell as outward light. And Paul everywhere
insists upon this : that he had received his knowledge
of Divine truth by revelation, not by the mere exercise
of his own unaided thought, but by a spiritual enlighten-
ment through the gift of God's Spirit.

The presence of God's Spirit in any man can of
course only be verified by the results. God's Spirit
working in and by means of man's nature cannot be
known in separation from the man's spirit and the
work done in that spirit. This inward revelation which
Paul refers to is accomplished by the action of the
Divine Spirit on the human faculties, quickening and
elevating these faculties. The revelation or new know-
ledge acquired by Paul was given by God, but at the
same time was acquired by Paul's own faculties, so

h. 6-iii. 4.] DIVINE WISDOM. 73

that it remained with him always, just as the knowledge
we naturally acquire remains with us and can be freely
used by us. An inward revelation can come to a man
only in the form of impressions, convictions, thoughts
arising in his own mind. Paul knew that his know-
ledge was a revelation of God, not by the suddenness
with which it was imparted, not by supernatural
appearances accompanying it, not by any sense or
consciousness of another Spirit working with his own,
but by the results. It is always the substance or
contents of any revelation which proves its origin.
Paul knew he had the mind of Christ because he found
that he could understand Christ's words and work,
could perfectly sympathize with His aims and look
at things from Christ's point of view.

In their humility, many persons shrink from making
this affirmation here made by Paul ; they cannot ever
unhesitatingly affirm that the Spirit of God is given
them or that they have the mind of Christ. Such
persons should recognise that it was the very humility
of Paul which enabled him so confidently to affirm
these things of himself. He knew that the knowledge
of Christ's purposes he had and the sympathy with
them were the evidence of God's Spirit working in him.
He knew that without God's Spirit he himself could
never have had these thoughts. And it is when we
recognise our own insufficiency most that we are
readiest to confess the presence of God's Spirit.

3. But Paul makes a further affirmation. Not only
is the knowledge he has of Divine things a revelation
made by God's Spirit to him, but the words in which
he declares this revelation to others are taught him
by the same Spirit : " which things we also speak, not
in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which

74 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things
with spiritual." The meaning of these last words is
doubtful. They either mean " fitting spiritual words
to spiritual truths/' or " applying spiritual truths to
spiritual people." The sense of the passage is not
materially altered whichever meaning is adopted. Paul
distinctly affirms that as his knowledge is gained by
God's revealing it to him, so his utterance of this
knowledge is by the inspiration of God. The spirit
of the world produces its philosophies and clothes them
in appropriate language. The philosophies with which
the Corinthians were familiar taught how the world
was made and what man's nature is, and they did so
in language full of technicalities and adorned with
rhetorical devices. Paul disclaimed this ; both his
knowledge and the form in which he taught it were
dictated, not by the spirit of this world, but by the
Spirit of God. The same truths which Paul declared
might have been declared in better Greek than he used,
and they might have been embellished with illustrative
matter and references to their own authors. This style
of presenting Divine truth may have been urged upon
Paul by some of his Corinthian hearers as far more
likely to find entrance into the Greek mind. But Paul
refused to allow his style to be formed by human
wisdom and the literary methods of secular authors,
and thought it more suitable to proclaim spiritual truth
in spiritual language and in v/ords which were taught
him by the Holy Ghost.

This statement of Paul may be construed into a
guarantee of the general accurac}r of his teaching ; but
it was not intended to be that. Paul did not express
himself in this way in order to convince men of his
accuracy, still less to convince them that every word

ii.6-iii.4.] DIVINE WISDOM. 75

he uttered was infallibly correct ; what he intended
was to justify his use of a certain kind of language and
a certain style of teaching. The spirit of this world
adopts one method of insinuating knowledge into the
mind ; the Spirit, of God uses another method. It is
the latter Paul adopts. That is what he means to
say, and it is obvious that from this statement of his
we can gather nothing regarding verbal inspiration or
the infallibility of every word he spoke.

It might indeed seem a very simple and sound
argument were we to say that Paul affirms that the
words in which he embodies his teaching are taught
him by the Holy Ghost, and that therefore there can
be no error in them. But to interpret the words 01
any writer with no regard to his intention in writing
them is voluntarily to blind ourselves to their true
meaning. And Paul's intention in this passage is to
contrast two methods of teaching, two styles of language,
the worldly or secular and the spiritual, and to affirm
that the style he adopted was that which the Holy
Ghost taught him. An artist whose work was criticised
might defend himself by saying, " I have been trained
in the Impressionist school," or " I use the principles
taught me by Ruskin," or "lama pupil of this or the
other great teacher ; " but these replies, while quite
relevant as a defence and explanation of the particulai
style of painting he has adopted, are not intended to
identify the work of the scholar with that of the master,
or to insinuate that the master is responsible for all
the pupil does. Similarly Paul's reply is relevant as
an explanation of his reason for refusing to use the
methods of professional rhetoricians in teaching his
spiritual truths. " Spiritual modes of presenting truth
and an avoidance of rhetorical artifice and embellish-

76 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

merit accord better with what I have to say." Whoever
gathers from this that every individual word Paul
spoke or wrote is absolutely the best does so at his
own risk and without Paul's authority. Certainly it
was not Paul's intention to make any such statement.
And it is quite as dangerous to put too much into Paul's
words as to put too little.

III. Having shown that the wisdom he teaches is
spiritual, and that his method of teaching it is spiritual,
he proceeds finally to show that it can be taught only
to spiritual persons. "The spiritual man judgeth all
things ; " he can discern whether he is " among the
perfect" or among the carnal, whether he may speak
wisdom or must confine himself to elementary truth.
But, on the other hand, he himself cannot be judged
by the carnal man. It is in vain that rudimentary
believers find fault with Paul's method of teaching ;
they cannot judge him, because they cannot understand
the mind of the Lord which guides him. It would
have served no purpose to teach spiritual wisdom in
Corinth, for the members of that Church were as yet
only babes in Christ, carnal, and not spiritual. Their
carnality was proved by their factiousness. They were
still governed by the passions which rule the natural
man. And therefore Paul fed them with milk, and not
with strong meat ; with the simple and affecting Gospel
of the Cross, and not with those high and far-reaching
deductions from it which he divulged among prepared
and sympathetic spirits.

In the distinctions of men into natural, carnal, and
spiritual Paul here show show untrammelled he was
by theological technicalities, and how straight he
looked at facts. He does not divide men summarily
into believers and unbelievers, classing all believers as

ii. 6-iii. 4.] DIVINE WISDOM. ??

spiritual, all unbelievers as carnal. He does not
unchurch all who are not spiritual. He may be dis-
appointed that certain members of the Church are
carnal and are very slow in growing up to the maturity
of Christian manhood, but he does not deny such
carnal persons a place in the Church. He gives them
time. He does not flatter them or deceive them as to
their condition. He neither counts them as perfect
nor repudiates them as unregenerate. He allows they
are born again ; but as the babe is apparently a mere
animal, exhibiting no qualities of mind or heart, but
only animal instincts, and yet by care and suitable
nourishment develops into adult man, so the Christian
babe may as yet be carnal, with very little to differen-
tiate him from the natural man, yet the germ of the
spiritual Christian may be there, and with care and
suitable nourishment will grow.

The confidence which Paul here expresses regarding
his superiority to the judgment of carnal men is a
superiority inseparable from knowledge in any depart-
ment. Truth carries with it always a self-evidencing
power, and whoever attains a clear perception of truth
in any branch of knowledge is aware that it is the
truth he has attained. When the mind has been long
puzzling over a difficulty and at last sees the solution,
it is as if the sun had risen. The mind is at once
convinced.

No one had ever greater right than Paul to say, " I
have the mind of Christ." Every day of his life said
the same thing. He at once entered into Christ's mind
and more than any other man carried it out. It was
by his moral sympathy with Christ's aims that he
entered so completely into the knowledge of His
person and work. He lived his way into the truth.

78 THE FIRST EFISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

And all our best knowledge is reached in the same
way. The truths we see most clearly and have
deepest assurance of are those which our own experi-
ence has taught us. Spiritual truth is of a kind which
only spiritual men can understand.

Spiiitual men are these who can say, with Paul, "We
have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God." What men's eyes need
especially to be opened to is the bounty of God and
the consequent wealth and hopefulness of human life.
Paul's wondering delight in God's grace and loving
adaptation of Himself to human needs continually
finds utterance in his writings. His own sense of
unworthiness magnified the forgiving mercy of God.
He rejoiced in a Divine love which was passing know-
ledge, but which he knew could be relied upon to the
utmost. The vision of this love opened to his hope a
vista of happiness. There is a natural joy in living
that all men can understand. This life in many ways
appeals to our thirst for happiness, and often it seems
as if we needed nothing more. But, in one way or
ether, most of us learn that what is naturally presented
to us in this world is not enough, indeed only brings
in the long run anxiety and grief. And then it is that,
by God's grace, men come to find that this life is but
a small lagoon leading to, and fed by, the boundless
ocean of God's love beyond. They learn that there
is a hope that cannot be blighted, a joy that is
uninterrupted, a fulness of life that meets and satisfies
ever}' instinct, and affection, and purpose. They
begin to see the things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him, the things that are freely given to
us of God — "freely given," given without desert of

il. 6-lii. 4.] DIVINE WISDOM 79

ours, given to make us happy, given by a love that
must find expression.

But to know and appreciate the things which are
freely given to us of God a man must have the Spirit
of God. For God's gifts are spiritual ; they attach to
character, to what is eternally ours. They cannot be
received by those who refuse the severity of God's
training and are not alive to the reality of spiritual
growth, of passing from a carnal to a spiritual manhood.
The path to these eternal, all-satisfying joys may be
hard; Christ's path was not easy, and they who follow
Him must in one form or other have their faith in the
unseen tested. They must really, and not only in word,
pass from dependence on this present world to de-
pendence on God ; they must somehow come to believe
that underneath and in all we here see and experience
lies God's unalterable, unmingled love, that ultimately
it is this they have to do with, this that explains all.

How soon do men think they have exhausted the
one inexhaustible, the love and resources of God ;
how quickly do men weary of life, and think they
have seen all and known all ; how ready are men to
conclude that for them existence is a failure and can
yield no perfect j'03^, while as yet they know as little
of the things God has prepared for them that love
Him as the new-born babe knows of the life and
experiences that lie before it. You have but touched
the hem of His garment ; what must it be to be clasped
to His heart ? Happy they to whom the darkness
of this world reveals the boundless distances of the
starry heaven, and who find that the blows which have
shattered their earthly happiness have merely broken
the shell which confined their true life and have given
them entrance into a world infinite and eternal.

GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING.

** Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whcm
ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? I have planted,
Apollos watered ; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he
that planteth any thing, neither he that watcreth ; but God that
giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are
cne : and every man shall receive his own reward according to his
own labour. For we are labourers together with God : ye are God's
husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grsce of God
which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the
foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take
heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build
upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
every man's work shall be made manifest : for the day shall declare
it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try ever}'
man's woik of what sort it is. If any man's work am-se which he
hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. It any -nan's work
shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shail be saved;
yet so as by rire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If an}' man defile the temple
of Gcd, him shall Gcd destroy; for the terrp'e of God is holy, which
temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you
scemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may
be wise. Fcr the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And
again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are
vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your's :
whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,
or things present, or things to come; all are your's; and ye are
Christ's; and Christ is God's."— I Cor. iii. 5-23.

VI.

GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING.

PAUL, having abundantly justified his method of
preaching to the Corinthians, and having shown
why he contented himself with the simple presentation
of the Cross, resumes his direct rebuke of their party
spirit. He has told them that they were as yet unfit to
hear the " wisdom " which he taught in some Churches,
and the very proof of their immaturity is to be found in
their partisanship. u While one saith, I am of Paul,
and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal ?
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers
by whom ye believed?" The teachers by whose names
they were proud to be known were not founders of
schools nor heads of parties, who sought recognition
and supremacy; they were " ministers," servants who
were used by a common Lord to rouse faith, not in
themselves, but in Him. Each had his own gifts and
his own task. " I have planted." To me it was given to
found the Church at Corinth. Apollos came after me,
and helped my plant to grow. But it wras God Himself
who gave the vital influence requisite to make our work
efficacious. Apollos and I are but one instrument in
God's hand, as the man who sets the sails and he who
holds the helm are one instrument used by the master of
the ship, or as the mason who hews and the builder who

84 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

sets the stones in their places are one instrument for
the carrying out of the masterbuilder's design. "We
are fellow-labourers used by God ; ye are God's
husbandry, God's building."

Throughout this paragraph it is this thought that
Paul dwells upon : that the Church is originated and
maintained, not by men, but by God. Teachers are
but God's instruments ; and yet, being human instru-
ments, they have each his own responsibility, as each
has his own part of the one work.

From this truth that God alone is the Giver of
spiritual life and that the Church is His building
several inferences may be drawn.

I. Our praise for any good we have received of a
spiritual kind should be given, not solely to men, but
mainly to God. The Corinthians were conscious that
in receiving Christianity they had received a very great
boon. They felt that gratitude was due somewhere.
The new thoughts they had of God, the consciousness
of Christ's eternal love, the hope of immortality, the
sustaining influence of the friendship of Christ, the
new world they seemed to live in — all this made them
think of those who had brought them this new happi-
ness. But Paul was afraid lest their acknowledgment
of himself and Apollos should eclipse their gratitude
to God. People sometimes congratulate themselves
on having adopted a good style of religion, not too
sentimental, not sensational and spasmodic, not
childishly external, not coldly doctrinal ; they are
thankful they lit upon the books they read at a critical
time of their spiritual and mental growth ; they can
clearly trace to certain persons an influence which they
know strengthened their character ; and they think with
gratitude and sometimes with excessive admiration of

Hi. 5-23.] GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING. 85

such books and persons. Paul would say to them, It
is not culpable to think with gratitude of those who
have been instrumental in furthering your knowledge
of the truth or your Christian life ; but always remember
that you are God's husbandry and God's building, and
that it is to Him all your praise must ultimately go.

2. It is to God we must look for all further growth.
We must use the best books ; we must put ourselves
under influences which we know are good for us,
whatever they are for others ; we must conscientiously
employ such means of grace as our circumstances
permit ; but, above all, we must ask God to give the
increase. No doubt the use of the means God uses to
increase our life is a silent but constant prayer ; still
we are not mere trees planted to wait for such
influences as come to us, but have wills to choose the
life these influences bring and to open our being to
the living God who imparts Himself to us in and
through them.

3. If we are God's husbandry and building, let us
reverence God's work in ourselves. It may seem a
very ricketty and insecure structure that is rising
within us, a very sickly and unpromising plant ; and we
are tempted to mock the beginnings of good in our-
selves and be disappointed at the slow progress the
new man makes in us. Vexed at our small attainment,
at the poor show among Christians our character
makes, at the stunted appearance the plant of grace in
us presents, we are tempted to trample it once for all
out of sight. Grace sometimes seems to do so little
for us in emergencies, and the transformation of our
character seems so unutterably slow and shallow, that
we are disposed to think the radical change we need
can never be accomplished. But different thoughts

86 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

possess us when we remember that this transformation
of character is not a thing to be accomplished only by
ourselves through a judicious choice and a persevering
use of fit means, but is God's wTork. There may be
little appearance or promise of good in you ; but under-
neath the little there is lies what is infinitely great,
even the purpose and love of God Himself. " Ye are
God's husbandry ; " therefore hope becomes you. The
deliverance of the human soul from evil, its redemption
to purity and nobility — this is w7hat engages all God's
care and energy.

4. For the same reason we must hope for others as
for ourselves. It is the foundation of all hope to
know that God has alwrays been inclining men to
righteousness and will always do so. So often we
look sadly at the godlessness, and frivolity, and deep
degradation and misery that abound, and feel as if the
burden of lifting men to a higher condition lay all upon
us ; the ceaseless flow of human life into and out of the
world, the hopeless conditions in which many are born,
the frightful influences to which they are exposed, the
extreme difficulty of winning even one man to good,
the possibility that no more may be won and that the
Christian stock may die out — these considerations
oppress the spirit, and cause men to despair of ever
seeing a kingdom of God on earth. But Paul could
never despair, because he was at all times convinced
that the whole energy that ceaselessly goes forth from
God goes forth to accomplish good, and nothing but
good, and that among the good ends God is accomplish-
ing there is nothing for which He has sacrificed so
much and at which He so determinedly aims as the
restoration of men to purity, love, and goodness.

5. But the chief inference Paul drawTs from the truth

iii. 5-23.] GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING. 87

that the Church is God's building is the grave respon-
sibility of those who labour for God in this work.
As for Paul's own part in the work, the laying of the
foundation, he says that was comparatively easy.
There was no chance of his making a mistake there.
" Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ." Any teacher who professes to
lay another foundation thereby gives up his claim to be
a Christian teacher. If any one proceeds to lay another
foundation than Christ, it is not a Christian Church
he is meaning to build. He who does not proceed
upon the facts of Christ's life and death, he whose
instruction does not presuppose Christ as its founda-
tion, may be useful for some purposes of life, but not as
a builder of the Christian temple. He who teaches
morality without ever hinting that apart from Christ
it cannot be attained in its highest form may have his
use, but not as a Christian teacher. He who uses the
Christian pulpit for the propagation of political or
socialist ideas may be a sound and useful teacher ;
but his proper place is the platform or the House of
Commons or some such institution, and not the Chris-
tian Church. And the question at present, says Paul,
is not what other institutions you may profitably found
in the world, but how this institution of the Church,
already founded, is to be completed. Other foundation
no Christian teacher is proposing to lay ; but on this
foundation very various and questionable material is
being built, in some instances gold, silver, and stones
of value, in others wood, hay, stubble.

When Corinth rose from its ruins, it was no un-
common sight to see a miserable hovel reared against
the marble wall of a temple or the splendid portico of
some deserted palace rendered habitable by a patch-

S8 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

work of mud and straw. What a recent visitor saw at
Luxor may be accepted as to some extent true of
Corinth : u Mud hovels, mud pigeon-towers, mud yards,
and a mud mosque cluster like wasps' nests in and
about the ruins. Architraves sculptured with royal
titles support the roofs of squalid cabins. Stately
capitals peep out from the midst of sheds in which
buffaloes, camels, donkeys, dogs, and human beings
herd together in unsavoury fellowship." So in Corinth
the huge slabs of costly and carefully chiselled stone
by stable as the rock on which they rested, but now
the glory of such foundations was dishonoured by
squalid superstructures. And the picture in Paul's
mind's eye of the Corinthian Church vividly suggested
what he had seen while walking among those heteroge-
neous buildings. He sees the Church rising with a
strange mixture of design and material. The founda-
tion, he knows, is the same ; but on the solid marble is
reared a crazy structure of second-hand and ill-adapted
material, here a wall propped up with rotten planking,
there a hole stopped with straw, on one side a richly
decorated gateway, with gold and silver profusely
wrought into its design, on the other side a clay
partition or loose boarding. It grieves him to see the
incongruous structure. He sees the teachers bringing,
with great appearance of diligence, the merest rubbish,
wood, hay, stubble, apparently unconscious of the
incongruity of their material with the foundation they
build upon. He sees them taken with every passing
fancy — the lifeless stubble that has lost its living seed
of truth, the mud of the common highway, the readiest
thoughts that come to hand — and setting these in the
temple wall.

What would Paul say did he now see the super-

m. 5-23.] GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING. 89

structure which eighteen hundred years have raised
on the one foundation ? Is any more heterogene-
ous structure anywhere to be seen than the Church of
Christ ? How obviously unworthy of the foundation is
much that has been built upon it ; how many teachers
have laboured all their days at erecting what has
already been proved a mere house of cards ; and how
many persons have been built into the living temple
who have brought no stability or beauty to the build-
ing. How careless often have the builders been,
anxious only to have quantity to show, regardless of
quality, ambitious to be credited with largely extending
the size of the Church apart from any consideration of
the worth or worthlessness of the material added. As
in any building, so in the Church, additional size is
additional danger if the material be not sound.

The soundness of the material which has been built
upon the foundation of Christ will, like all things else,
be tested. "The day shall declare it;" that light of
Christ's presence and dominance over all things, that
light which shall penetrate all human things when our
true life is entered on — that shall declare it. " The
fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If
any man's work abide, he shall receive a reward. If
any man's work be burned, he shall suffer loss ; but he
himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." The Corin-
thians knew what a trial by fire meant. They knew
how the flames had travelled over their own city, con-
suming all that fire could kindle on, and leaving of the
slightly built houses nothing but a charred and useless
timber here and there, while the massive marbles stood
erect among the ruins ; and the precious metals, even
though molten, were prized by the conqueror. Against
the fire no prayer, no appeal, prevailed. Its judgment

90 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and decisions were irreversible; wood, hay, stubble,
disappeared : only what was solid and valuable remained.
By such irreversible judgment are we and our work to
be judged. We are to enter into a life in which the
nature and character of the work we have done in this
world shall bring upon it utter destruction or a reward-
ing and growing utility. Fire simply burns up all that
will burn and leaves what will not. So shall the new
life we are to pass into absolutely annihilate what is
not in keeping with it, and leave only what is useful
and congruous. There is no question here of admit-
ting explanations, of adducing extenuating circum-
stances, of appealing to compassion, and so forth. It
is a judgment, and a judgment of absolute truth, which
takes things as they actually are. The work that has
been well and wisely done will stand ; foolish, vain,
and selfish work will go. We are to pass through
the fire.

Paul, with his unfailing discernment, accepts it as
a very possible contingency that a Christian man may
do poor work. In that case, Paul says, the man will be
saved as by fire ; his work shall be burned, but himself
be scatheless. lie shall be in the position of a man
whose house has been burnt; the man is saved, but
his property, all that he has slowly gathered round
him and valued as the fruit of his labour, is gone. He
may have received no bodily injury, but he is so stripped
that he scarcely knows himself, and the whole thought
and toil of his life seem to have gone for nothing. So,
says Paul, shall this and that man pass into the heavenly
state, hearing behind him as he barely enters the
crash of all he has been building up as it falls and
leaves for the result of a laboiious life a ghastly,
charred ruin and a cloud of dust. To have been

iii. 5-23.] GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING, 91

useless, to have advanced Christ's kingdom not at all,
to have spent our life building up a pretentious erection
which at last falls about our ears, to come to the end
and find that not one solid brick in the whole fabric is
of our laying, and that the world would have been
quite as well without us — this must be humiliating
indeed ; but it is a humiliation which all selfish, worldly,
and foolishly fussy Christians are preparing for them-
selves. To many Christians it seems enough that
they be doing something. If only they are decently
active, it concerns them little that their work is really
effecting no good, as if they were active rather for the
sake of keeping themselves warm in a chilling atmo-
sphere than to accomplish any good purpose. Work
done for this world must be such as will stand inspec-
tion and actually do the thing required. Christian
wTork should not be less, but more, thorough.

There is a degree of carelessness or malignity
sometimes to be found in those who profess to be
Christian teachers which Paul does not hesitate
unconditionally to doom. " If any man destroy the
temple of God, him shall God destroy." A teacher
may in various ways incur this doom. He may in
guiding some one to Christ fit him obliquely to the
foundation, so that firm rest in Christ is never
attained ; but the man remains like a loose stone in
a wall, unsettled himself and unsettling all around
him. Any doctrine which turns the grace of God
into licence incurs this doom. To lift stones from the
mire they have been lying in and fit them into the
temple is good and right, but to leave them un-
cleansed and unpolished is to disfigure the temple.
Any teaching that does not recognise in Christianity
the means of becoming hoi}7, and encourages men to

92 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

believe themselves Christians though they neither
have nor wish to have the Spirit of Christ, destroys
the temple.

But we are responsible as well as our teachers for
the appearance we present in God's temple. The
stone that is to occupy a permanent place in a building
is carefully squared and beaten into its place, and
its level adjusted with the utmost nicety. Would it
not make a very obvious change in the appearance
and in the strength of the Church if every member
of it were at pains to set himself absolutely true to
Christ ? There is no doubt a good deal of anxiety
about our relation to Christ, frequent examining and
measuring of our actual position ; but does not this
too often merely reveal that conscience is uneasy ?
Some persons are prevented from resting satisfactorily
on Christ because of some erroneous opinion about
faith or about the manner in which the connection
is formed, or some pet theory or crotchet has pos-
sessed the mind and keeps them unsettled. Some
will not rest on Christ until they have such repentance
as they judge sufficient ; others so rest on Him that
they have no repentance. Strange that men will
so complicate the simplicity of Christ, who is the hand
of our heavenly Father, stretched out to lift us out
of our sin and draw us to Himself! If you wish God's
love, accept it ; if you long for holiness, take Christ
as your Friend ; if you see no greater joy than to serve
in His great cause, do His will and follow Him.

But, alas ! with some it is no misunderstanding that
prevents a close connection between the soul and
Christ, but some worldly purpose or some entangling
nnd deeply cherished sin. The foundation stone is
as a polished slab of marble, having its upper surface

iii.5-23] GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING. 93

smooth as a mirror, whereas we are like stones that
have been lying on the seashore, encrusted with shells
and lichens, drilled with holes, grown all round and
round with unsightly inequalities ; and if we are to
rest with entire stability on the foundation, these
excrescences must be removed. Even a small one
at one point is enough to prevent close adhesion. One
sin consciously retained, one command or expression
of Christ's will unresponded to, makes our whole
connection with Him unsettled and insecure, our con-
fessions and repentances untrue and hardening, our
prayers hesitating and insincere, our love for Christ
hollow, our life inconsistent, vacillating, and un-
profitable.

And more must be done even after we are securely
fitted into our place. Stones often look well enough
when first built in, but soon lose their colour ; and
their surface and fine edges crumble and shale off,
so that they need to be constantly looked to. So do
the stones in God's temple get tarnished and dis-
coloured by exposure. One sin after another is allowed
to stain the conscience; one little corruption after
another settles on the character, and eats out its fine-
ness, and when once the fair, clean stone is no longer
unsullied, we think it of little consequence to be scrupu-
lous. Then the weather tells upon us : the ordinary
atmosphere of this life, with its constant damp of
worldly care and its occasional storms of loss, and
disappointment, and social collisions, and domestic
embroilment, eats out the heavenly temper from our
character, and leaves its edges ragged ; and the man
becomes soured and irritable, and the surface of him,
all that meets the casual eye, is rough and broken.

Above all, do not many Christian persons seem to

94 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

think it enough to have attained a place in the building,
and, after spending a little thought and trouble on
entering the Christian life, take no step onwards
during the whole remainder of their lives ? But it
is in God's building as in highly ornamented buildings
generally. The stones are not all sculptured before
they are fitted into their places ; but they are built in
rough-hewn, so that the building may proceed : and
then at leisure the device proper to each is carved
upon it. This is the manner of God's building. Long
after a man has been set in the Church of Christ, God
hews and carves him to the shape He designs; but
we, being not dead, but living, stones, have it in our
power to mar the beauty of God's design, and indeed
so distort it that the result is a grotesque and hideous
monster, belonging to no world, neither of God nor
of man. If we let a thousand other influences mould
and fashion us, God's design must necessarily be spoiled.
The folly of partisanship and sectarianism is finally
exhibited in the words tl Let no man glory in men. For
all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas." The man who held to Paul and would learn
nothing from Apollos or Peter was defrauding himself
of his rights. It has been the weakness of Christians
in all ages, and never more than in our own, to see
good in only one aspect of truth and listen to no form
of teaching but one. The Broad Churchman despises
the traditionalist ; the Evangelical gathers up his skirts
at the approach of a Bread Churchman. Calvinist and
Armiman stand at daggers drawn. Each limits himself
to his own fortress, which he thinks he can defend,
and starves himself on siege rations while the fields
wave white with grain outside. The eye is constructed
to sweep round a wide range of vision ; but men put

iii. 5-23.] GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BUILDING. 95

on blinkers, and decline even to look at anything which
dees not lie directly in the line of sight. We know
that to confine ourselves to one form of food induces
poverty of blood and disease, and yet we fancy a
healthy spiritual life can be maintained only by con-
fining ourselves to one form of doctrine and one way
of looking at universal truth. To the Evangelical who
shrinks with horror from liberal teaching, and to the
advanced thinker who turns with contempt from the
Evangelical, Paul would say, Ye do yourselves a wrong
by listening to one form of the truth only ; every
teacher who declares what he himself lives on has
something to teach you ; to despise or neglect any
form of Christian teaching is so far to impoverish
yourselves. " All things are yours," not this teacher
or that, in wThom you glory, but all teachers of Christ.
His own expression, " all things are yours," suggests
to Paul the whole wealth of the Christian, for whom
exist not only all those who have striven to unfold the
significance of the Christian revelation, but all things
else, whether " the world, or life, or death, or things
present, or things to come." As it is true of all
teachers, of however commanding genius, that the
Church does not exist for them that they may have
a field for their genius, and followers to applaud and
represent them, but that they exist for the Church,
their genius being used for the advancement of the
spiritual life of this and that unknown and hidden soul ;
so is it true of all things, — of life and all its laws, of
death and all it leads to, — that these are ordained of
God to minister to the growth of His children. This
was the regal attitude which Paul himself assumed and
maintained towards all events and the whole world of
created things. He was incapable of defeat The out-

96 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

rages and deaths he endured, he bore as proofs of the
truth of his gospel. The storms of ill-will and persecution
he everywhere encountered, he knew were only bring-
ing him and his gospel more rapidly to all the world.
And when he looked at last on the sword of the Roman
executioner, he recognised it with joy as the instrument
which by one sharp blow was to burst his fetters and
set him free to boundless life and the full knowledge
of his Lord. The same inheritance belongs to every
one who has faith to take it. " All things are yours."
The whole course of this world and all its particular
incidents, the complete range of human experience from
first to last, including all we shrink from and fear, — all
are for the good of Christ's people. What thoughts
flash from this man's mind. How his words still
entrance and lift and animate the soul. " All things
are ours." The catastrophes of life that seem finally
to blot out hope, the wild elemental forces in whose
presence frail man is as the moth, the unknown future
of the physical world, the certain death that awaits
every man and listens to no appeal, all things that
naturally discourage and compel us to feel our weakness,
— yes, saj^s Paul, all these things are yours, serving your
highest good, bringing you on towards your eternal
joy, more certainly than the things you select and buy,
or win, and cherish as your own. You are free men,
supreme over all created things, for "ye are Christ's,"
you belong to Him who rules all, and loves you as
His own ; and above Christ and His rule there is no
adverse will that can rob you of any good, for as ye
are Christ's, cherished by Him, so is Christ God's,
and the supreme will that governs all, governs all in
the interests of Christ.

TBR MINISTRY,

11 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and
stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in
stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very
small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment:
yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet
am I not hereby justified : but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who
both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make
manifest the counsels of the hearts : and then shall every man have
praise of God. And these things, brethren, I have in a figure
transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might
learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no
one of you be puffed up for one against another. For who maketh
thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not
receive ? now if thou didst receive it. whv dost thou glory, as if thou
hadst not received it ? Now ye are mix, nwv ye are rich, ye have
reigned as kings without us : and I would to God ye did reign, that
we also might reign with you. For I thins that God hath set forth
us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death : for we are made
a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are
fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ ; we are weak, but
ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. Even unto
this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and
are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace : and labour, working
with our own hands : being reviled, we bless ; being persecuted,
we suffer it : being defamed, we intreat : we are made as the filth
of the earth, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. I
write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn
you. For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet
have ye not many fathers : for in Christ Jesus I have begotten 3'ou
through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of
me."— I Cor. iv. 1-16.

VII.

THE MINISTRY.

O 0 keenly alive is Paul to the danger and folly of
O party-spirit in the Church, that he has still one
more word of rebuke to utter. He has shown the
Corinthians that to give their faith to one teacher,
and shut their ears to every other form of truth than
that which he delivers, is to impoverish and defraud
themselves. All teachers are theirs, and are sent, not
to win disciples to themselves, who may spread their
fame and reflect credit on their talents, but to serve
the people, and be merged in self-obliterating toil. The
preachers, Paul tells them, exist for the Church : not
the Church for the preachers. The people are the
primary consideration, the main end to which the
preachers are subordinate. The mistake often made
in things civil, that the people exist for the king, not
the king for the people, is made also in things ecclesi-
astical, and has, in some instances, attained such
dimensions that the " Church " means the clergy, not
the laity, and that when a man enters the ministry
he is said to enter the Church, — as if already he were
not in it as a layman.

Paul now proceeds to demonstrate the futility of the

ioo THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

judgment passed upon their teachers by the Corinthians.
Paul and the rest were servants of Christ, stewards
sent by Him to dispense to others what he had
entrusted to them. The question therefore was, were
they faithful, did they dispense what they had received
in conformity with Christ's purpose ? The question
was not, were they eloquent, were they philosophical,
were they learned ? Criticism no preacher need
expect to escape. Sometimes one might suppose
sermons were of no other use than to furnish material
for a little discussion and pleasant exercise of the
critical faculty. Every one considers himself capable
of this form of criticism, and once a sermon has
been sorted and labelled as of this, that, or the other
quality, it is too often put permanently aside. In such
criticism, Paul reminds us, it is a great matter to bear
in mind that what has no great attraction for us may
yet serve some good purpose. The gifts dispensed by
Christ are various. The influence of some ministers
is most felt in private, while others are shy and stiff,
and can only utter themselves freely in the pulpit. In
the pulpit again various gifts appear, some having
good nerve and a ready and felicitous address which
reaches the multitude ; while others have more power
of thought, and a finer literary gift, or a sympathetic
manner of handling peculiarities of spiritual experience.
Who shall say which of these styles is most edifying
to the Church? And who shall say which teacher
is most faithfully serving his Master ? Who shall
determine whether this preacher or that is the better
steward, most truly seeking his Lord's glory, and
careless of his own ? May it not be expected that
when the things at present hidden in darkness, the
motives and thoughts of the heart, are brought to light

iv. 1-16.] THE MINISTRY. 101

111 Christ's judgment, many that are first shall be last,
and the last first ?

He who is conscious that he is the servant of Christ
and must give account to Him, can always say with
Paul, " It is a very small thing that I should be judged
of man's judgment," whether for acquittal and applause
or condemnation and abuse. He who utters what is
peculiar to himself must expect to be misjudged by
those who do not look at things from his point of view.
A teacher who thinks for himself and is not a mere
echo of other men, finds himself compelled to utter
truths which he knows will be misunderstood by
many ; but so long as he is conscious that he is faith-
fully delivering what has been made known to himself,
the condemnation of the many can trouble him very
little or not at all. It is to his own Master he stands
or falls; and if he feels sure that he is doing his
Master's will, he may regret the opposition of men,
but he can neither be greatly astonished nor greatly
perturbed by it. And, on the other hand, the approval
and applause of men come to him only as a reminder
that there is no finality in man's judgment, and that
it is only Christ's approval which avails to give
permanent satisfaction. A sympathetic audience every
teacher needs, but general approval will be his in the
inverse ratio of the individuality of his teaching.

In his whole discussion of this subject Paul has named
only himself and Apollos, but he means that what he
has said of them should be applied to all. " These
things I have in a figure transferred to myself and to
Apollos for your sakes ; that in us ye might learn
not to think of men above that which is written, that
no one of you be puffed up for one against another."
But great difficulty has always been experienced in

102 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

tracing the similarities and distinctions which exist
between the Apostles and the ordinary ministry of the
Church, and had Paul been writing this epistle in our
own day he would have felt himself compelled to
speak more definitely on these points. For what makes
union hopeless in Christendom at present is not that
parties are formed round individual leaders, but that
Churches are based on diametrically opposed opinions
regarding the ministry itself. The Church of Rome
unchurches all the rest, and defends her action by the
simplest process of reasoning. There can be no true
Church, she says, where there is no forgiveness of sins
and no sacraments, and there can be no forgiveness
and no sacraments where there are no true ministers
to administer them, and there are no true ministers
save those who can trace their orders to the Apostles.
This theory of the ministry proceeds on the idea that
the Apostles received from Christ a commission to
exercise the apostolic office, and along with it a deposit
of grace, with powers to communicate this to those who
should succeed them. This deposit of grace derived
from Christ Himself has been handed down from
generation to generation, through a line of consecrated
persons, each member of the series receiving at his
ordination, and irrespective of his moral character, both
the commission and the powers which belonged to his
predecessor in office.

This theory of the efficacy of ministration in the
Church, with its entirely external account of its trans-
mission, is but one manifestation of the old superstition
that confounds the outward symbol of Christian grace
with that grace itself. It is a survival from a time in
which religion was treated as a kind of magic, in which
it was only needful to observe the right words of in-

iv. i-i6.] THE MINISTRY. 103

cantation and the right outward order. Even supposing
that any priest now alive could trace his orders back
to the Apostles, which no priest can, is it credible that
the mere observance of an outward form should secure
the transmission of the highest spiritual functions to
those who may or may not have any spirituality of
mind ? However much grace the ordaining bishop
may himself possess, however many of the qualifications
of a good minister of Christ he may have, he can
transmit none of these by the laying on of his hands.
He can confer the external authority in the Church
which belongs to the office to which he ordains, but
he cannot communicate that which fits a man to use
this authority. The laying on of hands is the outward
symbol of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, but it does
not confer that Spirit, which is given, not by man, but
by Christ alone. The laying on of hands is a fit
symbol to use at ordination when those who use it
have satisfied themselves that the ordained person is
in possession of the Spirit. It is the expression of
their reasonable belief that the Spirit is given.

In some Churches reaction against the theory of
apostolical succession has led men to distrust and
repudiate ordination altogether, and to maintain that
any man may preach who can get people to listen to
him, and may administer the sacraments to any who
apply for them. No outward recognition by the Church
is deemed necessary. The middle course is safer,
which acknowledges not only the supreme necessity of
an inward call, but also the expediency of an outward
call by the Church. By an inward call it is meant
that it is the inward and spiritual fitness of any person
which constitutes his main right of entrance to the
ministry. There are certain mental and moral endow-

104 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

ments, certain circumstances, and educational advan-
tages, personal inclinations and leanings, which, when
they meet in a boy or }7oung man, point him out as
suited for the work of the ministry. The evidence
that Christ means that any one should take office in
His Church, — in other wTords, calls him to office, — is the
fact that He bestows on that person the gifts which
fit him for it.

But besides this inward persuasion wrought in the
mind of the individual, and which constitutes the in-
ward call, there must be an outward call also by the
Church's recognition of fitness and communication of
authority. Any man who at his own instance and on
his own authority gathers a congregation and dis-
penses the sacraments is guilty of schism. Even
Barnabas and Paul were ordained by the Church.
As in the State a prince though legitimate does not
succeed to the throne without formal consecration and
coronation, so in the Church there is needed a formal
recognition of the title which any one claims to office.
It is not the consecration which constitutes the prince's
right ; that he already possesses by birth : so, neither
is it the Church's ordination which qualifies and
entitles, the minister to his office ; this he already has
by the gift of Christ ; but recognition by the Church
is needed to give him due authority to exercise the
functions of his office. It is a matter of expediency
and of order. It is calculated to maintain the unity
of the Church. Admission to the ministry being
regulated by those already in office, schisms are less
likely to occur. Ordination has been a bulwark
against fanaticism, against fcclish private opinions and
doctrines, against divisive courses in worship and in
organization. If the Church was to be kept together

iv. 1-16.] THE MINISTRY. 105

and to grow as a consistent whole, it was necessary
that those already in office should be allowed to
scrutinize the claims of aspirants to office, and should
not have their order invaded, their work thwarted
and obstructed, their doctrine denied and contradicted
by every one who might profess to have an inward
call to the ministry.

It would therefore seem to be every one's duty to
inquire, before he gives himself to another profession
or business, whether Christ is not claiming him to
serve in His Church. The qualifications which con-
stitute a call to the ministry are such as these : an
interest in men, in their ways, and habits, and charac-
ter; a social disposition, inclining you to mix with
other people, to take pleasure in their thoughts and
feelings, to be of service to them, to talk frankly with
them ; a liking for reading, if not for hard study ; some
capacity for thinking and arranging your thoughts
and expressing them, which, however, is to so great an
extent the result of study and practice that you may
find it impossible to say whether you have it or not.
There are negative qualifications equally important,
such as an indifference to money-making, a shrinking
from the eager competition and hurry of a business
life. And, above all, there are the deeper and essentia]
qualifications which are the fruit of the Spirit's sancti-
fying energy : some genuine sense of your indebtedness
to Christ ; a strong desire to serve Him ; an ambition
to preach Him, to proclaim His worth, to invite men
to appreciate and love Him. If you have these desires,
and if you would fain be of use in things spiritual to
your fellow-men, then it would seem that you are
called by Christ to the ministry. I do not say that all
ministers are so qualified, but only that any one who

ioS TUB FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

is so qualified should be careful how he chooses some
other calling in preference to the ministry.

Paul concludes this portion of his Epistle with a
pathetic comparison of his condition as an Apostle
with the condition of those in Corinth who were
glorying in this or that teacher. They spoke as if
they needed his instructions no more, and as if already
they had attained the highest Christian advantages.
" Already ye are full ; already ye are rich : ye have
reigned as kings without us." They behave as if all
the trial of the Christian life were over. With the
frothy spirit of young converts, they are full of a
triumph which they despise Paul for not inculcating.
By one leap they had attained, or thought they had
attained, a superiority to all disturbance, and to all
trial, and to all need of teaching, which, in fact, as
Paul's own experience taught him, could only be
attained in another life. While they thus triumphed,
he who had begotten them in Christ was being treated
as the offscouring and filth of the world.

Paul can only compare himself and the other
Apostles to those gladiators who were condemned to
die, and who came into the arena last, after the
spectators had been sated with other exhibitions and
bloodless performances. " I think that God hath set
forth us the Apostles last, as it were appointed to
death. For we are made a spectacle unto the world,
and to angels and to men." They came into the
arena knowing they should never leave it alive, that
they were there for the purpose of enduring the worst
their enemies could do to them. It was no fight with
buttoned foils Paul and the rest were engaged in.
While others sat comfortably looking on, with curtains
to shade them from the heat and refreshments to save

iv. i-i6.] THE MINISTRY. 107

them from exhaustion or from faintness at the sight
of blood; they were in the arena, exposed to wounds,
ill-usage, and death. They had as little hope of retir-
ing to live a quiet life as the gladiators who had said
farewell to their friends and saluted the Emperor as
those about to die. Life became no easier, the world
no kinder, to Paul as time went on. " Even unto this
present hour of writing," he says, " we both hunger and
thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no
certain dwelling-place." Here is the finest mind, the
noblest spirit, on earth ; and this is how he is treated :
driven from place to place, thrust aside as interrupting
the proper work of men, passed by with a sneer at his
rags, refused the commonest charity, paid for his loving
words in blows and insolence. And yet he goes on
with his work, and lets nothing interrupt that. " Being
reviled, we bless ; being persecuted, we suffer it; being
defamed, we entreat." Nay, it is a life which he is so
far from giving up himself, that he will call to it the
easy-going Christians of Corinth. a I beseech you," he
says, " be ye followers of me."

And if the contrast between Paul's precarious and
self-sacrificing life and the luxurious and self-com-
placent life of the Corinthians might be expected to
shame them into some vigorous Christian service, a
similar contrast candidly considered may accomplish
some good results in us. Already the Corinthians
were accepting that pernicious conception of Chris-
tianity which looks upon it as merely a new luxury,
that they who are already comfortable in all outward
respects may be comforted in spirit as well and
purge their minds from all anxieties, questionings,
and strivings. They recognised how happy a thing
it is to be forgiven, to be at peace with God, to have

io8 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

a sure hope of life everlasting. For them the battle
was over, the conquest won, the throne ascended.
As yet they had not caught a glimpse of what is
involved in becoming holy as Christ is holy, nor had
steadily conceived in their minds the profound inward
change which must pass upon them. As yet it was
enough for them that they were called to be God's
children, provided for by a heavenly Father ; and
Christ's own view of life and of men had not yet
possessed or even dawned upon their soul, causing
them to feel that until they could live for others they
had no true life.

Are there none still who listen to Christianity rather
as a voice soothing their fears than as a bugle
summoning them to conflict, who are satisfied if
through the Gospel they are enabled to comfort their
own soul, and who do not yet respond to Christ's call
to live under the power of that Spirit of His which
prompted Him to all sacrifice ? Paul does not
summon the whole Church to be homeless, destitute,
comfortless, outcast from all joy ; and yet there is
meaning in his words when he says, "Be ye followers
of me." He means, that there is not one standard of
duty for him and another for us. All is wrong with
us until we be made somehow to recognise, and make
room in cur life for the recognition, that we have no
right to be lapping ourselves round with all manner
of selfish aggrandizement while Paul is driven through
life with scarcely one day's bread provided, that in
some way intelligible to our own conscience we must
approve ourselves to be his followers, and that no
right is secured to any class of Christians to stand
selfishly aloof from the common Christian cause. If
we be Christ's, as Paul was, it must inevitably come

iv. I- 1 6.] THE MINISTRY. 109

to this with us : that we cordially yield to Him all we
are and have ; our very selves, with all our tastes and
aptitudes and with all we have made by our toil ; our
life, with all its fruits, we gladly yield to Him. If our
hearts be His, this is inevitable and delightful ; unless
they be so, it is impossible, and seems extravagant.
It is vain to say to a man, Serve only yourself in
life, seek only to make a reputation for yourself and
gather comforts round yourself, and make it the aim of
your life to be comfortable and respectable — it is vain
to bid a man thus limit and impoverish his life if at the
same time you show him a person so attracting human
allegiance as Christ does, and so opening to men wider
and eternal aims as He does, and if you show him a
cause so kindling every right ambition as Christ's
cause does.

It was Christ's own self- sacrifice that threw such a
spell over the Apostles and gave them so new a feeling
towards their fellow-men and so new an estimate of their
deepest needs. After seeing how Christ lived, they
could never again justify themselves in living for self.
After seeing His regardlessness of bodily comfort, His
superiority to traditional necessities and customary
luxuries, after witnessing how veritably He was but
passing through this world, and used it as the stage on
which He might serve Gcd and men, and counted His
life best spent in giving it for others, they could not
settle down into the old life and aim only at passing
comfortably, reputably, and religiously through it.
That view of life was made for ever impossible to
them. The life of Christ had made a new way for
itself into a new region, and the horizon rent by the
passage never again closed to them. That life became
the only spiritual reality to them. And it is because

no THE FIRST EriSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

we are so sunk in self-seeking and worldliness, and
so blinded by the customs and traditional ideas about
spending life, about acquitting ourselves well and making
a name, about earning a competence, about everything
which turns the regard in upon self instead of outwards
upon objects worthy of our exertion — it is therefore
that we continue so unapostolic, so unprofitable, so
unchanged.

It might encourage us to bring our life more nearly
into the line of Paul's were we to see clearly that the
cause he served is really inclusive of all that is worth
working for. We can scarcely apprehend this with
any clearness without feeling some enthusiasm for it.
The kind of devotedness expected of the Christian is
illustrated in the lives of all men of any force of
character; the Christian's devotedness is only given
to a larger and more reasonable object. There have
been statesmen and patriots, and there still are such,
who, though possibly not absolutely devoid of some
taint of selfish ambition, are yet in the main devoted
to their country ; its interests are continually on their
mind and heart, their time is given wholly to it, and
their own personal tastes and pursuits are held in
abeyance and abandoned to make room for more
important labour. You have seen men become so
enamoured of a cause that they will literally sell all
they have to forward it, and who obviously have it on
their hearts by night and by day, who live for that and
for nothing else ; you can detect as often as you meet
them that the real aim and object of their life is to
promote that cause. Some new movement, political or
ecclesiastical, some literary scheme, some fresh enter-
prise of benevolence, some new commercial idea, or no
matter what it is, you have seen again and again that

iv.l-i6.] THE MINISTRY. ill

men throw themselves so thoroughly into such causes
that they cannot be said to be living for themselves.
They will part with time, with property, with other
mportant objects, with health, even with life itself
for the sake of their cherished, chosen cause. And
when such a cause is worthy, such as the reforma-
tion of prison discipline, or the emancipation of slaves,
or the liberating of an oppressed nation, the men
who adopt it seem to lead the only lives which have
some semblance of glory in them ; and the sacrifices
they make, the obloquy they incur, the toils they endure,
make the heart burn and swell as we hear of them.
Every one instinctively acknowledges that such self-
forgetful and heroic lives are the right and model lives
for all. What a man does for himself is jealously
examined, criticised, and passed at the most with an
exclamation of wonder ; but what he does for others
is welcomed with acclamation as an honour to our
common humanity. So long as a man labours merely
for himself, to win himself a name, to get for himself
a possession, he makes no valuable contribution to the
world's good, and only by accident effects anything for
which other men are thankful ; but let a man even
with small means at his command have the interests of
others at his heart, and he sets in motion endless
agencies and influences that bless whatever they touch.
It is this then that our Lord does for us by claiming
our service ; He gives us the opportunity of sinking
our selfishness, which is in the last analysis our sin,
and of living for a worthier object than our own
pleasure or our own careful preservation. When He
tells us to live for Him and to seek the things that are
His, He but tells us in other words and in a more
attractive and practical form to seek the common good.

U2 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

We seek the things that are Christ's when we act
as Christ would act were He in our place, when we
let Christ live through us, when we, by considering
v\ hat He would have us do, let His influence still tell
on the world and His will still be done in the world.
This should be so done by each and every Christian that
the result would be the same as if Christ had per-
sonally at command all the resources for good that are
possessed by His people, as if He were Himself
expending all the money, energy, and time that are
Leing expended by His people, so that at every point
where there is a Christian Christ's purposes might be
Leing forwarded. This is the devotedness we are
called to; this is the devotedness we must cultivate
until w& do make some considerable attainment in it.

MXCOMMUNICATION ; OR, PURGING OUT THE
OLD LEAVEN.

"For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my
beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into
remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where
in cveiy church. Now some are puffed up, as though I would not
come to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and
wall know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the
power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.
What will ye ? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in
the spirit of meekness?"

"It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and
such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles,
that one should have his father's w7ife. And ye are puffed un, and
have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be
taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but
present in spirit, have judged already as though I were piesent,
concerning him that hath so done this deed. In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit,
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto
Satan for the destruction of the fiesh, that the spirit may be saved
;n the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not gocd. Know ye
not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out there-
fore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.
For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us : therefore let us
keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice
and wickedness ; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and
truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with forni-
cators : yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with
the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye
needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not
to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator,
or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extor-
tioner ; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to
judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are
within ? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put
away from among yourselves that wicked person." — I Cor. iv. 17-
v. 13.

VIIL

EXCOMMUNICATION ; OR, PURGING OUT THE OLD

LEA FEN.

FROM the subject of the factions in the Corinthian
Church, which has so long detained Paul, he now
passes to the second division of his Epistle, in which
he speaks of the relation the Christians should hold
to the heathen population around them. The transition
is easy and such as befits a letter. Paul had thought
it advisable to send Timothy, who perfectly understood
his mind, and could represent his views more fully than
a letter ; but it now occurred to him that this might be
construed by some of the vain popular leaders in the
Church into a timorous reluctance on his part to appear
in Corinth and a sign that they were no longer to
be held in check by the strong hand of the Apostle.
" Some are puffed up, as though / would not come to
you." He assures them therefore that he himself will
come to Corinth, and also that the leaders of the
Church have little reason to be puffed up, seeing that
they have allowed in the Church an immorality so
gross that even the lower standard of pagan ethics
regards it as an unnam cable abomination ; and if
once it is named, it is only to say that not all the
waters of ocean can wash away such guilt. Instead
of being purled up, Paul tells them, they should rather

u6 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

be ashamed and at once take steps to put away from
them so great a scandal. If not, he must come, not
in meekness and love, but with a rod.

The Corinthian Church had fallen into a common
snare. Churches have always been tempted to pique
themselves on their rich foundations and institutions,
on producing champions of the faith, able writers,
eloquent preachers, on their cultured ministry, on
their rich and aesthetic services, and not on that very
thing for which the Church exists : the cleansing of
the morals of the people and their elevation to a truly
spiritual and godly life. And it is the individuals
who give character to any Church. " A little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump." Each member of a Church
in each day's conduct in business and at home stakes,
not only his own reputation, but the credit of the
Church to which he belongs. Involuntarily and un-
consciously men lower their opinion of the Church
and cease to expect to find in her a fountain of
spiritual life, because they find her members selfish
and greedy in business, ready to avail themselves of
doubtful methods ; harsh, self-indulgent, and despotic
at home, tainted with vices condemned by the least
educated conscience. Let us remember that our
little leaven leavens what is in contact with us ; that
our worldiiness and unchristian conduct tend to
lower the tone of our circle, encourage others to
live down to our level, and help to demoralize the
community.

In the judgment Paul pronounces on the Corinthian
culprit two points are important. First, it is note-
worthy that Paul, Apostle though he was, did not
take the case out of the hands of the congregation.
His own judgment on the case was explicit and

V.17-V.13.] EXCOMMUNICATION. 117

decided, and this judgment he does not hesitate to
declare ; but, at the same time, it is the congregation
which must deal with the case and pronounce judg-
ment in it. The excommunication he enjoined was to
be their act. " Put away from among yourselves," he
says (v. 13), "that wicked person." The government
of the Church was in Paul's idea thoroughly demo-
cratic ; and where the power to excommunicate has
been lodged in a priesthood, the results have beer:
deplorable. Either, on the one hand, the people have
become craven and have lived in terror, or, on the
other hand, the priest has been afraid to measure his
strength with powerful offenders. In our own country
and in others this power of excommunication has
been abused for the most unworthy purposes, political,
social, and private ; and only when it is lodged in the
congregation can you secure a fair judgment and moral
right to enforce it. There is little fear that this power
will nowadays be abused. Men themselves conscious
of strong propensities to evil and of many sins are
more likely to be lax in administering discipline than
forward to use their power ; and so far from eccle-
siastical discipline producing in its administrators
harsh, tyrannical, and self-righteous feelings, it rather
works an opposite effect, and evokes charity, a sense
of solemn responsibility, and the longing for the
welfare of others which lies latent in Christian
minds.

But, second, the precise punishment intended by
Paul is couched in language which the present genera-
tion cannot readily understand. The culprit is not
only to be excluded from Christian communion, but
u to be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit may be saved." Many meanings

n8 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

have been put upon these words; but after all has
been said, the natural and obvious meaning of the words
asserts itself. Paul believed that certain sins were more
likely to be cured by bodily suffering than by any
other agency. Naturally sins of the flesh belonged
to this class. Bodily suffering of some kinds he
believed to be the infliction of Satan. Even his own
thorn in the flesh he spoke of as a messenger of Satan
sent to buffet him. He expected also that the judg-
ment pronounced by himself and the congregation on
this offender would be given effect to in God's provi-
dence; and accordingly he bids the congregation hand
the man over to this disciplinary suffering, not as a
final doom, but as the only likely means of saving his
soul.1 If the offender mentioned in the Second Epistle
is the same man, then we have evidence that the
discipline was effectual, that the sinner did repent and
was overwhelmed with shame and sorrow. Certainly
such an experience of punishment, though not invariably
or even commonly effectual, is in itself calculated to
penetrate to the very depth of a man's spirit and give
him new thoughts about his sin. If when suffering
h? can acknowledge his own wrong-doing as the cause
of his misery and accept all the bitter and grievous
penalties his sin has incurred, if he can truly humble
himself before God in the matter and own that all he
suffers is right and good, then he is nearer the king-
dom of heaven than ever he was before. Substantially
the same idea as Paul's is put in the mouth of the
Pope by the most modern of poets : —

1 Some account of the Jewish and other forms of excommunication
is given in the Encycl. Brit.} art. Excommunication. Miiman's
History of the Jews. Book XIX., should also be consulted, and the
I'onii/icale Romanum.

iv. 1 7-v. l j.j EXCOMMUNICA TION. 1 1 9

" For the main criminal I have no hope
Except in such a suddenness of fate.
I stood at Naples once, a night so dark,
I could have scarce conjectured there was earth
Anywhere, sky, or sea, or world at all,
But the night's black was burst through by a blaze;
Thunder struck blow on blow ; Earth groaned and boi*,
Through her whole length of mountain visible :
There lay the city thick and plain with spires,
And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.
So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
And Guido see one instant and be saved."

The necessity for keeping their communion pure, for
being a society with no leaven of wickedness among
them, Paul proceeds to urge and illustrate in the words,
" For even Christ cur passover is sacrificed for us ;
therefore let us purge out the old leaven." The
allusion was of course much more telling to Jews tnan
it can possibly be to us ; still, if we call to mind the
outstanding ideas of the Passover, we cannot fail to
feel the force of the admonition. That must be the
simplest explanation of the Passover which Jewish
parents were enjoined to give to their children, in the
words, " By strength of hand the Lord brought us out
of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And it came to
pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the
Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, with
the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. There-
fore I sacrifice to the Lord all the firstborn being
males, but all the firstborn of my children I redeem."
That is to say, all the firstborn of animals they
sacrificed to God, slaying them on His altar, but
instead of slaying the human firstborns they redeemed
them by sacrificing a lamb in their stead. The whole
transaction of the night of the first Passover stood

120 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

thus : God claimed the Israelites as His people ; the
Egyptians also claimed them as theirs. And as no
warning would persuade the Egyptians to let them
away to serve God, God at last forcibly delivered
them, slaying the flower of the Egyptian people, and so
crippling and dismaying them as to give Israel opportu-
nity of escape. Being thus rescued that they might be
God's people, they felt bound to continue to own this ;
and in accordance with the custom of their time they
expressed their sense of it by sacrificing their firstborn,
by presenting them to God as belonging to Him. By this
outward sacrificial act engaged in by every family it
was acknowledged that the whole nation belonged to
God.

Christ, then, is our Passover or Paschal Lamb, in the
first place, because through Him there is made the ac-
knowledgment that we belong to God. He is in very
truth the prime and flower, the best representative of
our race, the firstborn of every creature. He is the
one who can make for all others this acknowledgment
that we are God's people. And He does so by perfectly
giving Himself up to God. This fact that we belong to
God, that we men are His creatures and subjects, has
never been perfectly acknowledged save by Christ.
No individual or society of people has ever lived entirely
for God. No man has ever fully recognised this
apparently simple truth, that we are not our own, but
God's. The Israelites made the acknowledgment in
form, by sacrifice, but Christ alone made it in deed
by giving Himself up wholly to do God's will. The
Israelites made the acknowledgment from time to time,
and with probably more or less truthfulness and sin-
cerity, but Christ's whole spirit and habitual temper of
mind was that of perfect obedience and dedication.

iv.i7-v.i3] EXCOMMUNICATION. I21

Only those of us, then, who see that we ought to
live for God can claim Christ as our representative.
His dedication to God is unmeaning to us if we do not
desire to belong entirely to God. If Ke is our Passover,
the meaning of this is that He gives us liberty to serve
God ; if we do not mean to be God's people, if we
do not resolutely purpose to put ourselves at God's
disposal, then it is idle and false of us to talk of Him
as our Passover. Christ comes to bring us back to
God, to redeem us from all that hinders our serving
Him ; but if we really prefer being our own masters,
then manifestly He is useless to us. It is no matter
what we say, nor what rites and forms we go through ;
the one question is, Do we at heart wish to give our-
selves up to God ? Does Christ really represent us, —
represent, by His devoted unworldly life, our earnest
and hearty desire and intention ? Do we find in His
life and death, in His submission to God and meek
acceptance of all God appointed, the truest represen-
tation of what we ourselves would fain be and do, but
cannot ?

It is through this self- sacrifice of Christ that we can
become God's people, and enjoy all the liberties and
advantages of His people. Christ becomes the repre-
sentative of all whose state of mind His sacrifice
represents. If we would fam be of one mind and will
with God as Christ was, if we feel the degradation and
bitterness of failing God and disappointing the trust
He has confided in us His children, if our life is
wholly spoiled by the latent feeling that all is wrong
because we are not in harmony with the wise and
holy and loving Father, if we feel with more and more
distinctness, as life goes on, that there is a God, and
that the foundation of all happiness and soundness of

122 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

life must be laid in union with Him, then Christ's
perfect surrender of Himself to the will of the Father
represents what we would but cannot ourselves achieve.
When the Israelite came with his lamb, feeling the
attractiveness and majesty of God, and desiring to
pour his whole life out in fellowship with God and
service of Him, as entirely as the life of the lamb was
poured out at the altar, God accepted this symbolic
utterance of the worshipper's heart. As the wor-
shipping Israelite saw in the animal yielding its
whole life the very utterance of his own desire, and said,
Would God I could as freely and entirely devote
myself with all my powers and energies to my Father
above ; so we, looking at the free, and loving, and
eager sacrifice of our Lord, say in our hearts, Would
God I could thus live in God and for God, and so
become one with perfect purity and justice, with infinite
love and power.

The Paschal Lamb then was in the first place the
acknowledgment by the Israelites that they belonged
to God. The lamb was offered to God, not as being
itself anything worthy of God's acceptance, but merely
as a way of saying to God that the family who offered
it gave themselves up as entirely to Him. But by
thus becoming a kind of substitute for the family, it
saved the firstborn from death. God did not wish
to smite Israel, but to save them. He did not wish to
confound them with the Egyptians, and make an indis-
criminate slaughter. But God did not simply omit the
Israelite houses, and pick out the Egyptian ones through-
out the land. He left it to the choice of the people
whether they would accept His deliverance and belong
to Him or not. He told them that every home would
be safe, on the door-posts of which there was visible

iv. 17-v. 13.] EXCOMMUNICA TION. 123

the blood of the lamb. The blood of the lamb thus
provided a refuge for the people, a shelter from death
which otherwise would have fallen upon them. The
angel of judgment was to recognise no distinction
between Israelite and Egyptian save this of the
sprinkled, stained door-posts. Death was to enter
every house where the blood was not visible ; mercy
was to rest on every family that dwelt under this sign.
God's judgment was out that night all over the land,
and no difference of race was made anything of. They
who had disregarded the use of the blood would have
no time to object, We be Abraham's seed. God
meant that they should all be rescued, but He knew
that it was quite possible that some had become so
entangled with Egypt that they would be unwilling to
leave it, and He would not force any — we may say
He could not force any — to yield themselves to Him.
This rendering of ourselves to God must be a free act
on our part ; it must be the deliberate and true act of
a soul that feels convinced of the poverty and wretched-
ness of all life that is not serving God. And God
left it in the choice of each family — they might or
might not use the blood, as they pleased. But wherever
it was used, safety and deliverance were thereby
secured. Wherever the lamb was slain in acknow-
ledgment that the family belonged to God, God dealt
with them as with His own. Wherever there was no
such acknowledgment, they were dealt with as those
who preferred to be God's enemies.

And now Christ our Passover is slain, and we are
asked to determine the application of Christ's sacrifice,
to say whether we will use it or no. We are not asked
to add anything to the efficacy of that sacrifice, but
only tc avail ourselves of it. Passing through the

124 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

streets of the Egyptian cities on the night of the
Passover, you could have told who trusted God and
who did not. Wherever there was faith there was
a man in the twilight with his bason of blood and
bunch of hyssop sprinkling his lintel and then going
in and shutting his door, resolved that no solicitation
should tempt him from behind the blood till the angel
was by. He took God at His word ; he believed God
meant to deliver him, and he did what he was told was
his part. The result was that he was rescued from
Egyptian bondage. God now desires that we be
separated from everything which prevents us from
gladly serving Him, from every evil bias in us which
prevents us from delighting in God, from all that
makes us feel guilty and unhappy, from all sin that
enchains us and makes our future hopeless and dark.
God calls us to Himself, meaning that we shall one
day get for ever past all that has made us unfaithful
to Him and all that has made it impossible for us to
find deep and lasting pleasure in serving Him. To
us He throws open a way out from all bondage, and
from all that gives us the spirit of slaves ; He gives
us the opportunity of following Him into real and free
life, into glad fellowship with Him and joyful partner-
ship in His ever beneficent and progressive work.
What response are we making? In the face of the
varied difficulties and deluding appearances of this
life, in the face of the complexity and inveterate
hold of sin, can you believe that God seeks to deliver
you and even now designs for you a life that is worthy
of His greatness and love, a life which shall perfectly
satisfy you and give play to all your worthy desires
and energies ?

Sacrifices were in old times accompanied by feasts

iv. 17-v. 13.] EXCOMMUNICA TION. 125

in which the reconciled God and His worshippers ate
together In the feast of Passover the lamb which
had been used as a sacrifice was consumed as food to
strengthen the Israelites for their exodus. This idea
Paul here adapts to his present purpose. " Christ our
passover is sacrificed for us," he says; "let us there-
fore keep the feast." The whole life of the Christian
is a festal celebration ; his strength is maintained by
that which has given him peace with God. By Christ's
death God reconciles us to Himself; out of Christ we
continually receive what fits us to serve God as His
free people. Every Christian should aim at making
his life a celebration of the true deliverance Christ has
accomplished for us. We should see that our life is
a true exodus, and being so it will bear marks of
triumph and of freedom. To feed upon Christ, joyfully
to assimilate all that is in Him to our own character,
it is this which makes life festal, which turns faintness
into abounding strength, and brings zest and appetite
into monotonous labour.

But Paul's purpose in introducing the idea of the
Passover is rather to enforce his injunction to the
Corinthians to purge their communion of all defile-
ment. " Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven,
neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness ! "
Leaven was judged unclean, because fermentation is
one form of corruption. This impurity was not to be
touched by the holy people during their festival week.
This was secured at the first keeping of the Passover
by the suddenness of the exodus when the people fled
with their kneading boards on their shoulders and had
no time to take leaven, and had therefore no choice but
to keep God's command and eat unleavened bread.
And so scrupulously did the people at all times

126 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

observe this that before the day of the feast they used
to sweep their houses and search the dark corners
with candles, lest a morsel of leaven should be found
among them. Thus would Paul have all Christians be
separate from the rotting, fermenting results of the old
life. So suddenly would he have us issue from it and
so clean would He have us leave it ail behind us. A
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump; therefore must
wTe be careful, if we would keep this precept and be
clean, to search into even unlikely corners in our
hearts and lives, and as with the candle of the Lord
make diligent search for the tainting remnant.

It is the purpose to keep the feast faithfully, and
live as those who are delivered from bondage, which
reveals in our consciousness how much we have to put
away, and how much of the old life is following on
into the new. Habits, feelings, likings and dislikings,
all go with us. The unleavened bread of holiness and
of a life bound to and ruled by the earnest and godly
life of Christ, seems flat and insipid, and wTe crave
something more stimulating to the appetite. The old
intolerance of regular, intelligent, continuous prayer,
the old willingness to find a rest in this wrorld, must
be purged out as leaven w7hich will alter the whole
character of our life. Are our holy days holidays, or
do wre endure holiness of thought and feeling mainly
on the consideration that holiness is but for a season ?
Patiently and believingly resist the stirrings of the
old nature. Measure all that rises in you and all that
quickens your blood and stirs your appetite by the
death and spirit of Christ. Sever yourself determinedly
from all that alienates you from Him. The old life
and the new should not run parallel with one another
so that ycu can pass from the one to the other. They

iv. 17-v. 13.] EXCOMMUNICA TION. 127

are not side by side, but end to end ; the one all
preceding the other, the one ceasing and terminating
where the other begins.

The old leaven is to be put away : " the leaven of
malice and wickedness/' the bad-heartedness that is
not seen to be bad till brought into the light of Christ's
spirit ; the spiteful, vindictive, and selfish feelings that
are almost expected in society, these are to be put
away ; and in their stead " the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth" is to be introduced. Above all
things, Paul would say, let us be sincere. The word
" sincere " sets before the mind the natural image from
which the moral quality takes its name, the honey free
from the smallest particle of wax, pure and pellucid.
The word which Paul himself, using his own language,
here sets down, conveys a similar idea. It is a word
derived from the custom of judging the purity of liquids
or the texture of cloths by holding them between the
eye and the sun. What Paul desiderates in the
Christian character is a quality which can stand this
extreme test, and does not need to be seen only in
an artificial light. He wants a pure transparent
sincerity ; he wants what is to its finest thread genuine ;
an acceptance of Christ which is real, and which is
rich in eternal results.

Are we living a genuine and true life ? Are we
living up to what we know to be the truth about life ?
Christ has given us the true estimate of this world and
all that is in it, He has measured for us God's require-
ments, He has shown us what is the truth about God's
love; — are we living in this truth? Do we not find
that in our best intentions there is some mixture of
foreign elements, and in our most assured choice of
Christ some remaining elements which will lead us

128 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

back from our choice? Even while we own Christ
as our Saviour from sin, we are but half-inclined to go
out from its bondage. We pray God for deliverance,
and when He throws wide open before us the gate
that leads away from temptation, we refuse to see it,
or hesitate until again it is closed. We know how
we may become holy, and yet will not use our
knowledge.

Let us, whatever else, be genuine. Let us not trifle
with the purpose and requirements of Christ. In our
deepest and clearest consciousness we see that Christ
does open the way to tne true life of man ; that it is
our part to make room lor this self-sacrificing life in
our own day and in our own circumstances ; that until
we do so we can only by courtesy be called Christians.
The convictions and beliefs which Christ inspires are
convictions and beliefs about what we should be, and
what Christ means all human life to be, and until these
convictions and beliefs are embodied in our actual
Jiving selves, and in our conduct ana life, we feel that
we are not genuine. Time will bring us no relief from
this humiliating position, unless time brings us at
length to yield ourselves freely to Christ's Spirit, and
unless, instead of looking at the kingdom He seeks to
establish as a quite impossible Utopia, we set ourselves
resolutely and wholly to aid in the annexing to His
rule our own little world of business and of all the
relations of life. To have convictions is well, but if
these convictions are not embodied in our life, then
we lose our life, and our house is built on sand

W GOING TO LAW.

"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law
before the unjust, and not before the saints ? Do ye not know that
the saints shall judge the world ? and if the world shall be judged by
you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not
that we shall judge angels ? how much more things that pertain to
this life ? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life,
set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church. I speak to
your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you ? no,
not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But
brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to
law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong ? why do
ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ? Nay, ye do wrong,
and defraud, and that your brethren. Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not deceived :
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom
of God. And such were some of you : but ye are washed, but ye
are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and
by the Spirit of our God." — I Cor. vL i-ii.

IX.

ON GOING TO LAW.

ST. PAUL here gives his judgment on the litigiousness
of the Corinthians. The Greeks, in general, were
fond of going to law. They were not only quarrelsome,
but they seemed to derive an excitement pleasant to
their frivolous nature in the suspense and uncertainty
of cases before the courts. The converts to Chris-
tianity seemed not to have discarded this taste, and as
a habit of going .to law not merely involved great loss
of time, but was also dangerous to the feeling of
brotherhood which should exist among Christians,
St. Paul takes the opportunity to throw in some advice
on the subject. He has been telling them they have
nothing to do with judging the heathen ; he now
proceeds to remind them that they ought not to go to
law before the heathen. He feared that an unseemly
wrangling among Christians might convey to the
heathen quite an erroneous impression of the nature
of their religion. There was, to his mind, something
incongruous, something monstrous, in brother going
to law with brother. What was that brotherhocd
worth that could not bear a little wrong ? How could
he continue to speak of Christian love, if Christians
were to bite and devour one another ? How could he
preach the superiority of Christianity to heathenism

132 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

if Christians had so little common sense, so little esprit
de corps, so little mutual forbearance, that they must
call in a heathen to settle their disputes for them ?
It seemed to Paul to be a losing of caste for Christians
to proclaim their insufficiency to carry on their own
affairs without the aid of heathen. It seemed to him
a public profession that Christianity was not sufficient
for the needs of its adherents.

The reasons which St. Paul adduces to give weight
to his rebuke are important.

I. The saints are destined to judge the world, to
judge angels ; that is to say, to judge persons in
separation from earthly interests, to judge unclothed
detached spirits, to ascertain what is spiritually good
and spiritually evil. Shall they not then be considered
fit to judge little worldly matters, matters of £ s. d.}
matters of property and of bargain ? This statement
that the saints shall judge the world is one of those
broad widely-suggestive statements with which St.
Paul from time to time surprises us, making them
casually, as if he had many more equally astounding
facts in his knowledge which he might also reveal if
he had leisure. It is difficult to grasp the statements
which he makes in this style ; it is. also difficult to
link a truth so revealed to the truths amid which we
are now living ; it is difficult even to ascertain with
precision the bearing and significance of it.

It seems plain, however, that whatever else may be
implied in this statement, and in whatever way it is
to be fulfilled, St. Paul meant that ultimately, in that
final state of things towards which all present things
are growing and travelling, the men who are holy shall
be at the head of affairs, acknowledged as the fittest
to discern between right and wrong ; and also that the

vi.i-n.] ON GOING TO LAW. 133

germ and first principles of this final state of things
are already implanted in the world by the Christian
religion — two very important truths, certainly, to those
who believe them. The precise form of the final
judgment and future government of the world we can-
not predict; but from this statement a bright ray of
light shoots into the darkness, and shows us that the
saints, i.e., the servants of Christ, are to have the
responsibility of pronouncing judgment on character,
and of allotting destiny, reward or punishment. We
shrink from such a thought ; not, indeed, that we are
slow to pronounce judgment upon our fellow-men, but
to do so officially, and in connection with definite
results, seems a responsibility too heavy for merely
human judges to sustain. But why men should not
judge men hereafter as they do judge them now, we
do not see. If we, in this present world, submit
ourselves to those who have knowledge of law and
ordinary justice, we may well be content to be judged
in the world to come by those whose holiness has been
matured by personal strife against evil, by sustained
efforts to cleanse their souls from bias, from envy, from
haste, from harshness, from all that hinders them from
seeing and loving the truth. Holiness, or likeness to
God, assimilation to His mind, formed by the constant
desire to judge of things in this world as He judges,
and to love truly ail that He loves, this quality is surely
worthy to be at the head. In that future kingdom of
God in which all things are to have their proper place,
and are to be ranked according to their real worth,
holiness must come to the supremacy.

But equally worthy of remark is St. Paul's inference
from the fact that holiness shall eventually be supreme.
His inference is that it ought now to be regarded as

134 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

competent to settle the petty disputes which arise
among us. u If we are to judge angels, much more the
things that pertain to this life." We can only arrive
at any dignity by perseveringly seeking it. If the
future kingdom of God is to be a perfect kingdom,
it can only be as its subjects carry into it characters
which have been strongly tending towards perfection
It is not the future that is to make us, but we who are
to make the future. The kingdom of God is within
us ; if not there, in our own dispositions and likings,
it is nowhere. Heaven will be what its inhabitants
make it. Earth is not heaven only because men
decline to make it so. We do not know the forms
which society will assume in the world to come, when
men will be grouped, not by families and blood-
relationships, and the necessary requirements of
physical life, but according to their character and
moral value, their spiritual affinities and capacities for
usefulness. But though we cannot say exactly how
men will be grouped, nor how they will find expres-
sion for all that intense emotion and eager activity
which in this life creates adventure, war, politics,
speculation, inventions of all kinds, we do know that
wherever there are men there must be society ; there
must be men not isolated and solitary, but working
together and depending one on the other ; and that
there will therefore be difficult complications of interest
/ and obscure relations of man to man very similar to
N those which arise in this world ; but that those diffi-
<• culties will be removed without passion and wrangling
. and the interference of force. A heaven and an earth
there will be ; but " a new heaven and a new earth."
The cuter franework will be very much the same, but
the inner spirit and life very different. But it is not

ri.i-n.] ON GOING TO LA IV. 135

the altered place or time that is to produce in us this
change of spirit; we are to find it there only if we
carry it with us. St. Paul takes for granted that the
principles which are to be perfectly and exclusively
manifested in the world to come, are now cherished
by Christians. And as there will be no differences
in heaven which cannot be adjusted without appeal to
an authority which can silence and reconcile the dis-
putants, so there ought to be, among the heirs of
heaven, no going to law now.

St. Paul, therefore, while he contrasts the subjects
in which a lawyer-like mind will find employment in
this world and the next, reminds us that those who
are here trained to understand character, and to discern
where right and justice lie, will be in no want of
employment in the world to come. The matters which
come before our courts, or which are referred privately
to lawyers, may often be in themselves very paltry.
A vast proportion of legal business is created by changes
from which the future life is exempt, changes conse-
quent on death, on marriage, on pecuniary disasters.
But underneath such suits as these the keenest of
human feelings are at work, and it is often in the power
of a lawyer to give a man advice which will save his
conscience from a life-long stain, or which will bring
comfort into a family instead of heart-burning, and
pienty in place of penury. The physician keeps us
in life ; the minister of Christ tells us on what principles
we ought to live ; but the lawyer takes our hand at
every great practical step in life, and it is his function
(and surely there is none higher) to insist on a con-
scientious use of money, to point out the just claims
which others have upon us, to show us the right and the
wrong in all our ordinary affairs, and thus to bring justice

136 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and mercy down from heaven and make them familiar
to the market-place. And therefore many of the finest
characters and best intellects have devoted themselves,
and always will devote themselves, to this profession.
It may attract many from less lofty motives; but it
always will attract those who are concerned to save
men from practical folly, and who wish to see the
highest principles brought into direct contact with
human affairs. If the legal mind degenerates into a
mere memory for technicalities and acuteness in apply-
ing forms, nothing can be more contemptible or
dangerous to the character ; but if it takes to do with
real things, and not with forms only, and tries to see
what equity requires, and not merely what the letter of
the law enjoins, and seeks to forward the well-being of
men, then surely there is no profession in which there
is such abundant opportunity of earning the beatitude
which says, " Blessed are the peacemakers," none in
which the senses can better be exercised to discern
between good and evil, none in which men may better
be prepared for the higher requirements of a heavenly
society in which some are made rulers over ten
cities.

II. The second confirmation of his rebuke St. Paul
brings forward in the fifth verse : " Is there not a wise
man among yourselves ? " "A wise man " was -the
technical term for a judge in the Hebrew courts.

To understand Paul's position we must bear in mind
that among the Jews there was no distinction between
Church and State. The courts appointed for the
determination of the minor causes in each locality were
composed of the same persons who constituted the
eldership of the synagogue. In the synagogue and by
the eldership offenders were both tried and punished.

vi. i-ii.] ON GOING TO LAW. 137

The rabbis said, " He who brings lawsuits of Israel
before a heathen tribunal profanes the Name, and dees
homage to idolatry ; for when our enemies are judges
(Deut. xxxii. 31) it is a testimony to the superiority of
their religion." This idea passed over from Judaism
to Christianity; and Paul considers it a scandal that
" brother goeth to law with brother, and that before
the unbelievers." And even a century after Paul's
time the rule of the Christian Church was " Let not
those who have disputes go to law before the civil
powers, but let them by ail means be reconciled by the
elders of the Church, and let them readily yield to
their decision." And as late as our own day we find
an Arab sheikh complaining that Christian Copts come
to him, a Mohammedan, to settle their disputes and
" won't go and be settled by the priest out of the
Gospels."

Did Paul then mean that such legal cases as are now
tried in our civil courts should be settled by non-profes-
sional men ? Did he mean that ecclesiastical courts
should take out of the hands of the civil magistrate all
pleas regarding property, all disputes about commercial
transactions ? Did he foresee none of the great evils
that have arisen wherever Church or State has not
respected the province of the other, and was he prepared
to put the power of the sword into the hand of eccle-
siastics ? We think no one can read either his life
or his writings without seeing that this was not his
meaning. He taught men to submit themselves to the
powers that then were — i.e., to the heathen magistrates
of Rome — and he himself appealed to Caesar. He had
no notion of subverting the ordinary legal procedure
and civil courts, but he would fain have deprived them
of much of their practice. Pie thought it might be

138 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

expected that Christians would never be so determinedly
rancorous or so blindly covetous but that their disputes
might be settled by private and friendly advice. He
gives no orders about constituting new courts and
appointing new statutes and forms of procedure ; he has
no idea of transferring into the Church all the para-
phernalia of civil courts : but he maintains that if a
Christian community be in a healthy state, few quarrels
will be referred for settlement to a court of law.
Courts of law are necessary evils, which will be less
and less patronized in proportion as Christian feeling
and principle prevail.

This rebuke is applicable even to a community like
our own, in which the courts of law are not heathen,
but Christian ; and the principle on which the rebuke
is based is one that has gradually worked its way into
the heart of the community. It is felt, felt now even
by nations as well as by individuals, that if a dispute
can be settled by arbitration, this is not only cheaper,
quicker, and equally satisfactory, but that it is a mor?
generous and Christian way of getting justice done
Those who hold office in the Church may not always
happen to be suitable arbitrators ; they may not have
the technical and special knowledge requisite : but
Paul's counsel is acted on if disputes among Christians
be somehow adjusted in a friendly way, and without
the interference of an external authority. Christian
people may need legal advice ; they may not know
what the right and wrong of a complicated case are ;
they may be truly at a loss to understand how much
is justly theirs and how much their neighbour's ; they
may often need professional aid to shed light on a
transaction : but when two Christians go to law in a
spirit of rancour, resolved to make gcod their own jus*

ri. i-ii.j ON GOING TO LAW. \ys

claims, and to enforce by the authority of law what
they cannot compass by right feeling, this only proves
that their worldliness is stronger than their Christianity.
St. Paul thinks it a scandal and a degradation when
Christians need to appeal to law against one another.
It is a confession that Christian principle is in their
case insufficient by itself to carry them through the
practical difficulties of life.

But some one will say to this, as to every unworldly,
truty Christian, and therefore novel and difficult counsel,
u It savours of theory and of romance ; a man cannot
act it out unless he is prepared to be duped, and cheated,
and imposed upon. It is a theory that if carried out
i..ust end in beggary." Just as if the world could be
regenerated by anything that is not apparently romantic!
If a greater good is to be reached, it must be by some
way that men have not tried before. The kingdoms of
this world will not become the kingdom of Christ by
the admission into our conduct of only that which men
have tried and found to be practicable, and void of all
risk, and requiring no devotion or sacrifice. If then,
any one says, " But if there is to be no going to law,
if we are not to force a man to give us our own,
we must continually be losers," the reply of a well-
known Kincardineshire lawyer might suffice, " Don't go
to law if yielding does not cost you more than forty
shillings in the pound." And from a different point of
view St. Paul replies, "Well, and what though you be
losers ? The kingdom you belong to is not meat and
drink, but righteousness." If a man says, " We must
have some redress, some authority to extort the dues
that are not freely given ; we must strike when we are
struck ; when a man takes our coat, we must summon
him, or he will take our cloak next," St. Paul replies,

/40 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

u Well, if this be the alternative, if you must either push
your own claims and insist upon your rights, or suffer
by assuming the meekness and gentleness of your
Master, why do you not rather take wrong? why do
you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? It
may be quite true that if you turn the other cheek, it also
will be smitten. It may be very likely that a greedy
competitor will be so little abashed by your meekness,
and so little struck by your magnanimity in giving wTay
to some of his demands, that he will even be encouraged
to greater extortions. It is quite probable that if you
act as your Master did, you will be as ill off in this world
as He was. But is that any reason why }^ou should at
once call Him your Master and refuse to obey His pre-
cepts and follow His example ? " One thing is certain :
that so long as men honestly accepted Christ's words in
their plain meaning, and followed Him in His own w7ay,
making light of worldly loss, Christianity was believed
in and rapidly extended. It was seen to be a new
moral power among men, and was welcomed as such,
until a large part of the world received it ; but its victory
was its defeat. Once it became the fashion, once it
became popular, the heart of it was eaten out. As soon
as it became a religion without hardship, it became a
religion without vitality.

St. Paul then shows no hesitation about pushing his
doctrine to its consequences. He sees that the real
cure of wrangling, and of fraud, and of war is not
litigation, nor any outward restraint that can be laid
on the wrong-doer, but meekness, and unselfishness,
and unworldliness on the part of those who suffer
wrong. The world has laughed at this theory of social
regeneration all along; a few men in each generation
have believed in it, and have been ridiculed for their

vi. i-ll.] ON COINS TO LAW. 141

belief. At the same time, the world itself is aware, or
should be aware, that its own remedies have utterly
failed. Has war taught nations moderation in their
ambition ? Has it saved the world from the calamities
which it is said would ensue were any one nation to
prefer submitting to injustice rather than going to war ?
Have the outward restraints of law made men more
just or less avaricious ? There has been time to test
the power of law to repress crime, and to compel men
to honesty and justice. Can any one say it has been
so successful that it must be looked to as the great
means of regenerating society, of bringing society into
that healthy and ideal state which statesmen work for,
and for which the people inarticulately sigh ? Does
not St. James come nearer the mark when he says,
"Whence come wars and fightings? Come they not
hence, even of the lusts that war in your members ? "
— i.e.y from the restless ambitions, and appetites, and
longings of men who seek their all in this world ?
And if that is their source, it is to that we must apply
the remedy. Law is necessary for restraining the
expressions of a vicious nature, but law is insufficient
to remove the possibility of these expressions by
healing the nature. This can only be done by the
diffusion of unworldliness and unselfishness. And it
is Christians who are responsible for diffusing this
unworldly spirit, and who must diffuse it, not by talk
and advice, but by practice and example, by themselves
showing what unselfishness is, rebuking covetousness
by yielding to its demands, shaming all wrong-doing
by refusing to retaliate while they expose its guilt.

While therefore it is a mistake to suppose that all
the laws which are to rule in the perfected kingdom of
God can find immediate and unmodified expression in

142 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

this present world, it is our part to find for them an
introduction into the world in ever}' case in which it
is possible to apply them. Those laws which are to
be our sole rule when we are perfect cannot always be
immediately applied now. For example, we all be-
lieve that ultimately love will be the only motive, that
all service of God and of one another will eventually
spring solely from our desire to serve because we love.
And because this is so, some persons have thought
that love should be the only motive now, and that
obedience which is procured by fear is useless; that
preachers ought to appeal only to the highest parts of
man's nature, and not at all to those which are lower ;
and that parents should never threaten punishment nor
enforce obedience. But the testimony of one of the
most genial and successful of preachers is that u of all
the persons to whom his ministry had been efficacious
only one had received the first effectual impressions
from the gentle and attractive aspects of religion, all
the rest from the awful and alarming ones — the appeals
to fear." Take, again, the testimony of one of the
wisest and most successful of our schoolmasters. " I
can't rule my boys," he says, " by the law of love. If
they were angels or professors, I might ; but as they
are only boys, I find it necessary to make them fear
me first, and then take my chance of their love after-
wards. By this plan I find that I generally get both ;
by reversing the process I should in most cases get
neither." And God, though slow to anger and not
easily provoked, scourgeth every son whom He re-
ceiveth, not dealing with us now as He will deal with
us when perfect love has cast out its preparative fear.
So, in regard to the matter before us, there must be
an aiming and striving towards the perfect state in

ri.i-u.] ON GOING TO LAW. 143

which there shall be no going to law, no settling of
matters by appeal to anything outside the heart of the
persons interested But while we aim at this, and
seek to give it prevalence, we shall also be occasionally
forced back upon the severer and more external means
of self-defence. The members of Christ's Church are
those on whom the burden falls of giving prevalence
to these Christian principles. It is incumbent upon
them to show, even at cost to themselves, that there
are higher, better, and more enduring principles than
law, and the customs of trade, and the ways of the
world. And however difficult it rnay be theoretically to
hold the balance between justice and mercy, between
worldly sharpness and Christian meekness, we all know
that there are some who practically exhibit a large
measure of this Christian temper, who prefer to take
wrong and to sailer quietly rather than to expose the
wickedness of others, or to resent their unjust claims,
or to complain of their unfair usage. And whatever
the most worldly of us may think of such conduct,
however we may smile at it as weak, there is no one
of us but also pays his tribute of respect to those who
suffer wrong, loss, detraction, with a meek and cheerful
patience ; and whatever be the lot of such sufferers
in a world where men are too busy in pushing their
worldly prospects to understand those who are not
of this world, we have no doubt in what esteem they
will be held and what reward they will receive in
a world where the Lamb is on the throne, and meek
self-sacrifice is honestly worshipped as the highest
quality whether in God or in man.

Paul knows that the Christian conscience is with
him when he declares that men should rather suffer
wrong than bring reproach on the Christian name :

144 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

''Know ye not that wrong-doers shall not inherit the
kingdom of God ? Be not deceived ; neither covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall
inherit the kingdom of God." And yet how little do
men seem to take to heart the great fact that they are
travelling forward to a state in which nothing uncon-
genial to the Spirit of Christ can possibly find place.
Do they think of the future at all ? Do they believe
that a state of things ruled by the Spirit of Christ is
to follow this ? And what preparation do they make ?
Is it not the height of folly to suppose that the selfish-
ness and greed, the indolence and frivolity, the dreamy
unreality and worldliness, which we suffer to grow
upon us here, will give us entrance into the kingdom
of God ? The seaman who means to winter in the
Arctic circle might as reasonably go with a single
month's provisions ana clothes suited to the tropics.
There is a reason and a law in things ; and if we are
not assimilated to the Spirit of Christ now, we can
have no part in His kingdom. If now our interest, and
pursuits, and pleasures are all found in what gratifies
selfishness and worldliness, it is impossible we can
find a place in that kingdom which is all unselfishness
and unworldliness. " Be not deceived." The spiritual
world is a reality, and the godliness and Christlikeness
that compose it must also be realities. Put away from
you the fatuous idea that things will somehow come
all right, and that your character will adapt itself to
changed surroundings. It is not so ; nothing that
defiles can find entrance into the kingdom of God,
but only those who are " sanctified in the name of the
Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."

FORNICATION.

"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient:
all things are lawful for me, but I v/ill not be brought under the
power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats : but God
shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication,
but for the Lord ; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both
raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power.
Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ ? shall I
then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an
harlot? Gci forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined
to an harlot is one body r tcr two, sartn ne, shall be one flesh. But
he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every
sin that a man doeth is without the body ; but he that committeth
fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know }'e not that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye
have of God, and ye are not your own ? For ye are bought with a
crice : therefore glorify God in your bcdy, and in your spirit, which
ire God's."— I Cor. vi. 12-20.

FORNICATION.

IN remonstrating with the Corinthians for their liti-
giousness, Paul was forcibly reminded how imper-
fectly his converts understood the moral requirements
of the kingdom of God. Apparently, too, he had reason
to believe that they were not only content to remain
on a low moral plane, but actually quoted some of his
own favourite sayings in defence of immoral practices.
After warning them therefore that only those who were
sanctified could belong to the kingdom of God and
specifying certain common kinds of wrong-doing which
must for ever be excluded from that kingdom, he goes
on to explain how they had misapprehended him if
they thought that any principle of his could give colour
to immorality. The Corinthians had apparently learned
to argue that if, as Paul had so often and emphatically
told them, all things were lawful to them, then this
commonest of Greek indulgences was lawful; if ab-
staining from the meat which had been killed in a
heathen temple was a matter of moral indifference
which Christians might or might not practise, as they
pleased, then this other common accompaniment of
idolatry was also a matter of indifference and not in
itself wrong.

To understand this Corinthian obliquity of moral

i48 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

vision it must be borne in mind that licentious rites
were a common accompaniment of pagan worship, and
especially in Corinth idolatry might have been briefly
described as the performance of Balaam's instructions
to the Israelites : the eating of things sacrificed to idols
and the committing of fornication. The temples were
often scenes of revelry and debauchery such as happily
have become incredible to a modern mind. But not at
once could men emerging from a religion so slenderly
connected with morality apprehend what Christianity
required of them. When they abandoned the temple-
worship, were they also to abstain from eating the
ilesh offered for sale in the open market, and which had
first been sacrificed to an idol ? Might they not by
partaking of such flesh become partakers in the sin of
idolatry ? To this Paul replied, Do not too scrupu-
lously inquire into the previous history of your dinner ;
the meat has no moral taint ; all things are lawful for
you. This was reasonable ; but then how about the
other accompaniment of idolatry ? Was it also a thing
of indifference ? Can we apply the same reasoning
to it? It was this insinuation which called forth
the emphatic condemnation which Paul utters in this
paragraph.

The great principle of Christian liberty, " All things
are lawful for me," Paul now sees he must guard
against abuse by adding, u But all things are not ex-
pedient." The law and its modification are fully
explained in a subsequent passage of the Epistle
(viii. ; x. 2$, etc.). Here it may be enough to say
that Paul seeks to impress on his readers that the
question of duty is not answered by simply ascertaining
what is lawful ; we must also ask whether the practice
or act contemplated is expedient. Though it may be

vi. 12-20.] FORNICATION. 149

\m possible to prove that this or that practice is wrong
tn every case, we have still to ask, Does it advance
what is good in us ; is its bearing on society good or
^vil ; will it in present circumstances and in the in-
stance we contemplate give rise to misunderstandings
and evil thoughts ? The Christian is a law to himself;
he has an internal guide that sets him above external
rules. Very true ; but that guide leads all those who
possess it to a higher life than the law leads to, and
proves its presence by teaching a man to consider,
not how much indulgence he may enjoy without trans-
gressing the letter of the law, but how he can most
advantageously use his time and best forward what is
highest in himself and in others.

Again, " all things are lawful for me ; " all things are
in my power. Yes, but for that very reason a I will
not be brought under the power of any." " The
reasonable use of my liberty cannot go the length of in-
volving my own loss of it." l I am free from the law ;
I will not on that account become the slave of indul-
gence. As Carlyle puts it, "enjoying things which
are pleasant — that is not the evil ; it is the reducing of
our moral self to slavery by them that is. Let a man
assert withal that he is king over his habitudes ; that
he could and would shake them off on cause shown :
this is an excellent law." There are several practices
and habits which no one would call immoral or sinful,
but which enslave a man quite as much as worse habits.
He is no longer a free man ; he is uneasy and restless,
and cannot settle to his work until he obeys the craving
he has created. And it is the very lawfulness of these
indulgences which has ensnared him. Had they been
sinful, the Christian man would not have indulged in

1 Godet.

150 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

them ; but being in his power, they have now assumed
power over him. They have power to compel him to
waste his time, his money, sometimes even his health.
He alone attains the true dignity and freedom of the
Christian man who can say, with Paul, " I know both
how to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and
to suffer need ; " " All things are in my power, but I
will not be brought under the power of any."

Paul then proceeds more explicitly to apply these
principles to the matter in hand. The Corinthians
argued that if meats were morally indifferent, a man
being morally neither the better nor the worse for
eating food which had been offered in ,an idol's
temple, so also a man was ^neither better nor worse
for fornication. To expose the error of this reasoning
Paul draws a remarkable distinction between the digest-
ive, nutritive organs of the body and the body as a
whole. Paul believed that the body was an essential
part of human nature, and that in the future life the
natural body would give place to the spiritual body.
He believed also that the spiritual body was connected
with, and had its birthplace in, the natural body, so
that the body we now wear is to be represented by that
finer and more spiritual organism we are hereafter to be
clothed in. The connection of that future body with
the physical world and its dependence on material
things we cannot understand ; but in some way in-
conceivable by us it is to carry on the identity of our
present body, and thereby it reflects a sacredness
and significance on this body. The body of the full-
grown man or of the white-bearded patriarch is very
different from that of the babe in its mother's arms,
but there is a continuity that links them together and
gives them identity. So the future body may be very

vi. 12-20.] FORNICATION, 151

different fiom and yet the same as the present. At the
same time, the organs which merely serve for the main-
tenance of our present natural body will be unnecessary
and out of place in the future bod}', which is spiritual
in its origin and in its maintenance. Paul therefore
distinguishes between the organs of nutrition and that
body which is part of our permanent individuality, and
which by some unimaginable process is to flower into
an everlasting body. The digestive organs of the body
have their use and their destiny, and the body as a
whole has its use and destiny. These two differ from
one another ; and if you are to argue from the one to
the other, you must keep in view this distinction.
u Meats for the belly and the belly for meats ; and
God shall destroy both it and them : but the body is
for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, and God
shall raise up the one as He has raised up the other."
The organs of nutrition have a present use ; they are
made for meats, and have a natural correspondence
with meats. Any meat which the digestive organs
approve is allowable. The conscience has to do with
meat only through these organs. It must listen to
their representations ; and if they approve of certain
qualities and quantities of food, the conscience confirms
this decision : approves when the man uses the food
best for these organs ; disapproves when he uses con-
sciously and self-indulgently what is bad for them.
" Meats for the belly and the belly for meats " — they
claim each other as their mutual, God-appointed counter-
parts. By eating you are not perverting your bodily
organs to a use not intended for them ; you are putting
them to the use God meant them to serve.

Besides, these organs form no part of the future
spiritual body. They pass away with the meats for

152 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

which they were made. God shall destroy both the
meats that are requisite for life in this world, and the
organs needful for deriving sustenance from them.
They serve a temporary purpose, like the houses we
live in and the clothes we wear; and as we are not
morally better because we live in a stone house, and
not in a brick one, or because we wear woollens, and
not cotton — so long as we do what is best to keep us
in life — so neither is there any moral difference in
meats — a remarkable conclusion for a Jew to come to,
whose religion had taught him to hold so many forms
of food in abhorrence.

But the body as a whole — for what is it made ?
These organs of nutrition fulfil their function when
they lead you to eat such meat as sustains you in life ;
when does the body fulfil its function ? What is its
object and end ? For what purpose have we a body ?
Paul is never afraid to suggest the largest questions,
neither is he afraid to give his answer. "The body,"
he says, il is for the Lord, and the Lord for the
body." Here also there is a mutual correspondence
and fitness.

" The body is for the Lord." Paul was addressing
Christians, and this no Christian would be disposed
to deny. Every Christian is conscious that the body
would not fulfil its end and purpose unless it were
consecrated to the Lord and informed by His Spirit
The organism by which we come into contact with the
world outside ourselves is not the unwieldy, hindering,
irredeemable partner of the spirit, but is designed to
be the vehicle of spiritual faculties and the efficient
agent of our Lord's purposes. It must not be looked
upon with resentment, pity, or contempt, but rather
as essential to our human nature and to the fulfilment

vi. 12-20.] FORNICATION. 153

of the Lord's design as the Saviour of the world and
the Head of humanity. It was through the body of
the Lord that the great facts of our redemption were
accomplished. It was the instrument of the incarnation
and of the manifestation of God among men, of the
death and the resurrection by which we are saved.
And as in His own body Christ was incarnate among
men, so now it is by means of the bodily existence and
energies of His people on earth that He extends His
influence.

The body then is for the Lord. He finds in it His
needed instrument ; without it He cannot accomplish
His will. And the Lord is for the body. Without
Him the body cannot develop into all it is intended to
be. It has a great future as well as the soul. Our
adoption as God's children is, in Paul's view, incom-
plete until the body also is redeemed and has fought
its way through sickness, base uses, death, and disso-
lution into likeness to the glorified body of Christ.
This body which we now identify with ourselves, and
apart from which it is difficult to conceive of ourselves,
is not the mere temporary lodging of the soul, which in
a few years must be abandoned ; but it is destined to
preserve its identity through all coming changes, so
that it will be recognisable still as our body. But this
cannot be believed, far less accomplished, save by faith
in the fact that God has raised up the Lord Jesus and
will with Him raise us also. Otherwise the future of
the body seems brief and calamitous. Death seems
plainly to say, There is an end of all that is physical.
Yes, replies the resurrection of the Lord, in death there
is an end cf this natural body ; but death disengages
the spiritual body from the natural, and clothes the
spirit in a more fitting garb. Understand this we

154 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

cannot, any more than we understand why a large mass
draws to itself smaller masses ; but believe it we can in
presence of Christ's resurrection.

The Lord then is for the body, because in the Lord
the body has a future opened to it and present con-
nections and uses which prepare it for that future. It
is the Spirit of Christ who is, within us, the earnest of
that future, and who forms us for it, inclining us while
in the body and by means of it to sow to the Spirit
and thus to reap life everlasting. Without Christ we
cannot have this Spirit, nor the spiritual body He
forms. The only future of the body we dare to look
at without a shudder is the future it has in the Lord.
God has sent Christ to secure for the body redemption
from the fate which naturally awaits it, and apart from
Christ it has no outlook but the worst. The Lord is
for the body, and as well might we try to sustain the
body now without food as to have any endurable future
for it without the Lord.

But if the body is thus closely united to Christ in its
present use and in its destiny, if its proper function
and fit development can only be realized by a true
fellowship with Christ, then the inference is self-
evident that it must be carefully guarded from such
uses and impurities as involve rupture with Christ.
" Know ye not that your bodies are the members of
Christ ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and
make them the members of an harlot ? God forbid."
The Christian is one spirit with Christ. There is a
real community of spiritual life between them. It is
the spirit which possessed Christ which now possesses
the Christian. He has the same aims, the same
motives, the same view of life, the same hope, as his
Lord. It is in Christ he seeks to live, and he has no

vi. 12-20.] FORNICATION. 155

stronger desire than to be used for His purposes.
That Christ would use him as He used the members
of His own body while on earth, that there might be
the same direct influence and moving power of the
Lord's Spirit, the same ready and instinctive response
to the Lord's will, the same solidarity between himself
and the Lord as between Christ's body and Christ's
Spirit — this is the Christian's desire. To have his
body a member of Christ — this is his happiness. To be
one in will with Him who has brought by His own
goodness the light of heaven into the darkness of earth,
to learn to know Him and to love Him by serving Him
and by measuring His love with all the needs of earth
— this is his life. To be so united to Christ in all that
is deepest in his nature that he knows he can never
be separated from Him, but must go forward to the
happy destiny which his Lord already enjoys — this is
the Christian's joy ; and it is made possible to every
man.

Possible to every man is this personal union to
Christ, but to be united thus in one Spirit to Christ
and at the same time to be united to impurity is for
ever impossible. To be one with Christ in spirit and
at the same time to be one in body with what is
spiritually defiled is impossible, and the very idea is
monstrous. Devotedness to Christ is possible, but it
is incompatible with any act which means that we
become one in body with what is morally polluted.
If the Christian is as truly a member of Christ's body
as were the hands and e}<es of the body He wore on
earth, then the mind shrinks, as from blasphemy, from
following out the thought of Paul. And if any frivolous
Corinthian still objected that such acts went no deeper
than the eating of food ceremonially unclean, that

156 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

they belonged to the body that was to be destroyed,
Paul says, It is not so ; these acts are full of the
deepest moral significance : they were intended by God
to be the expression of inward ttnion, and they have
that significance whether you shut your eyes to it
or not.

And this is what Paul means when he goes on to
say, " Every sin that a man doeth is without the body ;
but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his
own body." He does not mean that this is the only
sin committed by the body, for of many other sins the
body is the agent, as in murder, lying, blasphemy,
robbery, and thieving. Neither does he mean that this
is the only sin to which bodily appetite instigates, for
gluttony and drunkenness equally take their rise in
bodily appetite. But he means lhat this is the only
sin in which the present connection of the body with
Christ and its future destiny in Him are directly sinned
against. This is the only sin, he means, which by its
very nature alienates the body from Christ, its proper
Partner. Other sins indirectly involve separation from
Christ ; this explicitly and directly transfers allegiance,
and sunders our union with Him. By this sin a man
detaches himself from Christ; he professes to be united
to what is incompatible with Christ.

These weighty reasonings and warm admonitions,
into which Paul throws his whole energy, are concluded
by the statement of a twofold truth which is of much
wider application than to the matter in hand : " Ye
are bought with a price to be the temple of the Holy
Ghost." We are bought with a price, and are no longer
our own. The realities underlying these words are
gladly owned in every Christian consciousness. God
has caused us to recognise how truly we are His by

vi. 12-20.] FORNICATION. 157

showing us that He has grudged nothing which can
restore us fully to Him. He has bought us, not with
any of those prices the wealthy can pay without
sacrifice and without profound interest and feeling, but
with that price which is coined and issued by love,
which carries in it the token and pledge of love, and
which therefore wins us wholly. In our relations with
God we have never to do with any merely formal
transaction performed for the sake of keeping up appear-
ances, saving the proprieties or satisfying the letter of
law, but always with what is necessary in the nature
of things, with what is real, with the very God of
truth, the centre and source of all reality. God has
made us His own, has won our hearts and wills to
Himself, by manifesting His love in ways that touch
and move us, and for purDO--.es absolutely needful.
God means that our attachment to Him should be real
and permanent, and He has based it on the most
reasonable grounds. He means that we should be
His, not only because we are His creatures or because
He has an indefeasible right to our service as the
source of our life ; but He means that our hearts
should be His, and that we should be drawn to live
and labour for His ends, convinced in our reason that
this is our happiness and attracted by His love to
serve Him. He means this ; and accordingly He has
height us, has given us reason to become His, has
made such advances as ought to win us has not
grudged to show His earnest desire for our love by
Himself making sacrifices and declaring that He loves
us. It is a thought the humble heart can scarcely
endure that it is loved by God, that it has been
counted so precious in God's sight that Divine love and
sacrifice should have been spent on its restoration.

158 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

It is a thought that overwhelms the believing heart,
but, believed in, it wins the soul eternally to God.

We are not our own ; we belong to Him who has
loved us most ; and His love will be satisfied when we
suffer Him to dwell in us, so that we shall be His
temples, and shall glorify Him in body and in spirit.
God claims our body as well as our spirit; He has
a purpose for our body as well as for our spirit. Our
body is to glorify Him in the future and now : in
the future, by exhibiting how the Divine wisdom has
triumphed over all that threatens the body, and has
used all the present bodily experiences for preparing
a permanent spiritual embodiment of all human faculties
and joys ; and now, by putting itself at the disposal of
God for the accomplishment of His will. We glorify
Gcd by allowing Him to fulfil His purpose of love in
creating us. What that purpose is we cannot wholly
know; but trusting ourselves to His love, we can, by
obeying Him, have it more and more accomplished in
us. And it is the consciousness that we are God's
temples which constantly incites us to live worthily of
Him. To say that we are temples of God is not to use
a figure of speech. It is the temple of stone that is
the figure; the true dwelling-place of God is man. In
nothing can God reveal Himself as He can in man.
Through nothing else can He express so much of what
is truly Divine. It is not a building of stone which
forms a fit temple for God ; it is not even the heaven
of heavens. In material nature only a small part of
God can be seen and known. It is in man, able to
choose what is morally good, able to resist temptation,
to make sacrifices for worthy ends, to determine his
own character; it is in man, whose own will is his
law, and v. ho is not the mere mechanical agent of

vl 12-20.] FORNICATION. 159

another's will, that God finds a worthy temple for
Himself. Through you God can express and reveal
what is best in Himself. Your love is sustained by
His, and reveals His. Your approval of what is pure
and hatred of impurity has its source in His holiness,
and by transforming you into His own image He
discloses Himself as truly dwelling and living within
you. Where is God to be found and to be known
if not in men ? Where can His presence and Divine
goodness and reality be more distinctly manifest than
in Christ and those who are in any degree like Him ?
It is in men that the unseen Divine Spirit manifests
His nature and His work. But if so, what a profana-
tion is it when we take this body, which is built to be
His temple, and put it to uses which it were blasphemous
to associate with God ! Let us rather find our joy in
realizing the ideal set ueiore us by Paul, in keeping
ourselves pure as God's temples and in glorifying Him
in our body and in our spirit.

MARRIAGE.

" Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me : It is good
for a man not to touch a woman. Neve^beless, to avoid fornication,
let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own
husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence :
and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not
power of her own body, but the husband : and likewise also the
husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye
not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may
give yourselves to fasting and prayer ; and come together again, that
Satan tempt you not for your incontinenc}^. But I speak this by
permission, and not of commandment. For I would that all men
were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God
one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the
unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
•— 4But if they cannot contain, let them marry : for it is better to marry
than to burn.-»And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the
Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband : but and if she
depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband :
and let not the husband put away his wife.— But to the rest speak I,
not the Lord : If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she
be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the
woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be
pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving
husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified
by the husband : else were your children unclean ; but now are they
holy*- But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a
sister is not under bondage in such cases : but God hath called us to
peace. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy
husband ? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save
thy wife? But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord
hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain 1 in all
churches. Is any man called being circumcised ? let him not become
uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision ? let him not be
circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing,
but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide

in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a

servant ? care not for it : but if thou mayest be made free, use it

rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the

Lord's freeman : likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's

servant. Ye are bought with a price ; be not ye the servants of men.

Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with

God.'; Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord :

yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord

to be faithful. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present

distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. Art thou bound

unto. a wife ? seek not to be "loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife ?

seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned ; and

if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have

trouble in the flesh : but I spare you. But this I say, brethren, the

time is short : it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as

though they had none ; and they that weep, as though they wept

not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they

that buy, as though they possessed not ; and they that use this world,

as not abusing it : for the fashion of this world passeth away. But

I would have you without carefulness.-^ He that is unmarried careth

for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord :

but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how

he may please his wife*— There is difference also between a wife and

a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord,

that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is

married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her

husbandr- And this I speak for your own profit ; not that I may cast

a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may

attend upon tie Lord without distraction. But if any man think

that he behavcth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the

flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he

sinneth not : let them marry. Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast

in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will,

and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth

well. HBo then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he

mat giveth her not in marriage doeth better.—, The wife is bound by

the law as long as her husband livetli ; but if her husband be dead,

she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

M>ut she is happier if she so abide, after m}' judgment : and I think

also that I have the Spirit of God.'-i— I Cor. vii. 1-40.

MARRIAGE.

THERE are two preliminary considerations which
throw some light on this much-contested passage.
First, Paul had to speak about marriage as he found it,
as it existed among those to whom he wished to be of
service. Hence he makes no allusion to that which
among ourselves is the main argument for, or at least
the one only justifying motive to, marriage, viz., love.
Marriage is treated here from a lower point of view
than it would have been had this letter been originally
written for Englishmen. The Church to which it was
addressed was composite. Jews, Greeks, and Romans,
in what proportions it is not easy to say, brought their
peculiar and national usages into it. In the marriages
of the Jews and Greeks, love had, as a rule, little to do.
The marriage was arranged by the parents of the con-
tracting parties.

* Faces strange and tongues unknown
Make us by a bid their own,"

is the remonstrance of the Greek maiden against the
unnatural custom which prevailed of allowing no
intimacy, and scarcely any real acquaintance, prior to
marriage. The lack of warmth and personal interest
which characterizes the Greek plays arises mainly from
the circumstance that among the Greeks there was

166 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

absolutely no such thing as that love prior to marriage
on which even our best works of fiction uniformly
depend for their interest. Among the Romans there
was none of this Eastern seclusion of women, and
but for other causes marriage among this section of
the Corinthian population might have served as an
example to the rest.

Secondly, it is to be considered that not only had
Paul to speak of marriage as he found it, but also that
he was here only giving answers to some special
questions, and not discussing the whole subject in all
its bearings. There might be other points which to his
mind seemed equally important; but his advice not
having been asked about these, he passes them by.
He introduces the subject in a manner fitted to remind
us that he has no intention of propounding his views
on marriage in a complete and systematic form : [' Now
concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me."
There had arisen in the Corinthian Church certain
scruples about marriage ; and as the Church was com-
posed of persons who would naturally take very dif-
ferent views on the subject, these scruples might not be
easily removed. Among the Jews it was believed that
marriage was a duty, n so much so that he who at the
age of twenty had not married was considered to have
sinned." Among the Gentiles the tendency to celibacy
was so strong that it was considered necessary to
counteract it by legal enactment. In a community
previously disposed to take such opposite views of
marriage difficulties were sure to arise. Those who
were predisposed to disparage the married state
would throw contempt upon it as a mere concession to
the flesh ; they apparently even urged that, Christians
being new creatures, their whole previous relation-

vii. 1-40.] MARRIAGE. 167

ships were dissolved. To Paul therefore appeal is
made.

The questions referred to Paul resolve themselves
into two : whether the unmarried are to marry, and
whether the married are to continue to live together.

In reply to the former question, whether the un-
married are to marry, he first states the duty of
unmarried persons themselves (in vers. 2, 7 — 9) ; and
afterwards (in vers. 25 — 39) he explains the duty of
parents to their unmarried daughters.

I. First then we have Paul's counsel to the un-
married. This is summed up in the words, " I say
therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good
for them if they abide even as I ; " that is to say, if
they remain unmarried, Paul being probably the only
unmarried Apostle. Bat if any man's temperament be
such that he cannot settle undistractedly to his work
without marrying ; if he is restless and ill at ease, and
full of natural cravings which make him think much of
marriage, and make him feel sure he would be less
distracted in married life — then, says Paul, let such an
one by all means marry. But do not misunderstand
me, he says ; this is permission I am giving you, not
commandment. I do not say you must or ought to
marry ; I say you may, and in certain circumstances
ought. Those among you who say a man sins if he do
not marry, talk nonsense. Those among you who feel
a quiet superiority because you are married, and think
of unmarried people as undergraduates who have not
attained a degree equal to yours, are much mistaken if
you suppose that I am of your mind. When I say,
" Let every man have his own wife, and let every
woman have her own husband," I do not mean that
every man who wishes to come as near perfection as

I6S THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

possible must go and marry, but what I speak I speak
by way of permission ; I permit every man to marry
who deliberately believes he will be the better of
marrying. So far from thinking that every man ought
to marry, or that married men have somehow the
advantage over single men, I think the very opposite,
and would that all men were even as I myself, only I
know that to many men it is not so easy as it is to me
to live unmarried ; and therefore I do not advise them
to a single life.

But this advice of Paul's proceeds, not from any
ascetic tendency, but from the practical bias of his mind.
He had no idea that marriage was a morally inferior
condition ; on the contrary, he saw in it the most

/ perfect symbol of the union of Christ and the Church.
But he thought that unmarried men were likely to be
most available for the work of Christ ; and therefore he
could not but wish it possible, though he knew it was
not possible, that all unmarried men should remain
unmarried.

His reason for thinking that unmarried men would
be more efficient in the service of Christ is given in
the thirty-second and thirty-third verses : " He that
is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the

/ Lord, how he may please the Lord ; but he that is
married careth for the things that are of the world,
how he may please his wife," an opinion quite
similar to that which Lord Bacon pronounced when
he said, " Certainly the best works, and of greatest
merit for the public, have proceeded from the un-
married or childless men, who both in affection and
means have married and endowed the public." Given
two men with equal desire to serve Christ, but the
one married and the other unmarried, it is obvious

vii. 1-40] MARRIAGE. 169

that the unmarried man has more means and opportuni-
ties of service than he who has a large family to support.
No doubt a good wife may stimulate a man to liberality,
and may greatly increase his tenderness towards de-
serving objects of charity ; but the fact remains that
he who has seven or ten mouths to fill cannot have so
much to give away as if he had but himself to support.
Then, again, however alike in sentiment husband and
wife may be, there are sacrifices which a married man
may not make. With the unmarried man there need
be no other consideration than this : How can I best
serve Christ ? With the married man there must
always be other considerations. He cannot ignore or
forswear the ties with which he has bound himself;
he cannot act as if he had only himself to consider.
The unmarried man has life and the world before him,
"and may choose the most ideal and perfect style of life
he pleases. He may seek to realize, as many in recent
times have realized, the exact apostolic idea of how it
is best to spend a human life. He may choose to
devote himself to the elevation of some one class of the
communit}', or he is free to go to the ends of the earth
to preach the Gospel. He has no one thing to consider
but how he may please the Lord. But the married
man has limited his range of choice, and has cut himself
off from some at least of the most influential ways of-
doing good in the world. It is therefore to the
unmarried that the State looks for the manning of the
army and navy ; it is to the unmarried that society
looks for the nursing of the sick and for the filling of
posts of danger ; and it is on the unmarried that the
Church depends for a large part of her work, from
teaching in Sunday-schools to occupying unhealthy
and precarious outposts in the mission field.

170 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

But while Paul makes no scruple of saying that for
many purposes the unmarried man is the more avail-
able, he says also, Beware how you individually think
yourself a hero, and able to forego marriage. Beware
lest, by choosing a part which you are not fit for, you
give Satan an advantage over you, and expose yourself
to constant temptation, and pass through life distracted
by needless deprivation. " Far be it from me," says
Paul, "to cast a snare upon you," to invite or encourage
3'ou into a position against which your nature would
unceasingly rebel, to prompt you to attempt that for
which you are constitutionally unfit, and thereby to
make your life a chronic temptation. " Every man
hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner,
another after that." And if any man fancies that,
because there are advantages in being unmarried,
therefore that is the oest state for him, or if, on the
other hand, any man fancies that, because most men
seem to find great happiness in marriage, he also needs
marriage to complete his happiness, both of these men
leave out of account that which is chiefly to be taken
into account, viz., the special temperament, calling,
and opportunities of each.

The common-sense and wise counsel of this chapter
<ire sometimes half jestingly put aside by the idle
remark that Paul, being himself unmarried, takes a
biassed view of the subject. But the chief merit of the
whole passage is that Paul positively and expressly
declines to judge others by himself, or himself by }

others. What is good for one man in this respect
is not good, he says, for another ; every man must
ascertain for himself what is best for him. And this
is precisely what is lacking in popular feeling and talk
about marriage. People start in life, and are encour-

vii. 1.40.] MARRIAGE, 171

aged to start in life, on the understanding that their
happiness cannot be complete till they are married ;
that they are in some sense incomplete and unsatisfac-
tory members of society until they marry. Now, on
the contrary, people should be taught not to follow one
another like sheep, nor to suppose that they will
infallibly find happiness where others have found it.
They should be taught to consider their own make and
bent, and not to take for granted that the cravings they
feel for an indefinite addition to their happiness will
be satisfied by marriage. They should be taught that
marriage is but one out of many paths to happiness,
that it is possible celibacy may be the straightest
path to happiness for them, and that many persons
are so constituted that they are likely to be much more
useful unmarried than married. They should, above
all, be taught that human life is very wide and multi-
farious, and that, to effect His ends, God needs persons
of all kinds and conditions, so that to prejudge the
direction in which our usefulness and happiness are to
run is to shut God out of our life. There can be no
doubt that the opposite way of speaking of marriage
as the great settlement in life has introduced much
misery and uselessness into the lives of thousands.

It is this then which not only signally illustrates
the judicial balance of the Apostle's mind, but at the
same time gives us the key to the whole chapter. The
capacity for celibacy is a gift of God to him who
possesses it, a gift which may be of eminent service,
but to which no moral value can be attached. There
are many such diversities of gifts among men, gifts of
immense value, but which may belong to bad as well
as to good men. For example, two men travel together ;
the one can go without food for twelve hours, the other

172 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

cannot, but if you repair his strength every five hours,
he can go through as much fatigue as the other. This
power of abstinence is a valuable gift, and has frequently
enabled men in certain circumstances to save life or
perform other important service. But no one would
dream of arguing that because a man possessed this
gift, he was therefore a better man than his less endur-
ing friend. Unfortunately, so simple a distinction has
not been kept in view. In the most powerful Church
in the world celibacy is regarded as a virtue in itself,
so that men with no natural gift for it have been
encouraged to aim at it, with what results we need not
say.

But while there is no virtue in remaining unmarried,
there is virtue in remaining unmarried for the sake of
serving Christ better. Some persons are kept single
by mere selfishness; having been accustomed to orderly
and quiet ways, they shrink from having their personal
peace broken in upon by the claims of children. Some
shrink from being tied down to any definite settlement
in life ; they like to feel unencumbered, .and free to
shift their tent at short notice. Some dread responsi-
bility and the little and great anxieties of family life.
A few have the feeling of the miser, and prefer the
possibility of many conceivable marriages to the actual-
ity of one. For such persons to make a virtue of their
celibacy is absurd. But all honour to those who
recognise that they are called to some duty they could
not discharge if married ! All honour to that eldest son
of an orphaned family who sees that it is not for him
to please himself, but to work for those who have none
to look to but him ! There are here and there persons
who from the highest motives decline marriage :
persons conscious of some hereditary weakness, pny-

vii. 1-40.] MARRIAGE. 1 73

sical or mental ; persons who, on a deliberate survey of
human life, have seemed to themselves to recognise
that they are called to a kind of service with which
marriage is incompatible. We may be thankful that
in our own country and time there are men and women
of sufficiently heroic mould to exemplify the wisdom of
the Apostle's counsel. Such devotion is not for every
one. There are persons of a soft and domestic tempera-
ment who need the supports and comforts of home-life,
and nothing can be more cruel and ill-advised than to
encourage such persons to turn their life into a channel
in which it was never intended to run. But it is equally
to be lamented that, where there are women quite
capable of a life of self-devotion to some noble work,
they should be discouraged from such a life by the false,
and foolish, and petty notions of society, and should be
taught to believe that the only way in which they can
serve their Lord is by caring for the affairs of a single
household. No calling is nobler or more worthy of
a Christian woman than marriage ; but it is not the
only calling. There are other callings as noble, and
there are callings in which many women will find a
much wider field for doing good.

II. St. Paul's counsel to the married. Some of the
Corinthians seem to have thought that, because they
were new creatures in Christ, their old relations should
be abandoned ; and they put to Paul the question
whether a believing man who had an unbelieving wife
ought not to forsake her. Paul had shrewdness enough
to see that if a Christian might separate from an unbe-
lieving wife on the sole ground that he was a Christian,
this easy mode of divorce might lead to a laige and
most unwelcome influx of pretended Christians into the
• Church. Me therefore lays down the law that the

174 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

power of separation is to rest with the unbelieving,
and not with the believing, partner. If the unbeliev-
ing wife wishes to separate from her Christian husband,
let her do so ; but the change from heathenism to
Christianity was no reason for sundering the marriage
union. It frequently happened in the early ages of the
Church that when a man was converted to the Christian
faith in middle life, and judged he could serve God
better without the encumbrance of a family, he forscok
his wife and children and betook himself to a monastery.
This directly contravened the law here laid down to
abide in the vocation wherein God's call had found
him.

The principle, " Let every man abide in the same
calling wherein he was called," is of wide application.
The slave who heard God's call to him to become His
child was not to think he must resent being a slave
and assert his Christian liberty by requiring emancipa-
tion from earthly servitude. On the contrary, he must
be content with the inward possession of the freedom
Christ had given him, and must show his liberty by
the willingness and spontaneity of his submission to
all his outward conditions. It_js_not externals.. thai
make a Christian ; and if God's grace has found a man
in unlikely circumstances, that is the best evidence he
can have that he will find opportunity of serving God
in those circumstances, if there be no sin in them. It
throws great light on the relation which we as Christians
hold to the institutions of our country, and generally to
outward things, when wTe understand that Christianity
does not begin by making external changes, but begins
within and gradually finds its way outwards, modifying
and rectifying all it meets.

But the principle to which Paul chiefly trusts, he

vii. i--o.1 MAR RI ACE. 175

enounces in the twenty-ninth verse: "This I say,
brethren, the time is short : it remaineth that both
they that have wives be as though they had none, and
they that weep as though they wept not ; ... for the
fashion of this world passeth away." The forms in
which human life is now moulded, the kind of business
we are now engaged in, the pleasures we enjoy, even
the relationships we hold to one another, pass away.
There are no doubt relationships which time cannot
dissolve, marriages so fit and uniting spirits so
essentially kindred that no change can dissolve them,
affections so pure and clinging that if the future does
not renew them, it loses a large part of its charm for
us. But whatever is temporary in our relation to the
present world it is foolish so to set our heart on, that
death may seem to end all our joy and all our useful-
ness. We may resent being asked to be moderate
and self-restrained in our devotedness to this or that
pursuit, but the fact is that the time is short and that
the fashion of this world passeth away ; and it is surely
the part of wisdom to accommodate one's self to fact.
In this life we now lead, and underneath all its activities,
and forms, and relationships, we have opportunity of
laying hold on what is permanent; and if, instead of
penetrating through the outward things to the eternal
significance and relations they bear, we give ourselves
wholly to them, we abuse the world, and pervert it to
an end for which it wTas not intended. The man who
is sent abroad for five years would consider it folly to
accumulate a large collection of the luxuries of life,
furniture, and paintings, and encumbrances ; how many
times five years do we expect to live, that we should
be much concerned to amass goods which we cannot
remove to another world ? This world is a means,

176 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and not an end ; and those use it best who use it in
relation to what is to be. They use it not less vigor-
ously, but more wisely, not despising the mould which
fashions them to their eternal form, but ever bearing
in mind that the mould is to be broken and that what
is fashioned by it alone remains. It is the thought of
our great future which alone gives us sufficient courage
and wisdom to deal with present things intensely and
in earnest. For, as a heathen long ago saw and said,
" if God make so much of creatures in whom there is
nothing permanent, He is like women who sow the
seeds of plants within the soil enclosed in an oyster-
shell." The very intensity of our interests and affections
reminds us that we cannot root ourselves in this present
life, but need a larger room.

EJBERTY AND LOV£.

"Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all
have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And
if any man think that he kuoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet
as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known
of him. As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are
offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in
the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though
there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as
there be gods many, and lords many,) but to us there is but one God,
the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him ; and one Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. Howbeit
there is not in every man that knowledge : for some with conscience
of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol ;
and their conscience being weak is defiled. But meat commendeth
us not to God : for neither, if we eat, are we the better ; neither, if
we eat not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means
this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are
weak. For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat
in the idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him which is w7eak
be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; and
through thy knowledge shall tne weak brother perish, for whom
Christ died ? But wnen ye sin so against tr«? brethren, and wound
their weak conscience, ye sin against Chnsc. Wherefore, if meat
make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world
standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." — I Cor. viii. I — 13.

"All things are lawful forme, but all things are not expedient: all
things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man- seek
his own, but every man another's wealth. Whatsoever is sold in
the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience' sake : for
the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. If any of them that
believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go ; whatsoever
is set before ycu, eat, asking no question for conscience' sake. But 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 : for the
earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof: conscience, I say, not
thine own, but of the other : for why is my liberty judged of another
man's conscience ? For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil
spoken of for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye
eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 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 man}-, that they may be saved. Be
ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." — 1 Cor. x. 23-xi. 1.

XII.

LIBERTY AND LOVE.

*n| 'HE next question which had been put to Paul
JL by the Corinthian Church, and to which he now
repl , s, is " touching things offered unto idols/' whether
a Christian had liberty to eat such things or not. This
question necessarily arose in a society partly heathen
and partly Christian. Every meal was in a manner
dedicated to the household gods by laying some
portion of it on the family altar. Where one member of
a heathen family had become a Christian, he would at
once be co .fronted with the question, rising in his own
conscience, whether by partaking of such food he might
not be countenancing idolatry. On the occasion of
a birthday, cr a marriage, or a safe return from sea,
or any circumstance that seemed to call for celebration,
it was customary to sacrifice in some public temple.
And after the legs of the victim, enclosed in fat, and the
entrails had been burnt on the altar, the worshipper
received the remainder, and invited his friends and
guests to partake of it either in the temple itself, or in
the surrounding grove, or at his own home. Here
again a young convert might very naturally ask himself
whether he was justified in attending such a feast and
actually sitting down to meat in the idol's presence.
Nor was it only personal friendships and the harmony
of family life that were threatened ; but on public

i8o THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

occasions and national celebrations the Christian was
in a strait betwixt two ; fearful, on the one hand, of
branding himself as no good citizen by abstaining from
participation in the feast, fearful, on the other hand, lest
by compliance he should be found unfaithful to his new
religion. And even though his own family was entirely
Christian, the difficulty was not removed, for much
of the meat offered in worship found its way into the
common market, so that at every meal the Christian
ran the risk of eating things sacrificed to idols.

Among the Jews it had always been considered
pollution to eat such food. Instances are on record
of men dying cheerfully rather than suffer such con-
tamination. Few Jewish Christians could rise to the
height of our Lord's maxim, "Not that which goeth into
a man defileth him." The Gentile converts also felt
the difficulty of at once throwing off all the old
associations. When they entered the temple where
but a few months ago they had worshipped, the
atmosphere of the place intoxicated them ; and the long-
accustomed sights quickened their pulse and exposed
them to serious temptation. Others, less sensitive, could
use the temple as they wTould an ordinary eating-house,
without the slightest stirring of idolatrous feeling.
Some went to the houses of heathen friends as often
as they w^re invited, and partook of what was set
before them, making no minute inquiries as to how the
meat had been provided, asking no questions for con-
science' sake, but believing that the earth and its fulness
were the Lord's, and that what they ate they received
from God, and not from an idol. Others, again, could
not shake off the feeling that they were countenancing
idolatry when they partook of such feasts. Thus there
arose a diversity of judgment and a variance in practice

viii. i-i3;x.23-xi. I.] LIBERTY AND LOVE. 181

which must have given rise to much annoyance, and
which did not appear to be approaching any nearer to
a final and satisfactory settlement.

In answer to the appeal made to him on this subject,
it might seem that Paul had nothing to do but quote
the deliverance of the Council of Jerusalem, which
determined that Gentile converts should be commanded
to abstain from meats offered to idols. Paul himself
had obtained that deliverance, and was satisfied with
it ; but now he makes no reference to it, and treats
the question afresh. In the epistles of the Lord
to the Churches, embodied in the Book of Revelation,
the eating of things sacrificed to idols is spoken of in
strongly condemnatory language; and in one of the
very earliest non-canonical documents of the primitive
Church we find the precept, u Abstain carefully from
things offered to idols, for that is worship of dead
gods." Paul's disregard of the decision of the Council
is probably due to his belief that that decision was
merely provisional and temporary. He had founded
Churches which could scarcely be expected to go past
himself for guidance ; and as the situation in the
Corinthian Church was different from what it had been
in Antioch, he felt justified in treating the matter afresh.
And while in the early Church the partaking of
sacrificial food which Paul allowed was sometimes
vehemently condemned, this was due to the circumstance
that it was sometimes used as a test of a man's
abandonment of idolatry. Of course where this was
the case no Christian could possibly be in doubt
regarding the proper course to follow. What a man
may freely do in ordinary circumstances, he may not
do if he is warned that certain inferences will be drawn
from his action.

i82 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

The case laid before Paul then belongs to the class
known as matters morally indifferent. These are
matters upon which conscience does not uniformly give
the same verdict even among persons brought up under
the same moral law. On mingling with society, every
one finds that there are many points of conduct
regarding which there is not an unanimous consent of
judgment among the most delicately conscientious
people, and upon which it is difficult to decide even
when we are anxious to do right. Such points are the
lawfulness of attending certain places of public amuse-
ment, the propriety of allowing one's self to be implicated
in certain kinds of private amusements or entertain-
ments, the way of spending Sunday, and the amount
of pleasure, refinement, and luxury one may admit into
his life.

The state of feeling produced in Corinth by the dis-
cussion of such topics is apparent from Paul's mode of
treating the question put to him. His answer is ad-
dressed to the party who claimed superior knowledge,
who wished to be known as the party which stood for
liberty of conscience, and probably for the Pauline
axiom, u All things are lawful for me." Paul does not
directly address those who had scruples about eating,
but those who had none. He does not speak to, but
only of, the " weak " brethren who bad still conscience
of the idol. And apparently a good deal of ill-feeling
had been engendered in the Corinthian Church by the
different views taken. This is always the trouble in
connection with morally indifferent matters. They do
little harm if each holds his own opinion genially and
endeavours to influence others by a friendly statement
of his own practice and the grounds of it. But in
most instances it happens as in Corinth : those who

viii. 1-13; x. 23-xi. 1] LIBERTY AND LOVE. 183

saw that they could eat without contamination scorned
those who had scruples ; while, on their side, the
scrupulous judged the eaters to be worldly time-servers,
in a perilous state, less godly and consistent than
themselves.

As a first step towards the settlement of this matter,
Paul makes the largest concession to the party of
liberty. Their clear perception that an idol was nothing
in the world, a mere bit of timber, and of no more
significance to a Christian than a pillar or a doorpost
— this knowledge is sound and commendable. At the
same time, they need not make quite so much of it as
they were doing. In their letter of inquiry they must
have emphasized the fact that they were the party of
enlightenment, who saw things as they really were, and
had freed themselves from fantastic superstitions and
antiquated ideas. Quite true, says Paul, " we all have
knowledge ;" but you need not remind me at every turn of
your superior discernment of the Christian's true position
nor of your wonderfully sagacious discovery that an
idol is nothing in the world. Any Jewish schoolboy
could have told you this. I know that you understand
the principles which should regulate your intercourse
with the heathen much better than the scrupulous do,
and that your views of liberty are my own. Let us
then hear no more of this. Do not always be returning
upon this, as if this settled the whole matter. You
are in the right so far as regards knowledge, and
your brethren are weak ; let that be conceded : but
do not suppose you settle the question or impress me
more strongly with the righteousness of your conduct
by reiterating that you, whom your brethren call lax
and misguided, are better instructed in the principle of
Christian conduct than they. Once for all, I know this.

1 84 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Does this then not settle the question ? If — the party
of liberty might say — if we are right, if the idol is
nothing, and an idol's temple no more than an ordinary
dining-room, does this not settle the whole matter ?
By no means, says Paul. " Knowledge puffeth up,
but charity edifieth." You have as yet grasped only
one end, and that the weaker end, of the Christian rule.
You must add love, consideration of your neighbour,
to your knowledge. Without this, knowledge is un-
wholesome and as likely to do harm as to do good.
In very similar terms the founder of the Positive philo-
sophy speaks of the evil results of loveless knowledge.
11 1 am free to confess," he says, " that hitherto the
Positive spirit has been tainted with the two moral
evils which peculiarly wait on knowledge. It puffs up,
and it dries the heart, by giving free scope to pride
and by turning it from love.,, It is indeed matter of
everyday observation that men of ready insight into
moral and spiritual truth are prone to despise the less
enlightened spirits that stumble among the scruples
which, like the bats of the moral twilight, fly in their
faces. The knowledge which is not tempered by
humility and love does harm both to its possessor and
to other Christians ; it puffs up its possessor with scorn,
and it alienates and embitters the less enlightened.
Knowledge without love, knowledge which does not
take into consideration the difficulties and scruples of
brethren, cannot be admired or commended, for though
in itself a good thing and capable of being used for
the advancement of the Church, knowledge dissociated
from charity can do good neither to him who possesses
it nor to the Christian community. However the
possessors of such knowledge vaunt themselves as the
men of progress and the hope of the Church, it is not

viii. i-i3;x. 23-xi. 1.] LIBERTY AND LOVE. 185

by knowledge alone the Church can ever solidly grow.
Knowledge does produce an appearance of growth, a
puffing up, an unhealthy, morbid growth, a mushroom,
fungous growth ; but that which builds up the Church
stone by stone, a strong, enduring edifice, is love. It is
a good thing to have clear views of Christian liberty,
to have definite, firmly held ideas of Christian conduct,
to discard fretting scruples and idle superstitions ; add
love to this knowledge, exercise it in a tender, patient,
self-denying, considerate, loving way, and you edify
both yourself and the Church : but exercise it without
love, and you become a poor inflated creature, puffed
up with a noxious gas destructive of all higher life in
yourself and in others.

Paul's law then is that liberty must be tempered
by love ; that the individual must consider the society
of which he forms a part; and that, after his own
conscience is satisfied regarding the legitimacy of
certain actions, he must further consider how the
conscience of his neighbour will be affected if he uses
his liberty and does these actions. He must en-
deavour to keep step with the Christian community
of which he forms a part, and must beware of giving
offence to less enlightened persons by his freer con-
duct. He must consider not only whether he himself
can do this or that with a good conscience, but also
how the conscience of those who know what he does
will be affected by it.

Applying this law to the matter in hand, Paul
declares that, for his own part, he has no scruples
at all about meat. lt Meat commendeth us not to
God : for neither, if we eat, are we the better ; neither,
if we eat not, are we the worse." If therefore I had
to consult only my owTn conscience, the matter w7ould

186 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

admit of prompt and easy solution. I would as soon
eat in an idol's temple as anywhere else. But all
have not the conviction we have that an idol is
nothing in the world. Some are unable to rid them-
selves of the feeling that in eating sacrificial meat
they are paying an act of homage to the idol. " Some
with conscience of the idol/' with the feeling that the
idol is present and accepting the worship, ■* eat the
sacrificial meat as a thing offered unto an idol; and
their conscience being weak is defiled." Their con-
science is weak, not fully enlightened, not purged of old
superstition ; but their conscience is their conscience :
and if they feel they are doing a wrong thing and
yet do it, they do a wrong thing, and defile their
conscience. Therefore we must consider them as
well as ourselves, for as often as we use our liberty
and eat sacrificial meat we tempt them to do the
same, and so to defile their conscience. They know
that you are men of sound and clear spiritual discern-
ment ; they look up to you as guides : and if they see
you who have knowledge sitting at meat in the
idol's temple, must not they be emboldened to do
the same, and so to stain and harden their own con-
science ?

It is easy to imagine how this would be exempli-
fied at a Corinthian table. Three Christians are
invited, with other guests, to a party in the house
of a heathen friend. One of these invited Christians
is weakly scrupulous, unable to disentangle himself
from the old idolatrous associations connected with
sacrificial meat. The other two Christians are men
of ampler view and more enlightened conscience, and
have the deepest conviction that scruples about eating
at a heathen table are baseless. All three recline at

viii. i-i3;x.23-xi. I.] LIBERTY AND LOVE. 1S7

the table ; but, as the meal goes on, the anxious, scruti-
nizing eye of the weak brother discerns some mark
which identifies the meat as sacrificial, or, fearing
it may be so, he inquires of the servant, and finds it
has been offered in the temple : and at once he draws
the attention of his Christian friends to this, saying,
" This has been offered in sacrifice to idols." One
of his friends, knowing that heathen eyes are watching,
and wishing to show h°w superior to all such scruples
the enlightened Christian is and how genial and free
a religion is the religion of Christ, smiles at his
friend's scruples, and accepts the meat. The other,
quite as clear-sighted and free from superstition, but
more generous and more truly courageous, accom-
modates himself to the scruple of the weak brother,
and declines the dish, lest by eating and leaving the
scrupulous man without support he should tempt him
to follow their example, contrary to his own conviction,
and so lead him into sin. It need not be said which
of these men acts the friendly part and comes nearest
to the Christian principle of Paul.

In our own society similar cases necessarily arise.
I, as a Christian man, and knowing that the earth and
its fulness are the Lord's, may feel at perfect liberty to
drink wine. Had I only myself to consider, and know-
ing that my temptation does not lie that way, I might
use wine regularly or as often as I felt disposed to
enjoy a needed stimulant. I may feel quite convinced
in my own mind that morally I am not one w7hit the
worse of doing so. But I cannot determine whether
I am to indulge myself or not without considering the
effect my conduct will have on others. There may be
among my friends some who know that their temptation
does lie that wav, and whose conscience bids them

1 88 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

altogether refrain. If by my example such persons are
encouraged to silence the voice of their own conscience,
then I incur the incalculable guilt of helping to destroy
a brother for whom Christ died.

Or again, a lad has had the great good fortune to be
brought up in a Puritanic household, and has imbibed
stringent moral principles, with perhaps somewhat
narrow ideas. He has been taught, together with much
else of the same character, that the influence of the
theatre is in our country demoralizing, that one day in
the week is little enough to give to the claims of
spiritual education, and so forth. But on entering the
life of a great city he is soon brought in contact with
men whose uprightness, and sagacity, and Christian
spirit he cannot but respect, but who yet read their
weekly paper, or any book they are interested in, as
freely on Sunday as on Saturday, and who visit the
theatre without the slightest twinge of conscience. Now
either of two things will probably happen in such a
case. The young man's ideas of Christian liberty may
become clearer. He may attain the standpoint of
Paul, and may see that fellowship with Christ can be
maintained in conditions of life he once absolutely con-
demned. Or the young man may not grow in Christian
perception, but being daunted by overpowering example,
and chafing under the raillery of his companions, may
do as others do, though still uneasy in his own
conscience.

What is to be observed about this process, which is
ceaselessly going on in society, is that the emboldening
of conscience is one thing, its enlightenment quite
another. And were it possible to get statistics of the
proportion of cases in which the one process goes on
without the other, these statistics might be salutary.

viii. 1-13; x. 23-xi. i.J LIBERTY AND LOVE. 189

But we need no statistics to assure us that Christian
people by selfishly using their own liberty do continually
lead less enlightened persons to trample on their scruples
and disregard their own conscience. Constantly it
happens in every department of human life that men
who once shrank from certain practices as wrong now
freely engage in them, although they are not in their
own mind any more clearly convinced of their legitimacy
than they were before, but are merely emboldened by
the example of others. Such persons, if possessed
of any self-observation and candour, will tell you that
at first they felt as if they were stealing the indulgence
or the gain the practice brings, and that they had
to drown the voice of conscience by the louder voice of
example.

The results of this are disastrous. Conscience is
dethroned. The ship no longer obeys her helm, and
lies in the trough of the sea swept by every wave and
driven by every wind. It may indeed be said, What
harm can come of persons less enlightened being
emboldened to do as we do if what we do is right ?
Is not that, most strictly speaking, edification ? It is
not as if we emboldened any one to transgress the
moral law ; we are merely bringing our weak brother's
conduct up to the level of our own. Do we not act
wisely and well in so doing? Again it must be
answered, No, because, while yielding themselves to
the influence of your example, these persons abandon
the guidance of their own conscience, which may be a
less enlightened, but is certainly a more authoritative,
guide than you. If the weak brother does a right
thing while his conscience tells him it is a wrong thing,
to him it is a wrong thing. " Whatsoever is not of
faith is sin ; w that is to say, whatsoever is not dictated

190 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

by a thorough conviction that it is right is sin. It is
sin which in some respects is more dangerous than
a sin of passion or impulse. By a sin of passion the
conscience is not directly injured, and may remain
comparatively tender and healthy ; but when you refuse
to acknowledge conscience as your guide and accept
some other person's conduct as that which may dictate
to you what you may or may not do, you dethrone
conscience, and sap your moral nature. You shut your
own eyes, and prefer to be led bykihe hand of another
person, which may indeed serve you on this occasion ;
but the end will be a dog and a string.

Two permanent lessons are preserved in this
exposition which Paul gives of the matter laid before
him. The first is the sacredness or supremacy of
conscience. " Let every man be fully persuaded in his
own mind;" that is the one legitimate source of conduct.
A man may possibly do a wrong thing when he obeys
conscience; he is certainly wrong when he acts contrary
to conscience. He may be helped to a decision by the
advice of others, but it is his own decision by which
he must abide. He must act, not on the conviction of
others, but on his own. It is what he himself sees that
must guide him. He is bound to use every means to
enlighten his conscience and to learn with accuracy
what is right and allowable, but he is also bound
always to act upon his own present perception of what
is right. His conscience may not be as enlightened
as it ought to be. Still his duty is to enlighten, not to
violate, it. It is the guide God has given us, and we
must not choose another.

The second lesson is that w7e must ever use our
Christian liberty with Christian consideration of others.
Love must mingle with all we do. There are many

viii. I-V3 ; x. 23-xi. 1.] • LIBERTY AND LOVE. 191

things which are lawful for a Christian, but which are
not compulsory or obligatory, and which he may refrain
from doing on cause shown. Duties he must of course
discharge, regardless of the effect his conduct may have
on others. He may be quite sure he will be misunder-
stood ; he may be sure evil motives will be imputed
to him ; he may be sure disastrous consequences will
be the first result of his action ; but if conscience
says this or that must be done, then all thought of
consequences must be thrown to the winds. But where
conscience says, not " You must," but only " You may,"
then we must consider the effect our using our liberty
will have on others. "We lie as Christians under an
obligation to consider others, to lay aside all pride of
advanced ideas, and this not merely that we may
submit ourselves to those who know better than we,
but that we may not offend those who are bound by
prejudices of which we are rid. We must limit our
liberty by the scrupulosity of prejudiced, narrow-minded,
weak people. We must forego our liberty to do this
or that if by doing it we should shock or disturb a
weak brother or encourage him to overstep his con-
science. As the Arctic voyager who has been frozen up
all winter does not seize the first opportunity to escape,
but waits till his weaker companions gain strength
enough to accompany him, so must the Christian
accommodate himself to the weaknesses of others, lest
by using his liberty he should injure him for whom
Christ died. Never was there a man who more fully
understood the freedom of the Christian position than
Paul; no man was ever more entirely lifted out of the
mist of superstition and formalism into the clear light
of free, eternal life : but with this freedom he carried
a sympathy with weak and entangled beginners which

IQ2 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

prompted him to exclaim, " If meat make my brother
to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth,
lest I make my brother to offend."

Our conduct must be limited and to a certain extent
regulated by the narrowT-mindedness, the scruples, the
prejudices, the weakness in short, of others. We
cannot say, I see my way to do so-and-so, let my
friend think what he pleases; I am not to be trammelled
by his superstition or ignorance ; let my conduct have
what effect it will on him ; I am not responsible for
that ; if he does not see it to be right, I do, and I will
act accordingly. We cannot speak thus if the matter
be indifferent ; if it be a matter we can lawfully abstain
from, then abstain we must if we would follow the
Apostle who followed Christ. This is the practical
law which stands in the forefront of Christ's teaching
and was sealed by every day of His life. It is enounced
not only by St. Paul : " Destroy not him wii.li thy
meat for whom Christ died;" "Through thy knowledge
shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died,"
but also in our Lord's still more emphatic words,
" Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which
believe in Me, it w7ere better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned
in the depth of the sea." Paul could not look on his
weak brethren as narrow-minded bigots, could not call
them hard names and ride roujdi-shod over their

scruples ; and to this delicate consideration he was
aided by the remembrance that these were the persons
for whom Christ died. For them Christ sacrificed, not
merely a little feeling or a little of His own way, but
I lis owTn will and self entirely. And the spirit of Christ
is still manifested in all in whom He dwells, specially
in a humility and yieldingness of disposition which is

viii. l-i3;x.23-xi. I.] LIBERTY AND LOVE. 193

not led by self-interest or self-complacency, but seeks
the weal of other men. Nothing shows us more
distinctly the thorough manner in which St. Paul
partook of the spirit of Christ than his ability to say,
" I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own
profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ"

MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY.

* Am I not an apostle ? am I not free ? have I not seen Jesus
Christ our Lord ? are not ye my work in the Lord ? If I be not an
apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you : for the seal ot mine
apostleship are ye in the Lord. Mine answer to them that do
examine me is this, Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have
we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other Apostles,
and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and
Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? Who goeth a
warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vine}rard, and
eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth
not of the milk of the flock ? Say I these things as a man ? or saith
not the Law the same also ? For it is written in the law of Moses,
Thou shalt not muzzle'the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.
Doth God take care for oxen ? Or saith He it altogether for our
sakes ? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written : that he that
ploweth should plow in hope ; and that he that thresheth in hope
should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual
things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things ? If
others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather ?
Nevertheless we have not used this power ; but suffer all things, lest
we should hinder the Gospel of Christ. Do ye not knew that they
which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple ?
and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar ? Even
so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should
live of the Gospel. But I have used none of these things : neither
have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me : for
it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my
glorying void. For though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to
glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I
preach not the Gospel ! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a
reward : but if against my will, a dispensation of the Gospel is
committed unto me. What is my reward then ? Verily that, when
I preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel of Christ without charge,
that I abuse not my power in the Gospel. For though I be free from
all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain
the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain
the Jews ; to them that are under the Law, as under the Law, that I
might gain them that are under the Law ; to them that are without law,
as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the Law
to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak
became I as weak, that I might gain the weak : I am made all things
to all men, that I might by all means save some." — I Cor. ix. 1-22.

CHAPTER XIII.

MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY,

IN the preceding chapter Paul has disposed of the
question put to him regarding meats offered in
sacrifice to idols. Pie has taken occasion to point out
that in matters morally indifferent Christian men will
consider the scruples of weak, and prejudiced, and
superstitious people. He has inculcated the duty of
accommodating ourselves to the consciences of less
enlightened persons, if we can do so without violating
our own. For his own part, he is prepared, while the
world standeth, to abridge his Christian liberty, if by
his using that liberty he may imperil the conscience
of any weak brother. But keeping pace, as Paul
always does, with the thought of those he writes to,
he no sooner makes this emphatic statement than it
occurs to him that those in Corinth who are ill-affected
towards him will make a handle even of his self-denial,
and will whisper or boldly declare that it is all very
fine for Paul to use this language, but that, in point
of fact, the precarious position he holds in the Church
makes it incumbent on him to deny himself and become
all things to all men. His apostleship stands on so
insecure a basis that he has no option in the matter,
but must curry favour with all parties. He is not on
the same platform as the original Apostles, who may
reasonably stand upon their apostleship, and claim

198 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

exemption from manual labour, and demand mainte-
nance both for themselves and their wives. Paul
remains unmarried, and works with his hands to
support himself, and makes himself weak among the
weak, because he has no claim to maintenance and is
aware that his apostleship is doubtful. He proceeds
therefore, with some pardonable warmth and righteous
indignation, to assert his freedom and apostleship (vers.
1, 2), and to prove his right to the same privileges
and maintenance as the other Apostles (3 — 14); and
then from the fifteenth to the eighteenth verse he gives
the true reason for his foregoing his rightful claim ; and
in vers. 19 — 22 he reaffirms the principle on which
he uniformly acted, becoming " all things to all men,"
suiting himself to the innocent prejudices and weak-
nesses of all, " that he might by all means save some."

Paul then had certain rights which he was resolved
should be acknowledged, although he waived them.
He maintains that if he saw fit, he might require the
Church to maintain him, and to maintain him not
merely in the bare way in which he was content to
live, but to furnish him with the ordinary comforts of
life. He might, for example, he says, require the
Church to enable him to keep a wife and to pay
not only his own, but her, travelling expenses. The
other Apostles apparently took their wives with them
on their apostolic journeys, and may have found them
useful in gaining access for the Gospel to the secluded
women of Eastern and Greek cities. He might also,
he says, " forbear working ; " might cease, that is to
say, from his tent-making and look to his converts for
support. He is indignant at the sordid, or malicious,
or mistaken spirit which could deny him such support.

This claim to support and privilege Paul rests on

ix. .1-22.] MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY. 199

several grounds. I. He is an apostle, and the other
Apostles enjoyed these privileges. " Have we not
power to take with us a Christian woman as a wife, as
well as other Apostles ? . . . Or I only and Barnabas,
have not we power to forbear working ? n His proof
of his apostleship is summary: "Have I not seen Jesus
Christ our Lord ? are not ye my work in the Lord ? •'
No one could be an apostle who had not seen Jesus
Christ after His resurrection. The Apostles were to be
witnesses to the Resurrection, and were qualified to be
so by seeing the Lord alive after death. But it seems
to have been commonly urged against Paul that he had
not been among those to whom Christ showed Him-
self after He rose from the dead. Paul therefore
both in his reported speeches and in his letters insists
upon the fact that on the way to Damascus he had
seen the risen Lord.

But not every one who had seen the Lord after His
resurrection was an apostle, but those only who by
Him were commissioned to witness to it; and that
Paul had been thus commissioned he thinks the Corin-
thians may conclude from the results among themselves
of his preaching. The Church at Corinth was the seal
of his apostleship. What wras the use of quibbling
about the time and manner of his ordination, when the
reality and success of his apostolic work were so
apparent ? The Lord had acknowledged his work. In
presence of the finished structure that draws the world
to gaze, it is too late to ask if he who built it is an
architect. Would that every minister could so prove
the validity of his orders !

2. Paul maintains his right to support on the
principle of remuneration everywhere observed in human
affairs. The soldier does not go to war at his own

200 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

expense, but expects to be equipped and maintained
in efficiency by those for whom he fights. The vine-
dresser, the shepherd, every labourer, expects, and is
certainly warranted in expecting, that the toil he
expends will at least have the result of keeping him
comfortably in life. However difficult it is to lay down
an absolute law of wrages, this may at least be affirmed
as a natural principle : that labour of all kinds must
be so paid as to maintain the labourer in life and
efficiency ; and it may be added that there are certain
inalienable human rights, such as the right to bring
up a family the members of which shall be useful and
not burdensome to society, the right to some reserve
of leisure and of strength which the labourer may use
for his own enjoyment and advantage, which rights
will be admitted and provided for when out of the
confused w7ar of theories, and strikes, and competition
a just law of wages has been won. Happily no one now
needs to be told that one of the most striking results
of our modern civilisation is that the nineteenth
century labourer has less of the joy of life than the
ancient slave, and that we have forgotten the funda-
mental law that the husbandman that laboureth must
be first partaker of the fruits.

And lest any one should sanctimoniously or ignor-
antly say, M These secular principles have no applica-
tion to sacred things," Paul anticipates the objection,
and dismisses it : " Say I these things as a man ? or
saith not the Law the same also ? " I am not introduc-
ing into a sacred region principles wrhich rule only in
secular matters. Dees not the Law say, " Thou shalt
not muzzle the ox that treadah out the corn " ? It must
be allowed to live by its labour. As it threshes out
the wheat, it must be allowed to feed itself, mouthful

ix. 1-22.] MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY. 201

by mouthful, as it goes on with its work. And this
was not said in the Law because God had any special
care for oxen, but in order to give expression to the
Jaw which must regulate the connection between all
labourers and their work that he that plougheth may
plough in hope, may have a personal interest in his work,
and may give himself ungrudgingly to it, assured that
he himself will be the first to benefit by it.

This law that a man shall live by his labour is a
two-edged law. If a man produce what the community
needs, he should himself profit by the production ; but,
on the other hand, if a man will not work, neither should
he eat. Only the man who produces what other men
need, only the man who by his industry or capability
contributes to the good of the community, has any right
to profits. Quick and easy manipulations of money,
shrewd and risky dexterities which yield no real benefit
to the community, deserve no remuneration. It is a
blind, sordid, and contemptible spirit that hastes
to be rich by one or two successful transactions that
profit no one. A man should be content to live on
what he is worth to the community. Here also our
minds are often confused by the complexities of
business ; but on that account it is all the more
necessary that we firmly adhere to the few essential
canons, such as that "trading ceases to be just when
it ceases to benefit both parties," or that a man's wealth
should truly represent his value to society. Conscience
enlightened by allegiance to the Spirit of Christ is a
much more satisfactory guide for the individual in trade,
speculation, and investment than any trade customs
or economic theories.

3. A third ground on which Paul rests his claim
to be supported by the Church is ordinary gratitude:

202 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

" If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a
great thing if we shall reap }'our carnal things ? ' '
Some of the Churches founded by Paul spontaneously
acknowledged this claim, and wished to free him from
the necessity of labouring for his own support. They
felt that the benefit they had derived from him could
not be stated in terms of money ; but prompted by
irrepressible gratitude, they could not but seek to
relieve him from manual labour and set him free for
higher work. This method of gauging the amount of
spiritual benefit absorbed, by its overflow in material
aid given to the propagation of the Gospel would, I
daresay, scarcely be relished by that monstrous
development the niggardly Christian.

4. Lastly, Paul argues from the Levitical usage to
the Christian. Both in heathen countries and among
the Jews it was customary that they who ministered
in holy things should live by the offerings of the
people to the temple. Levites and priests alike
had been thus maintained among the Jews. " Even
so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach
the Gospel should live of the Gospel." Were there
no recorded command of the Lord to this effect,
we might suppose Paul merely argued that this was
the Lord's will ; but among the original instructions
given to the seventy who were first sent to preach
the kingdom of heaven, we find this : " Into what-
soever house ye enter, there remain, eating and
drinking such things as they give, for the labourer
is worthy of his hire."

That evils may result from the existence of a paid
ministry no one will be disposed to deny. Some of
the most disastrous abuses in the Church of Christ,
as well as some of the gravest political troubles, could

ix. 1-22.] MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY. 203

never have arisen had there been no desirable benefices.
Lucrative ecclesiastical posts and offices have neces-
sarily excited the avarice of unworthy aspirants, and
have weakened instead of strengthening the Church's
influence. Many wealthy ecclesiastics have done
nothing for the benefit of the people, whereas many
laymen by their unpaid devotedness have done much.
In view of these and other evils, it cannot surprise
us to find that again and again it has occurred to
good men to suppose that on the whole Christianity
might be more effectively propagated were there no
separate class of men set apart to this work as their
sole occupation. But this idea is reactionary and
extreme, and is condemned both by common-sense
and by the express declarations of our Lord and
His Apostles. If the work of the ministry is to be
thoroughly done, men must give their whole time
to it. Like every other professional work, it will
often be done inadequately ; and I daresay there
is much in our methods which is unwise and suscep-
tible of improvement : but the ministry keeps pace
with the general intelligence of the country, and may
be trusted to adapt its methods, even though too
tardily for some ardent spirits, to the actual necessities.
And if men give their whole time to the work, they
must be paid for it, a circumstance which is not likely
to lead to much evil in our own country so long as
the great mass of ministers are paid as they presently
are. It is hardly the profession which is likely to
be chosen by any one who is anxious to coin his
life into money. If the laity consider that covetous-
ness is more unseemly in a Christian minister than
in a Christian man, they have taken an effectual
means of barring out that vice.

204 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Paul felt himself the more free to urge these claims
because his custom was to forego them all in his own
case. " I have used none of these things : neither have
I written these things, that it should be so done unto
me ; for it were better for me to die, than that any man
should make my glorying void." Here again we come
upon the sound judgment and honest heart that are
never biassed by his own personal circumstances or
insist that what is fit for him is fit for every one.
How apt are self-denying men to spoil their self-denial
by dropping a sneer at the weaker souls that cannot
follow their heroic example. How ready are men who
can live on little and accomplish much to leave the less
robust Christians to justify on their own account their
need of human comforts. Not so Paul. He first fights
the battle of the weak for them, and then disclaims
all participation in the spoils. What a nobility and
sagacity in the man who himself would accept no
remuneration for his work, and who yet, so far from
thinking slightingly of those who did or even being
indifferent to them, argues their case for them with an
authoritative force they did not themselves possess !

Nor does he consider that his self-denial is at all
meritorious. He has no desire to signalize himself
as more disinterested than other men. On the contrary,
he strives to make it appear as if this course were
compulsory and as if no choice were left to him. His
fear was that if he took remuneration, he " should hinder
the Gospel of Christ." Some of the best incomes in
Greece in Paul's day were made by clever lecturers
and talkers, who attracted disciples, and initiated them
into their doctrines and methods. Paul was resolved
he should never be mistaken for one of these. And
no doubt his success was partly due to the fact that

ix.i-22.] MAINTENANCE OF THE .MINISTRY. 205

men recognised that his teaching was a labour of love,
and that he was impelled by the truth and importance
of his message. Every man finds an audience who is
inwardly impelled to speak ; who speaks, not because
he is paid for doing so, but because there is that in
him which must find utterance.

This, says Paul, was his case. "Though I preach
the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of : for necessity
is laid upon me ; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not
the Gospel ! n His call to the ministry had been so
exceptional, and had so distinctly and emphatically
declared the grace and purpose of Christ, that he felt
bound by all that can constrain a man to the devoted-
ness of a lifetime; Paul felt what we now so clearly
see : that on him lay the gravest responsibilities. Had
he declined to preach, had he complained of bad usage,
and stipulated for higher terms, and withdrawn from
the active propagation of Christianity, who would or
could have taken up the task he laid down ? But while
Paul could not but be conscious of his importance to
the cause of Christ, he would arrogate to himself no
credit on account of his arduous toil, for from this,
he says, he could not escape ; necessity was laid upon
him. Whether he does his work willingly or unwillingly,
still he must do it. He dare not flinch. If he does it
willingly, he has a reward ; if he does it unwillingly,
still he n entrusted with a stewardship he dare not
neglect. What then is the reward he has, giving
himself, as he certainly does, willingly to the work ?
His reward is that "when he preaches the Gospel he
makes the Gospel of Christ without charge." The deep
satisfaction he felt in dissociating the Gospel of self-
sacrifice from every thought of money or remuneration
and in ottering it freely to the poorest as his Masters

206 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

fit representative was sufficient reward for him and
incalculably greater than any other he ever got or
could conceive.

In other words, Paul saw that however it might be
with other men, with him there was no alternative but
to preach the Gospel ; the only alternative was — was
he to do it as a slave entrusted with a stewardship, and
who was compelled, however reluctant he might be,
to be faithful, or was he to do it as a free man, with
his whole will and heart ? The reluctant slave could
expect no reward ; he was but fulfilling an obligatory,
inevitable duty. The free man might, however, expect
a reward ; and the reward Paul chose was that he
should have none — none in the ordinary sense, but
really the deepest and most abiding of all : the satis-
faction of knowing that, having freely received, he had
freely given, and had lifted the Gospel into a region
quite undimmed by the suspicion of self-seeking oj any
mists of worldliness.

In declining pecuniary remuneration, Paul was acting
on his general principle of making himself the servant
of all and of living entirely and exclusively for the good
of others. u Though I be free from all men, yet have
I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the
more." It was from Paul that Luther derived his two
propositions which he uttered as the keynote of the
resonant blast " on Christian Liberty " with which he
stirred all Europe into new life : " A Christian man
is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a
Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and
subject to every one." So Paul's independence of all
men was assumed and maintained for the very purpose
of making himself the more effectually the servant ol
all. To the jew and to those under the Law he became

.x. i-22.] MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY. 207

as a Jew, observing the seventh day, circumcising
Timothy, abstaining from blood, accommodating himself
to ah their scruples. To those who were without the
Law, and who had been brought up in Greece, he also
conformed himself, freely entering into their innocent
customs, calling no meats unclean, appealing, not to
the law of Moses, but to conscience, to common-sense,
to their own poets. " I am made all things to all men,
that I might by all means save some" — a course which
none but a man of wide sympathy and charity, clear
intellect, and thorough integrity can adopt.

For Paul was no mere latitudinarian. While accom-
modating himself to the practice of those around him
in all matters of mere outward observance, and which
did not touch the essentials of morality and faith, he
at the same time held very definite opinions on the
chief articles of the Christian creed. No amount of
liberality of sentiment can ever induce a thoughtful
man to discourage the formation of opinion on all
matters of importance. On the contrary, the only
escape from mere traditionalism or the tyranny of
authority in matters of religion is in individual inquiry
and ascertainment of the truth. Free inquiry is the
one instrument we possess for the discovery of truth ;
and by pursuing such inquiry men may be expected to
come to some agreement in religious belief, as in other
things. No doubt righteousness of life is better than
soundness of creed. But is it not possible to have
l.oth ? It is better to live in the Spirit, to be meek,
chaste, temperate, just, loving, than to understand the
relation of the Spirit to God and to ourselves ; but the
human mind can never cease to seek satisfaction : and
truth, the more clearly it is seen, will the more
effectually nourish righteousness.

203 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Again, Paul had an end in view which preserved his
liberality from degenerating. He sought to recommend
himself to men, not for his sake, but for theirs. He
saw that conscientious scruples were not to be con-
founded with malignant hatred of truth, and that if we
are to be helpful to others, we must begin by appreciat-
ing the good they already possess. Hostile criticism
or argument for the sake of victory produces no results
worth having. Vain exultation in the victors, obstinacy
and bitterness in the vanquished — these are worse than
useless, the retrograde results of unsympathetic argu-
ment. In order to remove a man's difficulties, you
must look at them from his point of view and feel the
pressure he feels. "The greatest orator save one of
antiquity has left it on record that he always studied
his adversary's case with as great, if not still greater,
intensity than even his own ;"1 and certainly those who
have not entered into the point of view of those who
differ from them are not likely to have anything of
importance to say to them. In order to " gain " men,
you must credit them with some desire to see the truth,
and you must have sympathy enough to see with their
eyes. Parents sometimes weaken their influence with
their children by inability to look at things with the
eyes of youth, and by an insistence upon the outward
expressions of religion which are distasteful to children
and suitable only for adults. Children have a high
esteem for justice and courage, and can respond to
exhibitions of self-sacrifice, and truth, and purity ; that
is to say, they have a capacity for admiring and
adopting the essentials of the Christian character, but
if we insist upon them exhibiting feelings which are

1 See Mill's Liberty, p. 21.

ix. 1-22.] MAINTENANCE OF THE MINISTRY. 209

alien to their nature and practices necessarily dis-
tasteful and futile, we are more likely to drive them
from religion than to attract them to it. Let us beware
of insisting on alterations in conduct where these are
not absolutely necessary. Let us beware of identifying
religion in the minds of the young with a rigid con-
formity in outward things, and not with an inward
spirit of love and goodness. Are you striving to gain
some ? Then let these words of the Apostle warn you
not to seek for the wrong thing, not to begin at the
wrong end, not to measure the hold which truth has
over those you seek to win, by the exactness with
which all your ideas are carried out and all your
customs observed. Human nature is an infinitely
various thing, and often there is the truest regard for
what is holy and Divine disguised under a violent
departure from all ordinary ways of manifesting
reverence and piety. Put yourself in the place of the
inquiring, perplexed, embittered soul, find out the
good that is in it, patiently accommodate youisell to
its ways so far as you legitimately ma,y, and ycu will
be rewarded by "gaining some."

N07 ALL WHO RUN WIN.

" And this I do foi the Gospel's sake, that I might be partaker
thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run
all, but one receiveth the prize ? So run, that ye may obtain. And
every man thaf. sfcriveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown : but we an incorrupt-
ible. I therefoic bo run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one
that beateth the air : but I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection : lest that by any means, when I have preached to others,
I myself should be a castaway." — I Cor. ix. 23*27.

XIV

NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN.

IN the preceding part of this chapter Paul has
proved his right to claim remuneration from those
to whom he preached the Gospel, and he has also given
his reasons for declining to urge this claim. He was
resolved that no one should have any ground for mis-
apprehending his motive in preaching the Gospel. He
wras quite content to live a bare, poor life, not merely
that he might keep himself above suspicion, but that
those wrho heard the Gospel might see it simply as the
Gospel and not be hindered from accepting it by any
thought of the preacher's motives. This was his main
reason for supporting himself by his own labour. But
he had another reason, namely, " that he might be
himself a partaker of the benefits he preached " (ver. 23).
Apostle though he was, he had his own salvation to
work out. He was not himself saved by proclaiming
salvation to others, no more than the baker is fed by
making bread for others or the physician kept in health
by prescribing for others. Paul had a life of his own
to lead, a duty of his own to discharge, a soul of his
own to save ; and he recognised that what was laid
before him as the path to salvation was to make himself
entirely the servant of others. This he was resolved
persistently to do, "lest that b}* any means, when he

214 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

had preached to others, he himself should be a cast-
away."

Paul had evidently felt this danger to be a serious
one. He had found himself tempted from time to time
to rest in the name and calling of an apostle, to take
for granted that his salvation was a thing past doubt
and on which no more thought or effort need be
expended. And he saw that in a slightly altered form
this temptation was common to all Christians. All
have the name, not all the reality. And the very
possession of the name is a temptation to forget the
realit}'. It might almost seem to be in the proportion
of runners to winners in a race : " All run, but one
receiveth the prize."

In endeavouring to warn Christians against resting
in a mere profession of faith in Christ, he cites two
great classes of instances which prove that there is
often ultimate failure even where there has been con-
siderable promise of success. First, he cites their own
world-renowned Isthmian games, in which contests, as
they all well knew, not every one who entered for the
prizes was successful : " All run, but one receiveth the
prize." Paul does not mean that salvation goes by
competition ; but he means that as in a race not all who
run run so as to obtain the prize for which they run,
so in the Christian life not ail who enter it put out
sufficient energy to bring them to a happy issue. The
mere fact of recognising that the prize is worth winning
and even of entering for it is not enough. And then
he cites another class of instances with which the Jews
in the Corinthian Church were familiar. "All our
fathers," he says, " were under the cloud, and all passed
through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in
the cloud and in the sea." All of them without exception

ix. 23-27.3 NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN. 215

enjoyed the outward privileges of God's people, and
seemed to be in a fair way of entering the promised
land ; and yet the majority of them fell under God's
displeasure, and were overthrown in the wilderness.
Therefore "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall."

The Isthmian games, then, one of the most ancient
glories of Corinth, furnished Paul with the readiest illus-
tration of his theme. These games, celebrated every
second year, had in ancient times been one of the chief
means of fostering the feeling of brotherhood in the
Hellenic race. None but Greeks of pure blood who
had done nothing to forfeit their citizenship were
allowed to contend in them. They were the greatest
of national gatherings ; and even when one State was at
war with another, hostilities were suspended during the
celebration of the games. And scarcely any greater
distinction could be earned by a Greek citizen than
victory in these games. When Paul says that the con-
tending athletes endured their severe training and
underwent all the privations necessary " to obtain a
corruptible crown," we must remember that while it is
quite true that the wreath of pine given to the victor
might fade before the year was out, he was welcomed
home with all the honours of a victorious general, the
wall of his town being thrown down that he might pass
in as a conqueror, and his statue being set up by his
fellow-citizens. In point of fact, the names and deeds
of many of the victors may yet be read in the verses of
one of the greatest of Greek poets, who devoted himself,
as laureate of the games, to the celebration of the
annual victories.

But however highly we raise the value of the Greek
crown the force of Paul's comparison remains. The

216 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

wreath of the victor in the games was at the best
corruptible, liable to decay. No permanent, eternal
satisfaction could result from being victorious in a
contest of physical strength, activity, or skill. But for
every man it is possible to win an incorruptible crown,
that which shall always and for ever be to him a joy as
thrilling and a distinction as honourable as at the
moment he received it. There is that which is worthy
of the determined and sustained effort of a lifetime.
Put into the one scale all perishable distinctions, and
honours, and prizes, all that has stimulated men to the
most strenuous endeavours, all that a grateful nation
bestows on its heroes and benefactors, all for which
men " scorn delights and live laborious days ; " and
all these kick the beam when you put in the other
scale the incorruptible crown. The two are not neces-
sarily opposed or incompatible ; but to choose the less in
preference to the greater is to repudiate our birthright.
As victory in the games was the actual incentive which
stimulated the youth of Greece to attain the perfection
of physical strength, beauty, and development, so there
is laid before us an incentive which, when clearly
apprehended, is sufficient to carry us forward to perfect
moral attainment. The brightest jewel in the incorrupt-
ible crown is the joy of having become all God made
us to become, of perfectly fulfilling the end of our
creation, of being able to find happiness in goodness, in
closest fellowship with God, in promoting what Christ
lived and died to promote. Must we say that there are
men who have no ambition to experience perfect recti-
tude and purity ? Are we to conclude that there are
men of so grovelling, besotted, and blind a spirit that
when opportunity is given them to win true glory,
perfect expansion and growth of spirit, and perfect joy

ix. 23.27.] NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN 217

they turn away to salaries and profits, to meat and
drink, to frivolity and the world's routine ? The incor-
ruptible crown is held over their head ; but so intent are
they on the muck-rake, they do not even see it.

To those who would win it Paul gives these direc-
tions : —

1. Be temperate. "Every man that striveth for the
mastery is temperate in all things." Contentedly and
without a murmur he submits himself to the rules and
restrictions of his ten months' training, without which
he may as well not compete. The little indulgences
which other men allow themselves he must forego.
Not once will he break the trainer's rules, for he knows
that some competitors will refrain even from that once
and gain strength while he is losing it. He is proud
of his little hardships, and fatigues, and privations, and
counts it a point of honour scrupulously to abstain
from anything which might in the slightest degree
diminish his chance of success. He sees other men
giving way to appetite, resting while he is panting
with exertion, luxuriating in the bath, enjoying life at
pleasure ; but he has scarce a passing thought of envy,
because his heart is set on the prize, and severe
training is indispensable. He knows that his chances
are gone if in any point or on any occasion he relaxes
the rigour of the discipline.

The contest in which Christians are engaged is not
less, but more, severe. The temperance maintained by
the athlete must be outdone by the Christian if he is
to be successful. There are many things in which
men who have no thought of the incorruptible prize
may engage, but from which the Christian must refrain.
All that lowers the tone and slackens the energies
must be abandoned. If the Christian indulges in t!.e

218 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

pleasures of life as freely as other men, if he is un-
conscious of any severity of self-restraint, if he denies
himself nothing which others enjoy, he proves that he
has no higher aim than they and can of course win
no higher prize. The temperance here enjoined, and
which the Christian practises, not because it is enjoined,
but because a higher aim truly cherished compels him
to practise it, is a habitual sober-mindedness and
detachment from what is worldly in the world. It is
that temper of spirit and that sustained attitude to-
wards life whi-ch enable a man to rule his own desires,
to endure hardness and find pleasure in so doing.
No spasmodic, occasional efforts and partial abstinences
will ever bring a man victorious to the goal. Many
a man denies himself in one direction and indulges
himself in another. He macerates the flesh, but
pampers the spirit by vanity, ambition, or self-righteous-
ness. Or he denies himself some of the pleasures
of life, but is more besotted by its gains than other
men. Temperance to be effectual must be complete.
The athlete who drinks more than is good for him
may save himself the trouble of observing the trainer's
rules as to what he eats. It is lost labour to develop
some of his muscles if he do not develop all of
them. If he offends in one point, he breaks the whole
law.

Temperance must be continuous as well as complete.
One day's debauch was enough to undo the result of
weeks during which the athlete had carefully attended
to the rules prescribed. And we find that one lapse
into worldliness undoes what years of self-restraint have
won. Always the work of growth is very slow, the
work of destruction very quick. One indiscretion on
the part of the convalescent will undo what the care

U. 23-27.] NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN. 219

of months has slowly achieved. One fraud spoils the
character for honesty which years of upright living
have earned. And this also is one of the great
dangers of the spiritual life : that a little carelessness,
a brief infidelity to our high calling, or a passing in-
dulgence suddenly demolishes what long and patient
toil has been building up. It is like the taking out
of a pin or a ratchet that lets all we have gained run
down to its old condition.

Beware then of giving place to the world or the
flesh at any point. Be reasonable and true. Recog-
nise that if you are to succeed in winning eternal life,
all the spiritual energy you can command will be re-
quired. So set your heart on the attainment of things
eternal that you will not grudge missing much that
other men enjoy and possess. Measure the invitations
of life by their fitness or unfitness to develop within
you true spiritual energy.

2. Be decided. il I run," says Paul, " not as uncer-
tainly," not as a man who does not know where he is
going or has not made up his mind to go there. To
be among those who win as wxll as among those who
run, we must know where we are going, and be quite
sure we mean to be there. We have all some kind of
idea about what God offers and calls us to. But this
idea must be clear if we are to make for it straight.
No man can run straight to a mere will-o'-the-wisp,
and no man can run straight who first means to go to
one house or station and then changes his mind and
thinks he should go to another. We must count the
cost and see clearly what we are to gain and what we
must lose by making for the incorruptible prize. We
must be resolved to win and have no thought of defeat,
of failure, of doing something better. It is the absence

220 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

of deliberate choice and reasonable decision which
causes such " uncertain " running on the part of many
who profess to be in the race. Their faces are as
often turned from the goal as towards it. They are
evidently not clear in their own minds that all strength
spent in any other direction than towards the goal is
wasted. They do not distinctly know what they mean
to be at, what they wish to make of life. Paul did
know. He had made up his mind not to pursue
comfort, learning, money, respect, position, but ta seek
first the kingdom of God. Me judged that to spread
the knowledge of Christ was the best use to which he
could put his life. He knew where he was going and to
what all his efforts tended. Every life is unsatisfactory
until its owner has made up his mind what he means
to do with it, until it is governed by a clearty conceived
and firmly held aim. Then it flies like the arrow to
its mark.

What then do the traces of our past life show ?
Do we see the straight track of a well-steered ship,
which has deviated not a yard from its course nor
wasted an ounce of power ? Has every footfall been
in direct advance of the last, and has all expenditure
of energy brought us nearer the ultimate goal ? Or
are the traces we look back on like ground trodden
by dancers, a confused medley all in one spot, or like
the footsteps of saunterers in a garden backwards and
forwards, according as this or that has attracted them ?
Has not the course of many of us been like that of
persons lost, uncertain which direction to pursue,
eagerly starting off, but after a little slackening their
pace, stopping, looking round, and then going off in
another direction ? For some weeks a great deal of
ardour has been apparent, the whole man girt up, every

ix. 23-27.] NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN. 221

nerve strained, the whole attention directed towards
spiritual victory, arrangements made to facilitate com-
munion with God, new methods devised for subor-
dinating ail our work to the one great aim, everything
gone about as if now at last we had found the secret
of living; and then in a surprisingly short time all
this eagerness cools down, doubt takes the place of
decision, discouragement and failure breed distrust of
our methods, and we lapse into contentment with
easier attainments and more worldly aims. And at
length, after many false starts, we are ashamed to begin
any arduous spiritual task for fear of ceasing it next
week. We think that the surest way to make fools of
ourselves is to adopt a thorough-going Christian prac-
tice, so much do we count upon ourselves flagging,
wearying, altering our course. How many times have
we been rekindled to some true zeal, how often have
we gathered up our scattered energies and concentrated
our efforts on the Christian life, and yet as often have
we gone back to a dreamy, listless sauntering, as if we
had nothing to secure, no end to reach, no work to
accomplish.

Are we likely ever to reach the goal thus ? Will the
goal come to us, or how are we ever to reach it ? Are
we nearer to it to-day than ever before ? Are not our
minds yet made up that it is worth reaching, and
that whatever does not help us towards it must be
abandoned ? Let us be clear in our own minds as to
the matters which tempt us aside from the straight
path to the goal and are incompatible with progress;
and let us determine whether these things are to
prevail with us or not.

3. Be in earnest. " So fight I, not as one that
beateth the air," not as one amusing himself with idle

222 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

flourishes, but as one who has a real enemy to encounter.
What a blush does this raise on the cheek of every
Christian who knows himself! How much of this
mere parade and sham-fighting is there in the Christian
army ! We learn the art of war and the use of our
weapons as if we were forthwith to use them in the
field ; we act over and learn many varieties of offensive
and defensive movements, and know the rules by which
spiritual foes may be subdued ; we read books which
direct us about personal religion, and delight in those
which most skilfully lay open our weaknesses and show
us how we may overcome them. But all this is mere
fencing-school wTork ; it kills no enemy. It is but a
species of accomplishment like that of those who learn
the use of the sword, not because they mean to use
it in battle, but that they may have a more elegant
carriage. A great part of our spiritual strength is
spent in mere parade. It is not meant to have any
serious effect. It is not directed against anything in
particular. We seem to be doing everything that a
good soldier of Jesus Christ need do save the one
thing: we slay no enemy. We leave no foe stone-dead
on the field. We are well trained : no one can deny it ;
we could instruct others how to conquer sin ; we spend
much time, and thought, and feeling on exercises which
are calculated to make an impression on sin ; and yet
is it not almost entirely a beating the air ? Where are
our slain foes ? This apparent eagerness to be holy,
this professed devctedness to the cause of Christ — are
they not mere flouiish? We do not mean to strike our
enemies; we for the most part only wish to make
ourselves believe we are striking them and are zealous
and faithful soldiers of Christ.

Even where there is s:>n;e reality in the contest we

ix. 23-27.] NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN 223

may still be beating the air. We may be able to say
that we have apprehended the reality of the moral
warfare to which every man is called in this life. We
may be able honestly to say that if our sins are not
slain, it is neither because we have not recognised them,
nor because we have aimed no blows at them. We
have made serious and honest efforts to destroy sin,
and yet our blows seem to fall short ; and sin stands
before us vigorous and lively, and as ready as ever to
give us a fall. Many persons who level blows at their
sins do not after all strike them. Spiritual energy is
put forth ; but it is not brought fully, fairly, and firmly
into contact with the sin to be destroyed. In most
Christian people there is a great expenditure of thought
and of feeling about sin ; their spirit is probably more
exercised about their sins than about anything else: and
a great deal of spiritual life is expended in the shape
of shame, compunction, penitence, resolve, self-restraint,
watchfulness, pra}^er. All this, were it brought directly
to bear on some definite object, would produce great
effect ; but in many cases no good whatever seems to
result.

Paul's language suggests that possibly the reason
may be that there remains in the heart some reluctance
quite to kill and put an end to sin, to beat all the life
out of it. It is like a father fighting with his son : he
wishes to defend himself and disarm his son, but not
to kill him. We may be willing or even intensely
anxious to escape the blows sin aims at us ; we may
be desirous to wound, hamper, and limit our sin, and
keep it under control ; we may wish to tame the wild
animal and domesticate it, so as to make it yield some
pleasure and profit, and yet be reluctant to slay it
outright. The soul and life of every sin is some lust

224 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

of our own ; and while quite anxious to put an end to
some of the evils this lust produces in our life, we may
not be prepared to extinguish the lust itself. We pray
God, for example, to preserve us from the evils of
praise or of success ; and yet we continue to court
praise and success. We are unable to sacrifice the
pleasure for the sake of the safety. Therefore our
warfare against sin becomes unreal. Our blows are
not delivered home, but beat the air. Unconsciously
we cherish the evil desire within us which is the soul
of the sin, and seek to destroy only some of its
manifestations.

The result of such unreal contest is detrimental.
Sin is like something floating in the air or the water :
the very effort we make to grasp and crush it displaces
it, and it floats mockingly before us untouched. Or
it is like an agile antagonist who springs back from
our blow, so that the force we have expended merely
racks and strains our own sinews and does him no
injury. So when we spend much effort in conquering
sin and find it as lively as ever, the spirit is strained
and hurt by putting out force on nothing. It is less
able than before to resist sin, less believing, less hopeful,
inwardly ill at ease and distracted. It becomes con-
fused and disheartened, disbelieves in itself, and scoffs
at fresh resolves and endeavours.

Finally, Paul tells us what that enemy was against
which he directed his wTell-aimed, firmly planted blows.
It was his own body. Every man's body is his enemy
when, instead of being his servant, it becomes his
master. The proper function of the body is to serve
the will, to bring the inner man into contact with the
outer world and enable him to influence it. When the
body mutinies and refuses to obey the will, when it

*. 23-27.] NOT ALL WHO RUN WIN. 225

usurps authority and compels the man to do its bidding,
it becomes his most dangerous enemy. When Paul's
body presumed to dictate to his spirit, and demanded
comforts and indulgences, and shrank from hardship,
he beat it down. The word he uses is an exceptionally
strong one : " I keep under ; n it is a technical term of the
games, and means to strike full in the face. It was the
word used of the most damaging blow one boxer could
give another. This unmerciful, overpowering blow
Paul dealt to his body, resisting its assaults and making
it helpless to tempt him. He thus brought it into
subjection, made it his slave, as the winner in some of
the games had a right to carry the vanquished into
slavery.

It was probably by sheer strength of will and by the
grace of Christ that Paul subdued his body. Many in
all ages have striven to subdue it by fasting, by scourg-
ing, by wakefulness ; and of these practices we have no
right to speak scornfully until we can say that by other
means we have reduced the body to its proper position
as the servant of the spirit. Can we say that our body
is brought into subjection ; that it dare not curtail our
devotions on the plea of weariness ; that it dare not
demand a dispensation from duty on the score of some
slight bodily disturbance ; that it never persuades us
to neglect any duty on the score of its unpleasantness
to the flesh ; that it never prompts us to undue anxiety
either about what we shall eat or drink or wherewithal
we shall be clothed ; that it never quite treads the spirit
under foot and defiles it with wicked imaginings ? There
is a fair and reasonable degree in which a man may
and ought to cherish his own flesh, but there is also
needful a disregard to many of its claims and a hard-
hearted obduracy to its complaints. In an age when

226 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Spartan simplicity of life is almost unknown, it is very
easy to sow to the flesh almost without knowing it
until wTe find ourselves reaping corruption.

Probably nothing more effectually slackens our efforts
in the spiritual life than the sense of unreality which
haunts us as we deal with God and the unseen. With
the boxer in the games it was grim earnest. He did
not need any one to tell him that his life depended on
his ability to defend himself against his trained antago-
nist. Every faculty must be on the alert. No dreamer
has here a chance. What we need is something of the
same sense of reality, that it is a life-and-death contest
we are engaged in, and that he that treats sin as a
weak or pretended antagonist will shortly be dragged
a mangled disgrace out of the arena.

FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS.

" Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how
that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea ,
and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the sairst
spiritual drink : for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followec
them : and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God wai
not well pleased : for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now
these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lus\
after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as
were some of them ; as it is written, The people sat down to eat
and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication,
as some of them committed, and fell in one day three-and-twenty
thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted,
and were destro3^ed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some ol
them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all
these things happened unto them for ensamples : and they are
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are
come Wherelom iet him that thinketh he stancieth take heed lest
he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but saeh as is common
to man : but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation also make a
way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my
dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men ; judge ye
what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it
not the communion of the body of Christ ? For we being many are
one bread, and one body : for we are all partakers of that one bread.
Behold Israel after the flesh : are not they which eat of the sacrifices
partakers of the altar? What say I then? that the idol is anything,
or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say,
that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils,
and not to God : and I would not that ye should have fellowship
with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup oi
devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table
of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy ? are we stronge
than He ?" — I Cor. x. 1-22.

XV.

FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS.

IN discussing the question regarding " things offered
unto idols," Paul is led to treat at large of
Christian liberty, a subject to which he was always
drawn. And partly to encourage the Christians of
Corinth to consider their weak and prejudiced brethren,
partly for other reasons, he reminds them how he him-
self abridged his liberty and departed from his just
claims in order that the Gospel he preached might find
readier acceotance. Besides, not only for the sake of
the Gospel and of other men, but for his own sake also,
he must practise self-denial. It would profit him
nothing to have been an apostle unless he practised
what he preached. He had felt that in considering the
spiritual condition of other men and trying to advance
it he was apt to forget his own ; and he saw that all
men were more or less liable to the same temptation,
and were apt to rest in the fact that they were Chris-
tians and to shrink from the arduous life which gives
that name its meaning. By means of two illustrations
Paul fixes this idea in their minds, first pointing them
to their own games, in which they saw that not all who
entered for the race obtained the prize, and then pointing
them to the history of Israel, in which they might
plainly read that not all who began the journey to the
promised land found entrance into it.

230 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

The Israelites of the Exodus are here introduced as
exemplifying a common experience. They accepted
the position of God's people, but failed in its duties.
They perceived the advantages of being God's subjects,
but shrank from much which this implied. They were
willing to be delivered from bondage, but found them-
i selves overweighted by the responsibilities and risks
of a free life. They were in contact with the highest
advantages men need possess, and yet failed to use
them.

The amount of conviction which prompts us to form
a connection with Christ may be insufficient to stimu-
late us to do and endure all that results from that
connection. The children of Israel were all baptized
unto Moses, but they did not implement their baptism
by a persistent and faithful adherence to him. They
were baptized unto Moses by their acceptance of his
leadership in the Exodus. By passing through the
Red Sea at his command they definitely renounced
Pharaoh and abandoned their old life, and as definitely
pledged and committed themselves to throw in their lot
with Moses. By passing the Egyptian frontier and
following the guidance of the pillar of cloud they pro-
fessed their willingness to exchange a life of bondage,
with its security and occasional luxuries, for a life of
freedom, with its hazards and hardships ; and by that
passage of the Red Sea they were as certainly sworn
to support and obey Moses as ever was Roman soldier
who took the oath to serve his emperor. When, at
Brederode's invitation, the patriots of Holland put on
the beggar's wallet and tasted wine from the beggar's
bowl, they were baptized unto William of Orange and
their country's cause. When the sailors on board the
Swan weighed anchor and beat out of Plymouth, they

x.l-22.] FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS. 231

were baptized unto Drake and pledged to follow him
and fight for him to the death. Baptism means much ;
but if it means anything, it means that we commit and
pledge ourselves to the life we are called to by Him in
whose name we are baptized. It draws a line across
the life, and proclaims that to whomsoever in time
past we have been bound, and for whatsoever we have
lived, we now are pledged to this new Lord, and are
to live in His service. Such a pledge was given by
every Israelite who turned his back on Egypt and
passed through that sea which was the defence of
Israel and destruction to the enemy. The crossing was
at once actual deliverance from the old life and irre-
vocable committal to the new. They died to Pharaoh,
and were born again to Moses. They were baptized
unto Moses.

And as the Israelites had thus a baptism analogous
to the one Christian sacrament, so had they a spiritual
food and drink in the wilderness which formed a
sacrament analogous to the Christian communion.
They were not shut out of Egypt, and imprisoned in
the desert, and left to do the best they could on their
own resources. If they failed to march steadily forward
and fulfil their destiny as the emancipated people of
God, this failure was not due to any neglect on God's
part. The fare might be somewhat Spartan, but a
sufficiency was always provided. He who had en-
couraged them to enter on this new life was prepared
to uphold them in it and carry them through.

One of the expressions used by Paul in describing
the sustenance of the Israelites has given rise to some
discussion. "They did all drink," he says, "the
same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual
Rock that followed them ; and that Rock was Christ."

232 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Now there happened to be a Jewish tradition which
gave out that the rock smitten by Moses was a
detached block or boulder, " globular, like a beehive,"
which rolled after the camp in its line of march, and
was always at hand, with its unfailing water-supply.
This is altogether too grotesque an idea. The fact
is that the Israelites did not die of thirst in the
wilderness. It was quite likely they should ; and
but for the providential supply of water, so large a
company could not have been sustained. And no
doubt not only in the rock at Rephidim at the begin-
ning of their journey and the rock of Kadesh at its
close, but in many most unlikely places during the
intervening years, water was found. So that in looking
back on the entire journey it might very naturally be
said that the rock had followed them, not meaning that
wherever they went they had the same source to
draw from, but that throughout their journeyings they
were supplied with water in places and ways as
unexpected and unlikely.

Paul's point is that in the wilderness the food
and drink of the Israelites were " spiritual," or, as
we should more naturally say, sacramental ; that is
to say, their sustenance continually spoke to them of
God's nearness and reminded them that they were
His people. And as Christ Himself, when He lifted
the bread at the Last Supper, said, " This is My body,"
so does Paul use analogous language and say, " That
Rock was Christ," an expression which gives us
considerable insight into the significance of the
Israelitish types of Christ, and helps to rid our
minds of some erroneous impressions we are apt to
cherish regarding them.

The manna and the water from the rock were given

x. I-22.J FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS. 233

to sustain the Israelites and carry them towards their
promised land, but they were so given as to quicken
faith in God. To every Israelite his daily nourish-
ment might reasonably be called spiritual, because it
reminded him that God wTas with him in the wilderness,
and prompted him to think of that purpose and
destiny for the sake of which God was sustaining
the people. To the devout among them their daily
food became a means of grace, deepening their faith
in the unseen God and rooting their life in a true
dependence upon Him. The manna and the water
from the rock were sacramental, because they were
continuous signs and seals of God's favour and. re-
deeming efficiency and promise. They were types
of Christ, serving for Israel in the wilderness the
purpose which Christ serves for us, enabling them
to believe in a heavenly Father who cared for them
and accomplishing the same spiritual union with the
unseen God which Christ accomplishes for us.

It was in this sense that Paul could say that the
rock was Christ. The Israelites in the wilderness
did not know that the rock was a type of Christ.
They did not, as they drank of the water, think of
One who was to come and satisfy the whole thirst
of men. The types of Christ in the old times did
not enable men to forecast the future ; it was not
through the future they exercised an influence for
good on the mind. They worked by exciting there
and then in the Jewish mind the same faith in God
which Christ excites in our mind. It was not
knowledge that saved the Jew, but faith, attachment
to the living God. It was not the fragmentary and
disjointed picture of a Redeemer thrown en the
screen of his hopes by the types, nor was it any

234 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

thought of a future Deliverer, which saved him, but
his belief in God as his Redeemer there and then.
This belief was quickened by the various institutions,
providences, and objects by which God convinced the
Jews that He was their Friend and Lord. Sacrifice
they accepted as an institution of God's appointment
intended to encourage them to believe in the forgive-
ness of sin and in God's favour ; and without any
thought of the realized ideal of sacrifice in Christ, the
believing and devout Israelite entered through sacrifice
into fellowship with God. Every sacrifice was a type
of Christ ; it did foreshadow that which was to be : but
it was a type, not because it revealed Christ to those
who saw or offered it, but because for the time being
it served the same purpose as Christ now serves,
enabling men to believe in the forgiveness of sins.

But while in the mind of the Israelite there was no
connection of the type with the Christ that was to
come, there was in reality a connection between them.
The redemption of men is one whether accomplished in
the days of the Exodus or in our own time. The idea
or p-Ian of salvation is one, resting always on the same
reasons and principles. The Israelites were pardoned
in view of the incarnation and atonement of Christ just
as we are. If it was needful for our salvation that
Christ should come and live and suffer in human
nature, it was also needful for their salvation. The
Lamb was slain " from the foundation of the world/'
and the virtue of the sacrifice of Calvary was efficacious
for those who lived before as well as for those who
lived after it. To the mind of God it was present, and
in His purpose it was determined, from the beginning ;
and it is in view of Christ's incarnation and work that
sinners early or late have been restored to God. So

x. 1-22.] FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS. 235

that everything by which God instructed men and
taught them to believe in His mercy and holiness was
connected with Christ. It was to Christ it owed its
existence, and really it was a shadow of the coming
substance. And as the shadow is named from the
substance, it may truly be said, '* That Rock was Christ."

These outward blessings then of which St. Paul here
speaks had very much the same nature as the Christian
sacraments to which he tacitly compares them. They
were intended to convey greater gifts and be the
channels of a grace more valuable than themselves.
But to most of the Israelites they remained mere
manna and water, and brought no firmer assurance of
God's presence, no more fruitful acceptance of God's
purpose. The majority took the husk and threw away
the kernel ; were so delayed by the wrappings that they
forgot to examine the gift they enclosed ; accepted the
physical nourishment, but rejected the spiritual strength
it contained. Instead of learning from their wilderness
experience the sufficiency of Jehovah and gathering
courage to fulfil His purpose with them, they began to
murmur and lust after evil things, and were destroyed
by the destroyer. They had been baptized unto
Moses, pledging themselves to his leadership and
committing themselves to the new life he opened to
them ; they had been sustained by manna and water
from the rock, which plainly told them that all nature
would work for them if they pressed forward to their
God-appointed destiny : but the most of them shrank
from the hardships and hazards of the way, and could
not lift their heart to the glory of being led by God
and used to fulfil His greatest purposes.

And so, says Paul, it may be with you. It is possible
that you may have been baptized and may have pro-

236 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

fessedly committed 3'ourself to the Christian career, it
is possible you may have partaken of that bread and
wine which convey undying life and energy to believing
recipients, and may yet have failed to use these as
spiritual food, enabling you to fulfil all the duties of the
life you are pledged to. Had it been enough merely to
show a readiness to enter on the more arduous life,
then all Israel would have been saved, for "all"
without exception passed through the Red Sea and
committed themselves to life under God's leadershio.
Mad it been enough outwardly to participate in that
which actually links men to God, then all Israel would
have been inspired by Gcd's Spirit and strength, for
" all " without exception partook of the spiritual food
and the spiritual drink. But the disastrous and
undeniable result was that the great mass of the people
were overtnrown in the wilderness and did never set
foot in the land of promise. And men have not yet
outlived this same danger of committing themselves to
a life they find too hard and full of risk. They see the
advantages of a Christian career, and connect themselves
with the Christian Church ; they instinctively perceive
that it is there God is most fully known, and that the
purposes of God are there concentrated and running
on to direct and perfect results ; they are drawn by
their better self to throw in their lot with the Church,
to forget competing advantages, and spend themselves
wholly on what is best : and yet the difficulty of
standing alone and acting on individual conviction
rather than on current understandings, the wearing
depression of personal failure and insufficiency for high
and spiritual attainment, the distraction of the haunting
doubt that after all they are making sacrifices and suffer-
ing privations which are fruitless, unwise, unnecessary,

x. i-22.] FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS. 237

gradually betray the spirit into virtual renunciation of
all Christian hopes and into a practical willingness to
return to the old life. And thus as the wilderness
came to be spotted all over with the burial-places of
those who had left the Red Sea behind them with
shouts of triumph and with hopes that broke out in
song and dancing, as the route of that once jubilant
host might at last have been traced, as the great slave-
routes of Africa are traceable, by the bones of men and
the skeletons of children, so, alas ! might the Church's
march through the centuries be recognised by the far
more horrifying remains of those who once, with liveliest
hope and unbroken sense of security, joined themselves
to the people of Christ, but silently lost hold of the
hope that once drew them on and either stole away
on private enterprises of their own and were destroyed
of the destroyer, or withered in helpless imbecility,
murmuring at their lot and stone-blind to its glory.
As the retreat of Napoleon's " grand army " from
Moscow was marked by corpses wearing the French
uniform, but bringing neither strength nor lustre to
their cause, so must shame be reflected on the Church
by the countless numbers of those who can be identified
with Christ's cause only by the uniform they wTear, and
not by any victories they have won. There were in the
wilderness districts through which no Israelite would
willingly pass, districts in which many thousands had
fallen, and which were branded as vast a graves of
lust," places whose very name stirred a deeper horror
and raised a quicker blush on the Israelite's cheek than
is raised on the Englishman's by the mention of Majuba
Hill or Braddon's defeat. And the Church's territory
also is spotted with those vast charnel-houses and
places of defeat where even her mighty have fallen,

238 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

where the earth refuses to cover the disgrace and blot
out the stain. These are not things of the past.
While women and children are starved though they
toil all day and half the night, with eagerest energy
and the skill necessity gives ; while life is to so many
thousands in our land a joyless and hopeless misery ;
while trade not only panders to covetousness and
selfishness, but directly contributes to what is immoral
and destructive, wre can scarcely speak of the " glorious
marching " of the Church of Christ. We have our
places of horror, which no right-hearted Christian can
think of without a shudder.

But while the distinction between the life we
naturally seek and that to which God calls us is felt
by all from age to age, the forms in which this distinc-
tion makes itself felt vary as the world grows older.
To all men living in a world of sense it is difficult to
live by faith in the unseen. To every man it is the
ultimate, severest test of character to determine for
what ends he will live and to carry out this determina-
tion ; but the temptations which avail to draw men
aside from their reasonable decision are various as
the men themselves. Paul names the temptations
to which the Corinthians, in common with the Israelites,
were exposed : idolatry, fornication, murmuring, tempt-
ing Christ. He saw clearly how difficult it was for
the Corinthians to discard all heathen customs, how
much of what had been brightest in their life they
must sacrifice if they were to renounce absolutely the
religion of their parents and friends and all the joyous,
if licentious, customs associated with that religion.
Apparently some of them thought they might pass
from the Christian communion to the heathen temple,
and after partaking of Christ's sacrament eat and

r 1-22.] FALLACIOUS PRESUMPTIONS. 239

drink in the idolatrous festival, entering into the entire
service. They seemed to think that they might be
both Christians and pagans.

Against this vain attempt to combine the incom-
patible Paul warns them. Do not tempt Christ, he
says, by experimenting how far He will bear with
your conformity to idolatry. Some of the Israelites
did so, and were destroyed by serpents. Do not
murmur that you are hereby severed from all the
enjoyments of life, dissociated from your heathen
friends, blackballed in society and in business, ex-
cluded from all national festivals and from many private
entertainments; do not count up your losses, but your
gains. Your temptations are severe, but " there hath
no temptation taken you but such as is common to
man." Every man must make up his mind to a certain
kind of life and go through with it. No man can unite
in his own life all advantages. He must deliberate
and choose ; and having made his choice, he must not
lament what he loses or be tempted from striving to
gain what he judges best by weakly and greedily
craving for the second-best also. He may win the
first prize ; he may win the second : he cannot win
both, and if he tries, he will win neither.

The practical outcome of all that Paul has thus
rapidly passed in review he utters in the haunting
words, " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall." In this life we are never beyond the
reach of temptation. And these temptations to which
all of us are exposed are real ; they do sufficiently test
character and show what it actually is. Our suppo-
sitions regarding ourselves are often untrue. There
is no reality corresponding. Our state is actually not
such as we conceive it to be. We are at ease and

240 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

complacent when we ought not to be at ease. We
think wre stand secure when we are on the point of
falling. We live as if we had reached the goal when
the whole journey is yet before us. Our future may
be very different from what wTe wish or expect. Mere
satisfaction with our present condition is a very insecure
foundation on which to build our hope for the future.
Mere reliance on a profession we have made, or on
the fact that we are within reach of means of grace,
tends only to slacken our energies. Heedlessness,
taking things for granted, failure to sift matters
thoroughly out, an indolent unwillingness to probe
our spiritual condition to the quick — this is what has
betrayed multitudes of Christians. "Wherefore let
him that thinketh he standeih take heed lest he fall."

If determined wickedness has slain its thousands,
heedlessness has slain its tens of thousands. Through
lack of watchfulness men fall into sin which entangles
them for life and thwarts their best purposes. Through
want of watchfulness men go on in sin which exceed-
ingly provokes God, till at last His hand falls heavily
upon them. Every man is apt to lay too much stress
on the circumstance that he has joined himself to the
number of those who own the leadership of Christ.
The question remains, How far has he gone with his
Leader ? Many an Israelite compassionated the poor
heathen whom he left behind in the land of Egypt,
and yet found that, with all his own apparent nearness
to God, his heart was heathen still. Whoever takes
it for granted that things are well with him, whoever
" thinketh he standeth " — he is the man who has especial
and urgent need to " take heed lest he fall."

TSB VEIL,

** Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ Now I praise
you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the
ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know,
that the head of every man is Christ ; and the head of the woman is
the man ; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or
prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But
every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered
dishonoureth her head : for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn : but if it be
a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For
a man indeed ought not to cover bis head, forasmuch as he is the
image and glory of God : but ine worrava is the glory of the man.
For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
Neither was the man created for the woman ; but the woman for
the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her
head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without
the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For
as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman;
but all things of God. Judge in yourselves : is it comely that a
woman pray unto God uncovered ? Doth not even nature itself
teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him ?
But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her : for her hair is
given her for a covering. But it any man seem to be contentiour
we have no such custom, neither the Churches of Gcd." — I Co;
xi. 1-16.

XVL

THE VEIL.

AT this point of the Epistle Paul passes from the
topics regarding which the Corinthians had re-
quested him to inform them, to make some remarks on
the manner in which, as he had heard, they were con-
ducting their meetings for public worship. The next
four chapters are occupied with instructions as to what
constitutes seemliness and propriety in such meetings.
He desires to express in general his satisfaction that
on the whole they had adhered to the instructions he
had already given them and the arrangements he had
himself made while in Corinth. " I praise you, brethren,
that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordi-
nances, as I delivered them to you." Yet there are one
or two matters which cannot be spoken of in terms
of commendation. He heard, in the first place, with
surprise and vexation, that not only were women pre-
suming to pray in public and address the assembled
Christians, but even laid aside while they did so the
characteristic dress of their sex, and spoke, to the
scandal of all sober-minded Orientals and Greeks,
unveiled. To reform this abuse he at once addresses
himself. It is a singular specimen of the strange
matters that must have come before Paul for decision
when the care of all the Churches lay upon him. And

244 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

his settlement of it is an admirable illustration of his
manner of resolving all practical difficulties by means
of principles which are as true and as useful for us
to-day as they were for those primitive Christians who
had heard his own voice admonishing them. In treating
ethical or practical subjects, Paul is never superficial,
never content with a mere rule.

In order to see the import and importance of this
matter of dress, we must first of all know how it came
to pass that the Christian women should have thought
of making a demonstration so unfeminine as to shock
the very heathen around them. What was their inten-
tion or meaning in doing so ? What idea was possessing
their minds ? Throughout this long and interesting
letter, Paul is doing little else than endeavouring to
correct the hasty impressions which these new believers
were receiving regarding their position as Christians.
A great flood of new and vast ideas was suddenly
poured in upon their minds ; they were taught to
look differently on themselves, differently on their
neighbours, differently on God, differently on all things.
Old things had in their case passed away with a will,
and all things had become new. They were made alive
from the dead, they were born again, and did not know
how far this affected the relationships with this world
into which their natural birth had brought them. The
facts of the second birth and the new life took such
hold upon them, that they could not for a time under-
stand how they were yet connected with the old life.
So that for some of them Paul had to solve the simplest
problems, as, for example, we find that the believing
husband was in doubt whether he should live with his
wife who remained an unbeliever, for was it not abhor-
rent to nature that he, the living, should be bound to

xi. 1-16.] THE VEIL, 245

the dead, that a child of God should remain in the most
intimate connection with one who was yet a child of
wrath ? Was this not a monstrous anomaly, for which
prompt divorce was the fit remedy ? That such ques-
tions as these should be put shows us how difficult
these early Christians found it to adjust themselves
as children of God to their position in a corrupt,
condemned world.

Now one of the ideas in Christianity which was
newest to them was the equality of all before God, an
idea well calculated to take powerful and absorbing
hold of a world half slaves, half masters. The emoeror

I L

and the slave must equally give account to God. Caesar
is not above responsibility; the barbarian who swells
his triumph and is afterwards slaughtered in his dungeon
or his theatre is not beneath it. Each man and each
woman must stand alone before God, and for himself
and herself give account of the life received from God.
Alongside of this idea came that of the one Saviour
for all alike, the common salvation accessible to all en
equal terms, and partaking of which all became brethren
and on a level, one with Christ and one therefore with
each other. There was neither Greek nor barbarian,
male nor female, bond nor free, now. These three
mighty distinctions that had tyrannized over the ancient
world were abolished, for all were one in Christ Jesus.
It dawned on the barbarian that though there was no
Roman citizenship for him nor any entrance into the
mighty commonwealth of Greek literature, he had a
citizenship in heaven, was the heir of God, and could
command even with his barbaric speech the ear of the
Most High. It dawned on the slave as his fetter
galled him, or as his soul sank under the sad hopeless-
ness of his life, that he was God's redeemed, rescued

246 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

from the bondage of his own evil heart, and superior
to all curse, being God's friend. And it dawned on
the woman that she was neither man's toy nor man's
slave, a mere luxury or appendage to his establishment,
but that she also had herself a soul, a responsibility
equally momentous with the man's, and therefore a
life to frame for herself. The astonishment with which
such ideas must have been received, so subversive of
the principles on which heathen society was proceeding,
it is impossible now to realize; but we cannot wonder
that they should by their fresh power and absorbing
novelty have carried the Christians to quite the
opposite extremes from those at which they had been
living.

In the case before us the women who had been
awakened to a sense of their own personal, individual
responsibility and their equal right to the highest
privileges of men began to think that in all things
they should be recognised as the equals of the other
sex. They were one with Christ ; men could have no
higher honour : was it not obvious that they were on
an equality with those who had held them so cheap ?
They had the Holy Ghost dwelling in them ; might not
they, as well as the men, edify Christian assemblies by
uttering the inspirations of the Spirit ? They were not
dependent on men for their Christian privileges ; ought
not they to show this by laying aside the veil, which
was the acknowledged badge of dependence ? This
laying aside of the veil was not a mere change of
fashion in dress, of which, of course, Paul would have
had nothing to say; it was not a feminine device for
showing themselves to better advantage among their
fellow-worshippers ; it was not even, though this also,
alas ! falls within the range of possible supposition, the

xi.i-i6.] THE VEIL. 247

immodest boldness and forwardness which are some-
times seen to accompany in both sexes the profession
of Christianity ; but it was the outward expression and
easily read symbol of a great movement on the part of
women in assertion of their rights and independence.

The exact meaning of the laying aside of the veil
thus becomes plain. It was the part of female attire
which could most readily be made the symbol of a
change in the views of women regarding their own
position. It was the most significant part of the
woman's dress. Among the Greeks it was the universal
custom for the women to appear in public with the head
covered, commonly with the corner of their shawl drawn
over their head like a hood. Accordingly Paul does not
insist on the face being covered, as in Eastern countries,
but only the head. This covering of the head could be
dispensed with only in places where they were secluded
from public view. It was therefore the recognised badge
of seclusion ; it was the badge which proclaimed that
she who wore it was a private, not a public, person,
finding her duties at home, not abroad, in one house-
hold, not in the city. And a woman's whole life and
duties ought to lie so much apart from the public eye,
that both sexes looked upon the veil as the truest and
most treasured emblem of woman's position. In this
seclusion there was of course implied a limitation of
woman's sphere of action and a subordination to one
man's interests instead of to the public. It was the
man's place to serve the State or the public, the
woman's place to serve the man. And so thoroughly
was it recognised that the veil was a badge setting forth
this private and subordinate position of the woman, that
it was the one significant rite in marriage that she
assumed the veil in token that now her husband was

248 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

her head, to whom she was prepared to hold herself
subordinate. The laying aside the veil was therefore
an expression on the part of the Christian women
that their being assumed as members of Christ's body
raised them out of this position of dependence and
subordination.

This movement ot the Corinthian women towards
independence, on the ground that all are one in Christ
Jesus, Paul meets by reminding them that personal
equality is perfectly consistent with social subordina-
tion. It was quite true, as Paul himself had taught
them, that, so far as their connection with Christ went,
there was no distinction of sex. To the woman, as to
the man, the offer of salvation was made directly. It
was not through her father or her husband that the
woman had to deal with Christ. She came into contact
with the living God and united herself to Christ inde-
pendently of any male representative and on the same
footing as her male relatives. There is but one Christ
for all, rich and poor, high and low, male and female ;
and all are received by Him on the same footing, no
distinction being made. While then in things civil and
social the husband represents the wife, he cannot do so
in matters of religion. Here each person must act for
himself or herself. And the woman must not con-
found these two spheres in which she moves, or argue
that because she is independent of her husband in the
greater, she must also be independent of him in the
less. Equality in the one sphere is not inconsistent with
subordination in the other. " I would have you know,
that the head of every man is Christ ; and the head ot
the woman is the man ; and the head of Christ is God."

The principle enounced in these words is of incalcu-
lable importance and very wide and constant application.

xi. 1-16.] THE VEIL. 249

Whatever is meant by the natural equality of men, it
cannot mean that all are to be in every respect on the
same level, and that none are to have authority over
others. The application of Paul's principle to the
matter in hand alone here concerns us. The woman
must recognise that as Christ, though equal with the
Father, is subordinate to Him, so is she herself sub-
ordinate to her husband or her father. In her private
worship she deals with Christ independently ; but when
she appears in public and social worship, she appears
as a woman with certain social relations. Her relation
to Christ does not dissolve her relations to society.
Rather does it intensify them. The inward change
that has passed upon her and the new relation which
she has formed independently of her husband only
strengthen the bond by which she is tied to him.
When a boy becomes a Christian, that confirms, and in
no degree relaxes, his subordination to his parents. Pie
holds a relation to Christ which they could not form
for him, and which the}' cannot dissolve ; but this inde-
pendence in one matter does not make him independent
in everything. A commissioned officer in the army
holds his commission from the Crown ; but this does not
interfere with, but only confirms, his subordination to
officers who, like himself, are servants of the Crown, but
above him in rank. In order to the harmony of society,
there is a gradation of ranks ; and social grievances
result, not from the existence of social distinctions, but
from their abuse.

This gradation then involves Paul's inference that
"every man praying or prophesying, having his head
covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that
prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dis-
honoureth her head." The veil being the recognised

250 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

badge of subordination, when a man appears veiled he
would seem to acknowledge some one present and visible
as his head, and would thus dishonour Christ, his true
Head. A woman, on the other hand, appearing unveiled
would seem to say that she acknowledges no visible
human head, and thereby dishonours her head — that is,
her husband — and so doing, dishonours herself. For a
woman to appear unveiled on the streets of Corinth
was to proclaim her shame. And so, says Paul, a
woman who in public worship discards her veil might
as well be shaven. She puts herself on the level of the
woman with a shaven head, which both among Jews
and Greeks was a brand of disgrace. In the eye of
the angels, who, according to the Jewish belief, were
present in meetings for worship, the woman is disgraced
who does not appear with " power on her head ; " that is
to sa}', with the veil by which she silently acknowledges
the authority of her husband.

This subordination of the woman to the man belongs
not merely to the order of the Christian Church, but
has its roots in nature. " Man is the image and glory
of God : but the woman is the glory of the man."
Paul's idea is that man was created to represent God
and so to glorify Him, to be a visible embodiment of
the goodness, and wisdom, and power of the unseen
God. Nowhere so clearly or fully as in man can God
be seen. Man is the glory of God because he is His
image and is fitted to exhibit in actual life the excel-
lencies which make God worthy of our love and
worship. Looking at man as he actually and broadly
is, we may think it a bold saying of Paul when he
says, " Man is the glory of God ; " and yet on considera-
tion we see that this is no more than the truth. We
should not scruple to say of the M;n Christ Jesus that

xi. I-I6.] THE VEIL. 251

He is the glory of God, that in the whole universe
of God nothing can more fully reveal the infinite Divine
goodness. In Him we see how truly man is God's
image, and how fit a medium human nature is for
expressing the Divine. We know of nothing higher
than what Christ said, did, and was during the few
months He went about among men. He is the glory
of God ; and every man in his degree, and according
to his fidelity to Christ, is also the glory of God.

This is of course true of woman as well as of man.
It is true that woman can exhibit the nature of God
and be His glory as well as man. But Paul is placing
himself at the point of view of the writer of Genesis
and speaking broadly of God's purpose in creation.
And he means that God's purpose was to express
Himself fully and crown all His works by bringing
into being a creature made in His image, able to subdue,
and rule, and develop all that is in the world. This
creature was man, a masculine, resolved, capable
creature. And just as it appeals to our sense of fitness
that when God became incarnate He should appear
as man, and not as woman, so does it appeal to our
sense of fitness that it is man, and not woman, who
should be thought of as created to be God's representa-
tive on earth. But while man directly, woman in-
directly, fulfils this purpose of God. She is God's
glory by being man's glory. She serves God by
serving man. She exhibits God's excellencies by
creating and cherishing excellence in man. Without
woman man cannot accomplish aught. The woman
is created for the man, because without her he is
helpless. " For as the woman is of the man, even so
is the man also by the woman."

But as man becomes actually the glory of God when

252 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

he perfectly subordinates himself to God with the
absolute devotedness of love, so does woman become
the glory of man when she upholds and serves man
with that perfect devotedness of which woman so con-
stantly shows herself to be capable. It is in winning
the self-sacrificing love of man and his entire devotion
that God's glory appears, and man's glory appears in
his powTer to kindle and maintain the devotion of
woman. Not in independence of God does man find
either his own glory or God's, and not in independence
of man does woman find either her own glory or man's.
The desire of woman shall be to her husband ; in the
honourable devotedness to man which love prompts,
woman fulfils the law of her creation ; and it is only
the imperfect and ignoble woman who has any sense
of humiliation, degradation, or limitation of her sphere
in following the lead of love for the individual. It is
through this honourable service of man she serves God
and fulfils the purpose of her existence. The woman
who is most womanly will most readily recognise that
her function is to be the glory of man, to mould, and
elevate, and sustain the individual, to find her joy and
her life in the private life, in which the affections are
developed, principles formed, and all personal wants
provided for. And man, on his part, must say,

" If aught of goodness or of grace
Be mine, hers be the glory."

For, as a French writer says, "her influence em-
braces the whole of life. A wife, a mother — two
magical words, comprising the sweetest sources of man's
felicity ! Theirs is the reign of beauty, of love, of
reason, always a reign. A man takes counsel with
his wife ; he obeys his mother : he obevs her long after
she has ceased to live, and the ideas he has received

xi. i-i6.] THE VEIL. 253

from her become principles even stronger than his
passions." *

The position assigned to woman as the glory of man
is therefore far. removed from the view which cynically
proclaims her man's mere convenience, whose function
it is " to fatten household sinners/' " to suckle fools
and chronicle small beer." Paul's view, though adopted
and exhibited in individual instances, is far as yet from
commanding universal consent. But certainly nothing
so distinguishes, elevates, purifies, and balances a man
in life as a high esteem for woman. A man shows his
manliness chiefly by a true reverence for all women,
by a clear recognition of the high service appointed
to them by God, and by a tender sympathy with them
in all the various endurance their nature and their
position demand.

That this is woman's normal sphere is indicated even
by her unalterable physical characteristics. " Doth
not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have
long hair, it is a shame unto him ? But if a woman
have long hair, it is a glory to her : for her hair is
given her for a covering." By nature woman is
endowed with a symbol of modesty and retirement.
The veil, which signifies her devotement to home duties,
is merely the artificial continuation of her natural gift
of hair. The lcng hair of the Greek fop or of the
English cavalier was accepted by the people as an
indicaticn of effeminate and luxurious living. Suitable
for women, it is unsuitable for men ; such is the
instinctive judgment. And nature, speaking through
this visible sign of the woman's hair, tells her that her
place is in private, not in public, in the home, not in

1 c

ee Lanckls' True dory of Wciv.an,

254 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

the city or the camp, in the attitude of free and loving
subordination, not in the seat of authority and rule.
In other respects also the physical constitution ©f
woman points to a similar conclusion. Her shorter
stature and slighter frame, her higher pitch of vo^ce,
her more graceful form and movement, indicate that
she is intended for the gentler ministries of home life
rather than for the rough work of the world. And
similar indications are found in her mental peculiarities.
She has the gifts which fit her for influencing indivi-
duals ; man has those qualities which enable him to
deal with things, with abstract thought, or with persons
in the mass. Quicker in perception and trusting more
to her intuitions, woman sees at a glance what man
is sure of only after a process of reasoning.

These arguments and conclusions introduced by
Paul of course apply only to the broad and normal
distinction between man and woman. He does not
argue that women are inferior to men, nor that they
may not have equal spiritual endowments ; but he
maintains that, whatever be their endowments, there is
a womanly mode of exercising them and a sphere for
woman which she ought not to transgress. Not all
women are of the distinctively womanly type. A
Britomarte may arm herself and overthrow the strongest
knights. A Joan of Arc may infuse into a nation
her own warlike and patriotic ardour. In art, in
literature, in science, feminine names may occupy some
of the highest places. In our own day many careers
have been opened to women from which they had
hitherto been debarred. They are now found in Govern-
ment offices, in School Boards, in the medical pro-
fession. Again and again in the history of the Church
attempts have been made to institute a female order

xi. i-i6.] THE VEIL. 255

in the ministry, but as yet both the clerical and the
legal professions are closed to women.1 And we may
reasonably conclude that as the army and navy will
always be manned by the physically stronger sex; so
there are other employments in which women would
be entirely out of place.

But it will be asked, Why was Paul so exact in
describing how a woman should comport herself while
praying or prophesying in public, when he meant very
shortly in this same Epistle to write, " Let your women
keep silence in the Churches : for it is not permitted
unto them to speak ; but they are commanded to be
under obedience, as also saith the Law. And if they will
learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home : for
it is a shame for women to speak in the Church " ? It
has been suggested that although it was the standing
order that women should not speak, there might be
occasions when the Spirit urged them to address an
assemblage of Christians ; and the regulation here given
is intended for these exceptional cases. This may be
so, but the connection in which the absolute prohibition
is given rather militates against this view, and I
think it more likely that in his own mind Paul held
the two matters quite distinct and felt that a mere
prohibition preventing women from addressing public
meetings would not touch the more serious transgres-
sion of female modesty involved in the discarding of the
veil. He could not pass over this violent assertion of
independence without separate treatment ; and while he
is treating it, it is not the speaking in public which
is before his mind, but the unfeminine assertion of

1 The experience of the Society of Friends throws light on thi3
matter.

256 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

independence and the principle underlying this mani-
festation.

Besides the direct teaching of this passage on the posi-
tion ot woman, there are inferences to be drawn from it
of some importance. First, Paul recognises that the God
of nature is the God of grace, and that we may safely
argue from the one sphere to the other. "All things
are of God." It is profitable to be recalled to the
teaching of nature. It saves us from becoming fantastic
in our beliefs, from cherishing fallacious expectations,
from false, pharisaic, extravagant conduct.

Again, we are here reminded that every man and
woman has to do directly with God, who has no
respect oi persons. Each soul is independent of all
others in its relation to God. Each soul has the
capacity of direct connection with God and of thus being
raised above all oppression, not only of his fellows, but
of all outward things. It is here man finds his true
glory. His soul is his own to give it to God. He is
dependent on nothing but on God only. Admitting God
into his spirit, and believing in the love and rectitude
of God, he is armed against all the ills of life, however
little he may relish them. To all of us God offers
Himself as Friend, Father, Saviour, Life. No man need
remain in his sin ; none need be content with a poor
eternity; no man need go through life trembling or
defeated : for God declares Himself on our side, and
offers His love to all without respect of persons. We
are all on the same footing before Him. God does not
admit some freely, while He shrinks from the touch
of others. It is as full and rich an inheritance that
He puts within the reach of the poorest and most
wretched of earth's inhabitants as He offers to him on
whom the eyes of rr.en rest in admiration or in envy.

xi.i-16.] THE VEIL 257

To disbelieve or repudiate this privilege of uniting our-
selves to God is in the truest sense to commit spiritual
suicide. It is in God we live now ; He is with us and in
us : and to shut Him out from that inmost consciousness
to which none else is admitted is to cut ourselves off, not
only from the deepest joy and truest support, but from
all in which we can find spiritual life.

Lastly, although there is in Christ an absolute
levelling of distinctions, no one being more acceptable
to God 01 nearer to Him because he belongs to a
certain race or rank, or class, yet these distinctions
remain and are valid in society. A woman is a woman
still though she become a Christian ; a subject must
honour his king although by becoming a Christian he
is himself in one aspect above all authority ; a servant
will show his Christian ity; not by assuming an insolent
familiarity with his Christian master, but by treating
him with respectful fidelity. The Christian, above all
men, needs sober-mindedness to hold the balance level
and not allow his Christian rank entirely to outweigh
his social position. It forms a great part of our duty
to accept our own place without envying others and to
do honour to tbos^ to whom honour is due.

ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER,

" Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come

together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when

ye come together in the Church, I hear that there be divisions among

you ; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among

you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the

Lord's Supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own

supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have

ye not houses to eat and to drink in ? or despise ye the Church of

God, and shame them that have not ? What shall I say to you ?

shall I praise you in this ? I praise you not. For I have received of

the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus

the same night in which He was betrayed took bread : and when He

had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat : this is My body,

which is broken for you : this do in remembrance of Me. After the

same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying,

This cup is the new testament in My blood : this do ye, as oft as ye

drink it, in leniemorance of Me. For as often as yc eat this bread,

and drink tnis cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come.

Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the

Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and

drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,

eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's

body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and

many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be

judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord,

that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my

brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And

if any man hunger, let him eat at home ; that ye come not together

unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.''- -

I Cor. xi. 17-34.

CHAPTER XVII.

ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

IN this paragraph of his letter Paul speaks of an
abuse which can scarcely be credited, still less
tolerated, in our times. The most sacred of all Christian
ordinances had been allowed to degenerate into a
bacchanalian revel, not easily to be distinguished from
a Greek drinking party. A respectable citizen would
hardly have permitted at his own table the licence and
excess visible at the Table of the Lord. How such
disorders in worship should have arisen calls for
explanation.

It was common in Corinth and the other cities of
Greece for various sections of the community to form
themselves into associations, clubs, or guilds; and it
was customary for such societies to share a common
meal once a week, or once a month, or even when con-
venient daily. Some of these associations were formed
of persons very variously provided with this world's
goods, and one of the objects of some of the clubs was
to make provision for the poorer members in such a
manner as to subject them to none of the shame which
is apt to attend the acceptance of promiscuous charity.
All members had an equal right to present themselves
at the table ; and the property held by the society was
equally distributed to all.

262 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHiANS.

This custom, not unknown in Palestine itself, had
been spontaneously adopted by the primitive Church
of Jerusalem. The Christians of those early days felt
themselves to be more closely related than the members
of any trade guild or political club. If it was con-
venient and suitable that persons of similar political
opinions or belonging to the same trade should to some
extent have common property and should exhibit their
community by sharing a common meal, it was certainly
suitable among Christians. Speedily it became a pre-
valent custom for Christians to eat together. These
meals were called agapce — love-feasts — and became a
marked feature of the early Church. On a fixed day,
generally the first day of the week, the Christians
assembled, each bringing what he could as a contribu-
tion to the feast : fish, poultry, joints of meat, cheese,
milk, honey, fruit, wine, and bread. In some places
the proceedings began by partaking of the consecrated
bread and wine; but in other places physical appetite
was first appeased by partaking of the meal provided,
and after that the bread and wine were handed round.

This mode of celebrating the Lord's Supper was
recommended by its close resemblance to its original
celebration by the Lord and His disciples. It was at
the close of the Paschal Supper, which was meant to
satisfy hunger as well as to commemorate the Exodus,
that our Lord took bread and brake it. He sat with
His disciples as one family, and the meal they partcok
of was social as well as religious. But when the first
solemnity passed away, and Christ's presence was no
longer felt at the common table, the Christian love-
feast was liable to many corruptions. The wealthy
took the best seats, kept hold of their own delicacies,
and, without waiting for any common distribution, each

xi. 17-34.] ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 263

looked after himself and went on with his own supper,
regardless of the fact that others at the table had
none. " Every one taketh before other his own
supper," so that, while one is hungry and has received
nothing, another at this so-called common love-feast
has already taken too much and is intoxicated. Those
who had no need to use the common stock, but had
houses of their own to eat and to drink in, yet, for the
sake of appearances, brought their contribution to the
meal, but consumed it themselves. The consequence
was that from being truly love-feasts, exhibiting Chris-
tian charity and Christian temperance, these meetings
became scandalous as scenes of greedy selfishness,
and profane conduct, and besotted excess. " What
shall I say to you ? shall I praise you in this ? I
praise you not." In this Paul anticipates the condem-
nation of these occasions of revelry and discord which
the Church was obliged to pronounce after no great
lapse of time.1

Thus then arose these disorders in the celebration
of the Lord's Supper. By the conjunction of this rite
with the social meal of the Christians it degenerated
into an occasion of much that was unseemly and
scandalous. To the reform of this abuse Paul now
addresses himself; and it is worth our while to observe
what remedies he does not propose as well as those
he recommends.

First, He does not propose to disjoin absolutely and
in all cases the religious rite from the ordinary meal.
In the case of the richer members of the Church this
disjunction is enjoined. They are directed to take
their meals at home. " Have ye not houses to eat

1 For a highly coloured description of the love-feasts see Renan's
St. Paul, pp. 26 1 -27a

264 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and to drink in ? or despise ye the Church of God, and
shame them that have not ? . . . If any man hunger,
let him eat at home." But with the destitute or those
who had no well-provided homes another rule must
be adopted. It would shame the Christian community,
and quite undo its quickly won reputation for brotherly
love and charity, were its members observed begging
their daily bread on the streets. It was equally un-
seemly for the rich to accept and for the poor to be
denied the meal furnished at the expense of the Church.
And therefore Paul's recommendation is that those
who can conveniently eat at home should do so. But
as no quality of the Christian Church is more strictly
her own than charity and no duty more incumbent or
more lovely than to feed the hungry, it could not dis-
honour the Church to spread in it a meal for whosoever
should be in need of it.

Again, although the wine of Holy Communion had
been so sadly abused, Paul does not prohibit its use
in the ordinance. His moderation and wisdom have
not in this respect been universally followed. On in-
finitely less occasion alterations have been introduced
into the administration of the ordinance with a view to
preventing its abuse by reclaimed drunkards, and on
still slighter pretext a more sweeping alteration was
introduced many centuries ago by the Church of Rome.
In that Church the custom still prevails of receiving
communion only under one kind ; that is to say, the
communicant partakes of the bread, but not of the wine.
The reason for this is given by one of their most
authoritative writers as follows : " It is well known that
this custom was not first established by any ecclesias-
tical law ; but, on the contrary, it was in consequence
of the general prevalence of the usage that this law

xi. 17-34.] ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 265

was passed in approval of it. It is a matter of no less
notoriety that the monasteries in whose centre this
observance had its rise, and thence spread in ever wider
circles, were led by a very nice sense of delicacy to
impose on themselves this privation. A pious dread of
desecrating, by spilling and the like, even in the most
conscientious ministration, the form of the sublimest
and the holiest whereof the participation can be vouch-
safed to man, was the feeling which swayed their
minds. . . . However, we should rejoice if it were left
free to each one to drink or not out of the consecrated
chalice ; and this permission would be granted if with
the same love and concord a universal desire were
expressed for the use of the cup as from the twelfth
century the contrary wish has been enounced." * One
cannot but regret that this reverence for the ordinance
did not take the form of a humble acceptance of it, in
accordance with its original institution ; and one cannot
but think that the a pious dread of desecrating " the
ordinance would have sufficiently prevented any spilling
of the wine or other abuse, or have sufficiently atoned
for any little accident which might occur. And cer-
tainly, in contrast to all such contrivances, the sanity
of Paul's judgment comes out in strong relief; and we
more clearly recognise the sagacity which directed that
the ordinance should not be tampered with to suit the
avoidable weaknesses of men, but that men should
learn to live up to the requirements of the ordinance.

Again, Paul does not insist that because frequent
communion had been abused this must give place to
monthly or yearly communion. In after-times, partly
from the abuses attending frequent communion and

1 Mahler's Symbolism, i.t 35 1.

266 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

partly from the condition of the cities into which
Christianity found its way, a change to rarer celebration
was found advisable; and, for reasons that need not
here be detailed, the Church catholic, both in the East
and in the West, settled down to the custom of cele-
brating the Lord's Supper weekly : and for some
centuries it was expected that all members of the
Church should partake weekly. Paul's reluctance to
lay down any law on the subject suggests that the
abuse of this or any other ordinance does not arise
simply from the frequency of its administration. It is
quite natural to suppose that the inevitable result of
frequent communion is an undue familiarity with holy
things and a profane carelessness in handling what
should only be approached with the deepest reverence.
That familiarity breeds contempt, or at any rate heed-
lessness, is certainly a rule that ordinarily holds good.
As Nelson said of his sailors, hardened by familiarity
with danger, they cared no more for round-shot than
for peas. The medical student who faints or sickens
at his first visit to the operating theatre soon looks
with unblenching face on wounds and blood. And by
the same law it is feared, and not without reason, that
if we observed frequent communion, we should cease
to cherish that proper awe, and cease to feel that flutter
of hesitation, and cease to be subdued by that sacred-
ness of the ordinance which yet are the very feelings
through which in great measure the rite influences us
for good. We think it would be impossible to pass
every week through those trying moments in which
the soul trembles before God's majesty and love as
exhibited in the Lord's Supper ; and we fear that the
heart would instinctively shrink from the reality, and
protect itself against the emotion, and find a way of

xi.17-34-] ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 267

observing the ordinance with ease to itself, and that
thus the life would die out from the celebration, and the
mere husk or form be left.

It is, however, obvious that these fears need not be
verified, and that an effort on our part would prevent
the consequences dreaded. Our method of procedure
in all such cases is first to find out what it is right
to do, and then, though it cost us an effort, to do it.
If our reverence for the ordinance in question depends
on its rare celebration, every one must see that such
reverence is very precarious. May it not be a merely
superstitious or sentimental reverence ? Is it not
produced by some false idea of the rite and its signi-
fication, or does it not spring from the solemnity of
the paraphernalia and human surroundings of it ? Paul
seeks to restore reverence in the Corinthians not by
prohibiting frequent communion, but by setting more
clearly before them the solemn facts which underlie
the rite. In presence of these facts every worthy
communicant is at all times living ; and if it be merely
the outward equipment and presentation of these facts
which solemnize us and quicken our reverence, then
this itself is rather an argument for a more frequent
celebration of the rite, that so this false reverence at
least might be dissipated.

The instincts of men are, however, in many cases a
safer guide than their judgments ; and there is a feeling
prevalent that very frequent communion is not advisable,
and that if it be advisable it should be reached not at
a bound, but step by step. The main point on which
the individual should insist on coming to some clear
understanding with himself is whether his own reluc-
tance to frequent communion does not arise from his
fear of the ordinance being too profitable rather than

268 THE FIRST EriSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

from any fear of its ceasing to profit. Does not our
shrinking from it often mean that we shrink from being
more distinctly confronted with the love and holiness
of Christ and with His purpose in dying for us ? Does
it not mean that we are not quite reconciled to be
always living on the holiest motives, always under
the most subduing and purifying influences, always
living as the children of God, whose citizenship is in
heaven ? Do we shrink from the additional restraint
and the fresh and effectual summons to a life, not
higher and purer than we ought to be living — for there
is no such life — but higher and purer than we are quite
prepared to live ? Putting to ourselves these questions,
we use this rite as the thermometer, which shows us
whether we are cold, lukewarm, or hot, or as the
lead heaved from time to time, which shows us the
depth of water we have and the kind of bottom over
which we are holding our course.

The two most instructive writers on the sacraments
are Calvin and Waterland. The latter, in his very
elaborate treatment of the Eucharist, offers some
remarks upon the point before us. "There can," he
says, "be no just bar to frequency of communion but
the want of preparation, which is only such a bar as
men may then selves remove if they please; and there-
fore it concerns them highly to take off the impediment
as socn as possible, and not to trust to vain hopes of
alleviating one fault by another. . . . The danger of
misperforming any religious duty is an argument for
fear and caution, but no excuse for neglect ; Cod insists
upon the doing it, and the doing it well also. ... It
was no sufficient plea for the slothful servant under
the Gospel that he thcrgh't his master hard to please,
and thereupon neglected his bounden duty, for the

xi. 17-34.] ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 269

use he ought to have made of that thought was to
have been so much the more wakeful and diligent in
his master's service. Therefore in the case of the
Holy Communion it is to very little purpose to plead
the strictness of the self-examination or preparation
by way of excuse either for a total, or for a frequent,
or for a long neglect of it. A man may say that he
comes not to the Table because he is not prepared, and
so far he assigns a good reason ; but if he should be
further asked why he is not prepared when he ma}^
then he can only make some trifling, insufficient excuse
or remain speechless."1

The positive counsel Paul gives regarding suitable
preparation for participation in this Sacrament is very
simple. He offers no elaborate scheme of self-examina-
tion which might fill the mind with scruples and induce
introspective habits and spiritual hypochondria. He
would have every man answer the plain question, Do
you discern the Lord's body in the Sacrament ? This
is the one cardinal point on which all revolves, admit-
ting or excluding each applicant. He who clearly
understands that this is no common meal, but the
outward symbol by means of which God offers to us
Jesus Christ, is not likely to desecrate the Sacrament.
" This is My body," says the Lord, meaning that this
bread will ever remind the communicant that his Lord
freely gave His own body for the life of the world.
And whoever accepts the bread and the wine because
they remind him of this and bring him into a renewed
attitude of faith is a worthy communicant. The
Corinthians were chastened by sickness and apparently
by death that they might see and repent of the enormity

1 Waterland, Works, iv , p 781.

270 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

of using these symbols as common food ; and in order
that they might escape this chastening, they had but
to recall the institution of the Sacrament by our Lord
Himself.

The brief narrative of this first institution which
Paul here inserts gives prominence to the truth that
the Sacrament was intended primarily as a memorial
or remembrance of the Saviour. Nothing could be
simpler or more human than our Lord's appointment
of this Sacrament. Lifting the material of the Supper
before Him, He bids His disciples make the simple act
of eating and drinking the occasion of remembering
Him. As the friend who is setting out on a long
absence or is passing for ever from earth puts into
our hands his portrait or something he has used, or
worn, or prized, and is pleased to think that we shall
treasure it for his sake, so did Christ on the eve of His
death secure this one thing: that His disciples should
have a memento by which to remember Him. And
as the dying gift of a friend becomes sacred to us as
his own person, and we cannot bear to see it handed
about by unsympathetic hands and remarked upon
by those who have not the same loving reverence as
ourselves, and as when we gaze at his portrait, or
when we use the very pen or pencil worn smooth by
his fingers, we recall the many happy times we spent
together and the bright and inspiring words that fell
from his lips, so does this Sacrament seem sacred to
us as Christ's own person, and by means of it grateful
memories of all He was and did throng into the mind.

Again, the form of this memorial is fitted to recall
the actual life and death of the Lord. It is His body
and blood we are invited by the symbols to remember.
By them we are brought into the presence of an actual

xi. 17-34.] ABUSE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 271

living Person. Our religion is not a theory ; it is not
a speculation, a system of philosophy putting us in
possession of a true scheme of the universe and guiding
us to a sound code of morals ; it is, above all, a per-
sonal matter. We are saved by being brought into
right personal relations. And in this Sacrament we
are reminded of this and are helped to recognise Christ
as an actual living Person, who by His body and blood,
by His actual humanity, saved us. The body and
blood of Christ remind us that His humanity was as
substantial as our own, and His life as real. He
redeemed us by the actual human life He led and by
the death He died, by His use of the body and soul
we make other uses of. And we are saved by remem-
bering Him and by assimilating the spirit of His life
and death.

But especially, when Christ said, u Do this in re-
membrance of Me," did He mean that His people to
all time should remember that He had given Himself
wholly to them and for them. The symbols of His
body and blood were intended to keep us in mind that
all that gave Him a place among men He devoted to
us. By giving His flesh and blood He means that He
gives us His all, Himself wholly ; and by inviting us
to partake of His flesh and blood He means that we
must receive Him into the most real connection possible,
must admit His self-sacrificing love into our heart as
our most cherished possession. He bade His disciples
remember Him, knowing that the death He was about
to die would "draw all men unto Him," would fill the
despairing with hopes of purity and happiness, would
cause countless sinners to say to themselves with soul-
subduing rapture, " He loved me, and gave Himself
for me." He knew that the love shown in His death

272 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and the hopes it creates would be prized as the world's
redemption, and that to all time men would be found
turning to Him and saying, " If I forget Thee, let my
right hand forget her cunning ; if I do not remember
Thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not prefer Thee above my chief joy." And
therefore He presents Himself to us as He died : as One
whose love for us actually brought Him to the deepest
abasement and sorest suffering, and whose death opens
for us a way to the Father.

But these symbols were appointed to be for a
remembrance of Christ in order that, remembering
Him, we might renew our fellowship with Him. In
the Sacran^ixt there is not a mere representation of
Christ or a bare commemoration of events in which we
are interested ; but there is also an actual, present
communion between Christ and the soul. Encouraged
and stimulated by the outward signs, we, in our own
soul and for ourselves, accept Christ and the blessings
He brings. There is in the bread and wine themselves
nothing that can profit us, but we are by their means
to " discern the Lord's body." When Christ is said
to be present in the bread and the wine, nothing
mysterious or magical is meant. It is meant that He
is spiritually present to those who believe. He is
present in the Sacrament as He is present to faith
it any time and in any place ; only, these signs which
God puts into our hands to assure us of His gift of
Christ to us help us to believe that Christ is given,
and make it easier for us to rest in Him.

CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS,

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you
ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these
dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to under-
stand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus
accursed : and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the
Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And
there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which
worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to
every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the
word of wisdom ; to another the word of knowledge by the same
Spirit ; to another faith by the same Spirit ; to another the gifts of
healing by the same Spirit ; to another the working of miracles ; to
another prophecy ; to another discerning of spirits ; to another diver5*
kinds of tongues ; to another the interpretation of tongues : but all
these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man
severally as He will. For as the body is one, and hath many
members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one
body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into
one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ;
and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not
one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the
hand, I am not of the body ; is it therefore not of the body ? And if
the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body ; i j
it therefore not of the body ? If the whole body were an eye, where
were the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, where were the
smelling ? But now hath God set the members every one of them i.i
the body, as it hath pleased Him. And if they were all one member,
where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but
one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need
of thee : nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Na}-,
much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble,
are necessary : and those members of the body, which we think to
be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour ;
and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our
comely parts have no need : but God hath tempered the body together,
having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked : that
there should be no schism in the body ; but that the members shouM

have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer,
all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all the
members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and
members in particular. And God hath set some in the Church, first
apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles,
then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are
all apostles ? are all prophets ? are all teachers ? are all workers of
miracles ? Have all the gifts of healing ? do all speak with tongues ?
do all interpret ? "—I Cor. xii. I-3<x

CHAPTER XVIIL

CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS.

THIS Epistle is well fitted to disabuse our minds
of the idea that the primitive Church was in all
respects superior to the Church of our own day. We
turn page after page, and find little but contention,
jealousies, errors, immorality, fantastic ideas, immo-
desty, irreverence, profanity. At this point in the
Epistle we do come upon a state of things which diffe-
rentiates the primitive Church from our own ; but here
too the superior advantages of those early Christians
were sadly abused by ignorance and envy. The
members of the Corinthian Church were possessed of
"spiritual gifts." They were endowed at their conver-
sion or at baptism with certain powers which they had
not previously possessed, and which were due to the
influence of the Holy Spirit. It would have been sur-
prising had so entire a revolution in human feelings and
prospects as Christianity introduced not been accom-
panied by some extraordinary and abnormal manifesta-
tion. The new Divine life which was suddenly poured
into human nature stirred it to unusual power. Men
and women who yesterday could only sit and condole
with their sick friends found themselves to-day in so
elevated a state of mind that they could impart to the
sick vital energy. Young men who had been brought
up in idolatry and ignorance suddenly found their minds

278 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

filled with new and stimulating ideas which they felt
impelled to impart to those who would listen. These
and the like extraordinary gifts, which were very helpful
in calling attention to the young Christian community,
speedily passed away when the Christian Church took
its place as an established institution.

If we are disposed to question the genuineness of those
manifestations because in our own day the Spirit of
Christ does not produce them, there are two considera-
tions which should weigh with us. First, that which
Browning urges : that miracles which were once needed
are now no longer required, because they served the
purpose for which they were given. As when you sow
a plot in a garden you stick twigs round it, that no care-
less person may tread down and destroy the young and
yet unseen plant, but when the plants have themselves
become as tall and visible as the twigs, then these are
useless, so if the miracles actually served to help the
young Church's growth, she by their means has now
become sufficiently visible and sufficiently understood
to need them no more.1

And, secondly, it was to be expected that the first
impact of these new Christian forces on the spirit of

1 " You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs
To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,
And check the careless step would spoil their birth ;
But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,
Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds.
It is no longer for old twigs ye look,
Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,
But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast,
For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain,
Nor miracles need prove it any more.
Doth the fruit show ? Then miracles bade 'ware
At first of root and stem, saved both till now
From trampling ox, rough boar, and wanton goat."

xii. 1-30.] CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 279

man should produce disturbance and violent emotions,
such as could not be expected to continue as the normal
condition of things. New political or social ideas
suddenly possessing a people, as at the French Revo-
lution, carry them to many actions and inspire them
with an energy which cannot be normal. And gentle
and without observation as were the Spirit and the
kingdom of Christ, yet it was impossible but that, under
the pressure of the most influential and inspiring ideas
which ever possessed our race, there should be some
extraordinary manifestations.

Nothing could be more natural than that these gifts
should be overrated and should almost be considered
as the most substantial and advantageous blessings
Christianity had to offer. First being accepted as
evidence of the real indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they
came to be prized for their own sake. Originally
designed as signs of the reality of the communication
between the risen Lord and His Church, and therefore
as assurances that the holiness and blessedness pro-
mised by Christ were not unattainable, they came to be
regarded as themselves more precious than the holiness
they promised. Given to this individual and to that in
order that each might have some gift by which he
could profit the community, they came to be looked
upon as distinctions of which the individual was proud,
and therefore introduced vanity, envy, and separation,
instead of mutual esteem and helpfulness. One gift
was measured with another and rated above or below
it ; and, as usual, what was useful could not compete
with what was surprising. The gift of speaking for
the spiritual profit of the hearers was little thought of
in comparison with the gift of speaking in unknown
tongues. Throughout this and the two following

280 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

chapters Paul explains the object of these gifts and the
principle of their distribution and employment; he
enounces the supremacy of love, and lays down cer-
tain rules for the guidance of meetings in which these
gifts were displayed.

Paul introduces his remarks by reminding them that
their previous history sufficiently explained their need
of instruction. " In your former heathen state you had
no experience whatever similar to that which you now
have in the Church. The dumb idols to the worship
of which you let yourselves be carried did not com-
municate powers similar to those which the Spirit
now communicates to you. Consequently, novices as
you are in this domain, you need a guiding thread to
prevent you from going astray. This is why I instruct
you." l And the first thing you need to guide you is a
criterion by which you can judge whether so-called
manifestations of the Spirit are genuine or spurious.
The test is a simple one. Every one whose words or
actions disparage Jesus proclaims himself to be under
some other influence than that of the Spirit ; every one
who owns Jesus as Lord, serving Him and promoting
His cause, is animated by the Spirit.

u No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus
accursed." But was there any possibility of such an
utterance being heard in a Christian Church ? It
seems there was. It seems that very early in the
history of Christianity men were found in the Church
who could not reconcile themselves to the accursed
death of Christ They believed in the Gospel He
proclaimed, the miracles He wrought, the kingdom He
founded ; but the Crucifixion was still a stumbling-block

1 Godet

x!i. 1-30.] COXCEI^YING SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 281

to them. And so they framed a theory to suit their
own prejudices, and held that the Divine Logos descended
upon Jesus at His baptism and spoke and acted through
Him, but abandoned Him before the Crucifixion. It
was Jesus, a mere man, who died on the Cross the
accursed death. This degradation of Jesus was not to
be tolerated in the Christian Church, and was decisive
as to a man's possession of true spiritual gifts. To own
the lordship of Jesus was the test of a man's Chris-
tianity. Did he acknowledge as supreme that Person
who had lived and died under the name of Jesus ?
Did he employ his spiri:ual gifts for the furtherance of
His kingdom and as one who was really endeavouring
to serve this unseen Master? Then no hesitation need
be shown in admitting his claim to be animated by the
Spirit of God.

In other words, Paul wishes them to understand that,
after all, the only sure test of a man's Christianity is
his actual submission to Christ. No wonderful works
he may accomplish in the Church or in the world prove
his possession of Christ's Spirit. " Many will say to
Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in
Thy name, and in Thy name have cast out devils,
and in Thy name done man}' wonderful works ? And
then will I profess unto them, I never knew you ;
depart from Me, 3'e that work iniquity." A man may
gather and edify a large congregation, he may write ably
in defence of Christianity, he may be recognised as a
benefactor of his age, or he may be considered the most
successful of missionaries, but the only test of a man's
claim to be listened to by the Church is his actual sub-
mission to Christ. He will seek not his own glory, but
the good of men. And as to the gifts themselves, they
shculd be no cause of discord, for they have everything

282 7 HE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

in common : they have their source in God ; they are for
Christ's service ; they are forms of the same Spirit.
" There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And ithere are differences of administrations, but the
same Lord. And there are diversities of operations,
but it is the same God which worketh all in all."

The new life then introduced by Christ into the indi-
vidual and society was found to assume various forms
and to suffice for all the needs of human nature in this
wTorld. Paul delighted to survey the variety of endow-
ment and faculty which appeared in the Church.
Wisdom, knowledge, faith, power to work miracles,
extraordinary gifts of exhortation or prophecy and
also of speaking in unknown tongues, capacity for
managing affairs and general helpfulness — these and
other gifts were the efflorescence of the new life. As
the sun in spring develops each seed according to its
own special kind and character, so this new spiritual
force develops in each man his most intimate and
special character. Christian influence is not an external
appliance that clips all men after one pattern as trees
in an avenue are clipped into one shape ; but it is an
inward and vital power which causes each to grow
according to his own individuality, one with the rugged
irregularity of the oak, another with the orderly rich-
ness of the plane. Variety in harmony is said to be
the principle of all beauty, and it is this which the
Divine Spirit in man produces. Individual distinctions
are not obliterated, but developed and directed for the
service of the community. At one in their allegiance
to Christ, bound into one body by common affections,
beliefs, and hopes, and aiming at the advancement 01
one cause, Christians are yet as different as other men
in faculty, in temperament, in attainment.

xii. 1-30.] CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 283

There is no truth coming more determinedly to the
front in our own day than this : that society is an
organism similar to the human body. This indeed is
no new idea, nor is it an exclusively Christian idea.
That man wTas made for society and that it was each
man's business to labour for the good of the whole was
common Stoic doctrine. It was taught that every man
should believe himself to be born, not for himself, but
for the whole world. Take one out of many expres-
sions of this truth : " You have seen a hand cut off, or
a foot, or a head, lying apart from the rest of the body ;
that is what a man makes himself when he separates
himself from others or does anything unsocial. You
were made by nature a part ; and it is due to the bene-
volence of God that, if you have become detached from
the whole, you can be reunited to it." And in the very
earliest da}'s, when the populace of Rome became dis-
affected and seditious and retired outside the city walls
to a camp of their own, Menenius Agrippa went out to
them and uttered his fable which Shakespeare has
helped to make famous. He related how the various
members of the body — the hand, the eye, the ear — ■
mutinied and refused to work any longer because it
seemed to them that all the food and enjoyment for
which they toiled went to another member, and not to
them. It was of course easy for the accused member
to clear itself of the charge of inactivity and show that
the food it received was not retained for its own ex-
clusive use, but was distributed through the rivers of
the blcod, and how " the strongest nerves and small
inferior veins" from it received the natural competency
whereby they lived.

But although this comparison of society to the body
is not new, it is now being more seriously and scientific-

2S4 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

ally examined and pushed to its legitimate conclusions
and applications. The u real meaning of the doctrine
that society is an organism is that an individual has
no life except that which is social, and that he cannot
realize his own purposes except in realizing the larger
purposes of society." All the organs of the body by
which we do our work in the world and earn our bread
are themselves maintained in life and fulfil the end of
their own existence by working for and maintaining the
whole body ; and except in the common life of the body
they cannot be maintained at all. It is the same with
the other organs of the body. The heart, the lungs,
the digestive organs, have hard and constant work to
do ; but only by doing it can they fulfil the very purpose
of their existence and maintain themselves in life by
contributing to the life of the body in which alone they
can live at all. The same principle holds good in
society. It is obvious in trade and commerce ; a man
can only maintain himself in life by helping to maintain
other people. And the ideal society is one in which
each man should not only yield reluctantly to the com-
pulsion of this natural law, but should clearly see the
great ends for which mankind exists and labour
zealously to promote these ends, should as eagerly seek
what contributes to the good of the whole as the hand
is stretched out for food or as the palate relishes what
etays the appetite and nourishes the whole body.

Illustrating the relation of Christians to one another
by the figure of the members of a body, Paul suggests
several ideas.

I. The unity of Christians is a vital unity. The
members of the body of Christ form one whole because
they partake of one common life. " By one Spirit are
we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or

xii. 1-30.] CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 285

Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have
been all made to drink into one Spirit." The unity
of those who together form the body of Christ is not
a mechanical unity, as of a pound of shot in a bag ;
nor is it a unity imposed by external force, as of caged
wild beasts in a menagerie ; nor is it a unity of mere
accidental juxtaposition, as of passengers in a train
or of the inhabitants of a town. But as the life of the
human body maintains all the various members and
nourishes them to a well-proportioned and harmonious
growth, so is it in the body of Christ. Remove from
the human body the life that supports it, and all the
members fall away from connection with one another ;
but so long as the life is retained it assimilates in the
most surprising way all nutriment to its own precise
type and form. The lion and the tiger may eat precisely
the same food, but that food nourishes in each a
different form. The life that animates the human body
assimilates nutriment to its own uses, imparting to
each member its due proportion and maintaining all
the members in their relation to one another.

The unity of Christians is a unity of this kind, a
vital unity. The same spiritual life exists in all Chris-
tians, derived from the same source, supplying them
with similar energy, and prompting them to the same
habits and aims. They accept the Spirit of Christ,
and so are formed into one body, being no more
isolated, self-seeking, and each man fighting for his
own hand, but banded together for the promotion of
one common cause. There is no clashing between the
interests of the individual and the interests of the
society or kingdom to which he belongs. The member
finds its only life and function in the body, it is by
the freest and most deliberate exercise of his reason

286 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and his will that a man attaches himself to Christ,
seeing that by so doing he enters the only path to real
happiness and attainment. The individual can only
utter and fulfil his best self by doing his possible for
society. His devotement to public interests is no
self-destroying generosity, but the dictate of duty and
of reason. To quote a writer who deals with this
matter from the philosophical point of view, " he who
has made the welfare of the race his aim has done so,
not from a generous choice, but because he regards the
pursuit of this welfare as his imperative duty. The
welfare of the race is his own ideal, what he must
realize in order to be what he ought to be. The welfare
of the race is his own welfare, which he must seek be-
cause he must be himself. Cromwell, Luther, Mahomet,
were heroes, not because they did something over and
above what they ought to have done, but because their
ideal self was coextensive with the larger life of their
world. 'I can no other' was the voice of each. . • .
Their large purposes were what they owed to them-
selves just as much as to their world."1

Those who cannot philosophically reconcile the claims
of society and the claims of the individual are yet
enabled by their attachment to Christ and by their
acceptance of His Spirit to merge self in the larger
whole of Christ's body and find their truest life in
seeking the good of others. It is by their acceptance
of Christ's Spirit as the source and Guide of their own
life that they enter into fellowship with the community
of men.

2. Paul is careful to show that the very efficiency
of the body depends upon the multiplicity and variety

Professor Jones in Essays in Philosophical Criticism

xii. 1-30. CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS 2S7

of the members of which it is composed : M If they
were all one member, where were the body?" "If
the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ?
If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling ? "
The lowest forms of life have either no distinct organs
or very few ; but the higher we ascend in the scale
of life the more numerous and more distinctly diffe-
rentiated are the organs. In the lower forms one
member discharges several functions, and the animal
uses the same organ for locomotion as it u-:es for eating
and digesting ; in the higher forms each department
of life and activity is presided over by its own sense
or organ. The same law holds good of society. Among
tribes low down in the scale of civilisation each man
is his own farmer, or shepherd, or huntsman, and his
own priest, and butcher, and cook, and clothier. Each
man does everything for himself. But as men become
civilised the various wants of society are supplied by
different individuals, and every function is specialized.
The same law necessarily holds true of the body of
Christ. It is highly organized, and no one organ can
do the whole work of the body. Therefore one has
this gift, another that. And the more nearly this
body approaches perfection, the more various and dis-
tinct will these gifts be.

One important function of the Church therefore is
to elicit and utilize every faculty for good which its
members possess. In a society in which Christianity
is but beginning to take root, it may fall to one man
to do the work of the whole Christian body — to be eye,
tongue, foot, hand, and heart. He must evangelise, he
must teach, he must legislate, he must enforce law;
he must preach, he must pray, he must lead the
singing ; he must plan the church and help to build

2S8 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

it ; translate the Scriptures and help to print them ;
teach the savages to wear a little clothing and help to
make it ; dissuade them from war and instruct them
in the arts of peace, instilling a taste for agriculture
and commerce. But when the Christian society has left
this rudimentary stage behind, those various functions
are discharged by different individuals; and as it
advances towards a perfect condition its functions and
organs become as multifarious and as distinctly diffe-
rentiated as the organs of the human body. Every
member of the Church is different from every other,
and has a gift of his own. Some are fitted to nourish
the Church herself and maintain the body of Christ
in health and efficiency; some are fitted to act on the
world outside : they are eyes to perceive, feet to
pursue, hands to lay hold of those who are straying
from the light.

Every one therefore who is drawn into the fellow-
ship of the body of Christ has something to contribute
to its good and to the work it does. He is in connec-
tion with that body because the Spirit of Christ has
possessed and assimilated him to it ; and that Spirit
energizes in him. He may not see that anything the
Church is presently engaged in is work he can under-
take. He may feel out of place and awkward when he
attempts to do what others are doing. He feels himself
like a greyhound, compelled to run by scent and not
by sight, and expected to do the work of a pointer, and
not seize his quarry, or as if set to do the work of
an eye with the hand. He can do it only in a groping,
fumbling, imperfect manner. But this is only a hint
that he is meant for other work, not for none. And
it is for him to discover what his Christian instincts
lead him to. The eye does not need to be told it is

xii. 1-30.] CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 2S9

for seeing, or the hand that it is for grasping. The
eye and the hand of the child instinctively do their
office. And where there is true Christian life, it
matters not what the member of Christ's body be, it
will find its function, even though that function is
new in the Church's experience.

The fact then that you are very different from the
ordinary members of the Church is no reason for
supposing you do not belong to Christ's body. The
ear is very different from the eye ; it can detect neither
form nor colour ; it cannot enjoy a landscape or welcome
a friend : but " if the ear shall say, Because I am not
the eye, I am not of the body ; is it therefore not of the
body ? " Is it not, on the contrary, its very diversity
from the eye that makes it a welcome addition to the
body, enriching its capabilities and enlarging its useful-
ness ? It is not by comparison with other people that
we can tell whether we belong to the body of Christ,
nor is our function in that body determined by an}'thing
which some other member is doing. The very difficulty
we find in adjusting ourselves to others and in finding
any already existing Christian work to which we can
give ourselves is a hint that we have the opportunity
of adding to the Church's efficiency. The Church can
claim to be perfect only when she embraces the most
diversely gifted individuals and allows the tastes,
instincts, and aptitudes of all to be used in her work.

3. As there is to be no slothful self-disparagement
in the body of Christ, so must there be no depreciation
of other people. " The eye cannot say unto the hand,
I have no need of thee : nor again the head to the feet,
I have no need of you." When zealous people dis-
cover new methods, they forthwith despise the normal
ecclesiastical system that has stood the test and is

29° THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

stamped with the approval of centuries. One method
cannot regenerate and Christianize the world, any more
than one member can do the whole work of the body.
Paul goes even further, and reminds us that the
" feeble " parts of the body are " the more necessary ; "
the heart, the brain, the lungs, and all those delicate
members of the body that do its essential work entirely
hidden from view are more necessary than the hand
or the foot, the loss of which no doubt cripples, but
does not kill. So in the Church of Christ it is the
hidden souls who by their prayers and domestic godli-
ness maintain the whole body in health and enable
more conspicuously gifted members to do their part.
Contempt for any member of the body of Christ is
most unseemly and sinful. Yet men seem unable ever
to learn how many members, and how various, it takes
to complete a body, and how needful are those functions
they themselves are wholly unable to discharge.

4. Lastly, Paul is careful to teach that " the mani-
festation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal." It is not for the glorification of the individual
that the new spiritual life manifests itself in this or
that remarkable form, but for the edification of the
body of Christ. However beautiful any feature of a
face may be, it is hideous apart from its position among
the rest and lying by itself. Morally hideous and no
longer admirable is the Christian who attracts attention
to himself and does not subordinate his gift to the
advantage of the whole body of Christ. If in the
human body any member asserts itself and is not
subservient to the one central will, that is recognised
as disease: St. Vitus' dance. If any member ceases
to obey the central will, paralysis is indicated. And
equally so is disease indicated wherever a Christian

xii. 1-30.] CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 291

seeks his own ends or his own glorification, and not
the advantage of the whole body. Simon Magus
sought to make a reputation and a competence for
himself by spiritual gifts. What in his case was
mainly stupidity is in ours sin if we use such powers
and opportunities as we have for our own purposes,
and not with a view to th^ profit of others.

Let us then endeavour to recognise our position as
members of Christ's body. Let us with seriousness
accept Him as appointed by God to be our true spiritual
Life and Head ; let us consider what we have it in our
power to do for the good of the whole body ; and let
us put aside all jealousy, envy, and selfishness, and
with meekness honour the work aonc by others while
humbly and hopefully doing our own*

JVO G2FT LIKE LOVE.

" But covet earnestly the best gifts : and yet show I unto you a more
excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a
tinkling cymbal. And though I have thi gift of prophec}', and under-
stand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am
nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and
though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it
profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity
envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not
behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, lb not easily provoked,
thinkefh no evil ; rejoioetn not in iniquity, but rejulceth in the truth;
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things. Charity never faileth : but whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether
there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and
we prophesy in pnrt. But when that which is perfect is come, then
that which is in pan shall be done away. When I was a child, 1
spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child : but
when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see
through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in part ;
bat then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abidcth
faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
— I Cor. xii. 11 — xiii. 13.

CHAPTER XIX.

NO GIFT LIKE LOVE,

'"T^HIS is one of the passages of Scripture which
X an expositor scruples to touch. Some of the
bloom and delicacy of surface passes from the flower
in the very handling which is meant to exhibit its
fineness of texture. But although this eulogium of
love is its own best interpreter, there are points in it
which require both explanation and enforcement.

In the preceding chapter (xii.) Paul has striven to
suppress the envy, vanity, and discord which had
resulted from the abuse of the spiritual gifts with
which the Corinthian Church was endowed. He has
explained that these gifts were bestowed for the edi-
fication of the Church, and not for the glorification of
the individual ; and that therefore the individual should
covet, not the most surprising, but the most profitable,
of these manifestations of the Spirit. " Covet the best
gifts," he says : Desire the gifts which edify, the gift
of exhortation, or, as it was then called, prophecy. And
yet there is a more excellent way to edify the Church
than even to exercise apostolic gifts ; this is the way
of love, which he proceeds to celebrate.

I. Love is the ligament which binds together the
several members of the body of Christ, the cement
which keeps the stones of the temple together. With-

296 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

out love there can be no body; no temple, only
isolated stones or disconnected, and therefore useless,
members. The extraordinary gifts of which the Corin-
thians were so proud cannot compete with love. They
may profit the Church, but without love they are no
evidence of the ripe Christian manhood of their pos-
sessor. Suppose I speak all possible languages —
languages of angels, if you please, as well as languages
of men — and have not love, I am but a mere instrument
played upon by another, no better than a bit of sound-
ing brass, a trumpet or a cymbal, not enjoying, nor
moved by, nor swayed by the music I make, but
insensible. As Bunyan says, "Is it so much to be
a fiddle ?" If no man understands the language I
am impelled to use, then I am but as a clanging
cymbal, making a noise without significance. And
even though I speak a tongue which some stranger
recognises as his own, it is not I who am coming into
contact with his soul through a living influence ; I am
but used as an instrument of brass is used by the
player.

Or take even the higher gift of prophecy. Suppose
I am enlightened by the Spirit so that I can explain
things hitherto misunderstood; suppose I can make
revelations of important truths which have been access-
ible to none besides; suppose even that I have ail
faith, faith, as the rabbis say, to remove mountains ;
suppose I can work miracles, heal the sick, raise the
dead, set the whole world agape with astonishment,
all this without love, however it may profit others,
profits myself not at all, and neither brings me into
closer connection with Christ nor gives assurance of
my sound spiritual condition. I may be among the
number of those who, after doing wonderful works

xii.31-xiii.13.] NO GIF1 LIKE LOVE. 297

in Christ's name, are repudiated by Him. For as
among ourselves there are many gifts, such as learning,
eloquence, sagacity, musical, and poetical, and artistic
genius, which may greatly contribute to the edification
of the Church, and yet reside in persons who can make
little claim to sanctity, so in the early Church these
extraordinary spiritual gifts seem to have carried with
them no evidence of their possessors' personal religion.
They had certainly begun a Christian career, but they
might be deteriorating in character instead of develop-
ing and maturing.

There were, however, two Christian actions which
might seem to be beyond question as evidence of a
sound spiritual condition : almsgiving and martyrdom.
The young man who sought guidance from Christ
lacked but one thing : to sell his property and give
to the poor. But, says Paul, " though I bestow
all my goods to feed the poor, and have not love, it
profiteth me nothing." It is only too possible to do
great acts of charity from a love of display, or from
an uneasy sense of duty which parts reluctantly and
grudgingly with what it bestows. That is understood.
Common-sense tells every one but the abjectly super-
stitious man himself that it is as impossible to buy
spiritual health on a bed of death as it is to buy the
cure of his mortal disease.

But martyrdom ? Can a man give any stronger
proof of his faith than to give his body to be burned ?
Certainly one would with great reluctance disparage
the integrity of those courageous persons who in many
ages of the Church's history have gone without flinch-
ing to the stake. But, in point of fact, a willingness
to suffer for one's opinion or one's faith is not in every
case a guarantee of the existence of a heart transformed

298 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

from selfishness to love. At one period martyrdom
became fashionable, and Christian teachers were com-
pelled to remonstrate with those who fanatically rushed
to the stake and the arena, just as suicide once became
fashionable at Rome and evoked prohibitory legislation.
Not without reason then does Paul so emphatically
warn men against looking upon such exceptional actions
or such extraordinary endowments as undoubted evi-
dence of a healthy spiritual state. Gifts and conduct
which bring men prominently before the eye of the
Church or the world are often no index to the character ;
and if they be not rooted in and guided by love, their
possessor has little reason to congratulate himself.
Too often it is a man's snare to judge himself by what
he does rather than by what he is. It is so easy com-
paratively to do great things supposing certain gifts
te present ; it is at least always possible to human
nature to make sacrifices and engage in arduous duties.
The impossible thing is love. No eye to advantageous
consequences or to public opinion can enable a man
to love ; no desire to maintain a character for piety
can produce that grace. } Love must be spontaneous,
from the soul's self, not produced by considerations or
the requirements cf a position we wish to reach or to
maintain. It must be the unconstrained, natural out-
come of the real man. Not even the consideration
of Christ's love will produce love in us if there be
not a real sympathy with Christ. A sense of benefit
received will not produce love where there is no
similarity of sentiment. Love cannot be got up. It
is the result of God entering and possessing the soul.
" He that loveth is born of God." That is the only
account to be given of the matter. And therefore it is
that where love is absent all is at sent.

xii 31-xiii. 13.] NO GIFT LIKE LOVE. 299

And yet how the mistake of the Corinthians is
perpetuated from age to age. The Church is smitten
with a genuine admiration of talent, of the faculties
which make the body of Christ bulk larger in the
eye of the world, while too often love is neglected.
After all that the Church has learned of the dangers
which accompany theological controversy, and of the
hollowness of much that passes for growth, intellectual
gifts are frequently prized more highly than love.
Do we not ourselves often become aware that the
absence of this one thing needful is writing vanity and
failure on all we do and on all we are ? If we are
not yet in the real fellowship of the body of Christ,
possessed by a love that prompts us to serve the
whole, with what complacency can we look on other
acquirements ? Do parents sufficiently impress on
their children that all successes at school and in early
life are as nothing compared to the more obscure
but much more substantial acquisition of a thoroughly
unselfish, generous, catholic spirit of service ?

2. Paul having illustrated the supremacy of love
by showing that without it all other gifts are profitless,
proceeds (vers. 4-7) to celebrate its own positive
excellence. It is possible, though unlikely, that Pau]
may have read the eulogium pronounced on love by
the greatest of Greek writers five hundred years be-
fore : " Love is our lord, supplying kindness and
banishing unkindness, giving friendship and forgiving
enmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise,
the amazement of the gods; desired by those who
have no part in him, and precious to those who have
the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury,
desire, fondness, softness, grace ; careful of the good,
uncareful of the evil. In every word, work, wish,

300 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

fear — pilot, helper, defender, saviour; glory of gods
and men. leader best and brightest ; in whose footsteps
let every man follow, chanting a hymn and joining
in that fair strain with which love charms the souls of
gods and men." Five hundred years after Paul another
eulogium was pronounced on love by Mohammed :
" Every good act is charity : your smiling in your
brother's face ; your putting a wanderer in the right
road ; your giving water to the thirsty, or exhortations
to others to do right. A man's true wealth hereafter
is the good he has done in this world to his fellow-man.
When he dies, people will ask, What property has
he left behind him ? but the angels will ask what
good deeds he has sent before him."

Paul's eulogium is the more effective because it
exhibits in detail the various ramifications of this
exuberant and fruitful grace, how it runs out into ail
our intercourse with our fellow-men and carries with
it a healing and sweetening virtue. It imbues the
entire character, and contains in itself the motive Oi
all Christian conduct. It is " the fulfilling of the Law."
Its claims are paramount because it embraces all other
virtues. If a man has love, there is no grace impossible
to him or into which love will not on occasion develop.
Love becomes courage of the most absolute kind
where danger threatens its object. It begets a wisdom
and a skill which put to shame technical training and
experience. It brings forth self-restraint and temper-
ance as its natural fruit ; it is patient, forgiving,
modest, humble, sympathizing. It is quite true that

"As every lovely hue is light,
So every grace is love."

Thomas a Kern pis dwells with evident relish on

xii.3i-xiii. 13.] NO GIFT LIKE LOVE. 301

the varied capacity of this all-comprehending grace.
"Love," he says, " feels no burden, regards not labours,
would willingly do more than it is able, pleads not
impossibilities, because it feels sure that it can and
may do all things. Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleas-
ant, and delightful ; strong, patient, faithful, prudent,
longsuffering, manly, and never seeking itself: it is
circumspect, humble, and upright ; sober, chaste, stead-
fast, quiet, and guarded in all its senses."

Paul's description of the behaviour of love is drawn
in view of the discords and vanities of the Corinthians
and as a contrast to their unseemly and unbrotherly
conduct. "Love suffereth long, and is kind;" it
reveals itself in a magnanimous bearing of injuries
and in a considerate and tender imparting of benefits.
It returns good for evil ; not readily provoked by
slights and wrongs, it ever seeks to spend itself in
kindnesses. Then there is nothing envious, vain, or
selfish in love. " Love envieth not ; love vaunteth not
itself." It neither grudges others their gifts, nor is
eager to show off its own. The pallor and bitter sneer
of envy and the ridiculous swagger of the boastful are
equally remote from love. " It is not puffed up, and
doth not behave itself unseemly." Love saves a man
from making a fool of himself by consequential conduct,
and by thrusting himself into positions which betray
his incompetence, and by immodest, irreverent, and
eccentric actions. It balances a man and gives him
sense by bringing him into right relations with his
fellows and prompting him to esteem their gifts more
highly than his own. Neither is love ever on the
watch for its own rights, scrupulously exacting the
remuneration, the recognition, the applause, the pre-
cedence, the deference, that maybe due: " it sceketh

302 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

not its own." u It is not easily provoked, nor does it
take account of evil ; " it is not fired with resentment at
every little slight, and does not make a mental note and
lay up in its memory the contempt shown by one, the
indifference shown by another, the intention to wound
betrayed by a third. Love is too little occupied with
itself to feel these exhibitions of malice very keenly.
It is bent on winning the battle for others, and the
wounds received in the cause are made light of. Its
eye is still on the advantage to be gained by the needy,
and not on itself.

Another manifestation of love, and one the mention
of which pricks the conscience, is that it " rejoiceth
not in unrighteousness." It has no malignant pleasure
in seeing reputations exploded, in discovering the sin,
the hypocrisy, the mistakes, of other men. " It rejoiceth
with the truth." Where truth scatters calumny and
shows that suspicions were ill-founded, love rejoices.
Successful wickedness, whether for or against its own
interests, love has no pleasure in ; but^ where goodness
triumphs love is thrilled with a sympathetic joy. In
place of rejoicing in discovered wickedness because it
lowers a rival or seems to leave a more prominent
position to itself, love hastens to cover the fault.
"It covereth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
all things." It has untiring charity, making every
allowance, proposing every excuse, believing that ex-
planations can be made, accepting greedily such as
are made, slow to be persuaded that things are as
bad as rumour paints, hoping against hope for the
acquittal, or at any rate for the reformation, of every
culprit

3. Finally, Paul shows the superiority of love by
comraring it in point of permanence, first, with the

xii.31-xiii.13.] A*0 GIFT LIKE LOVE. 303

gifts of which the Corinthians were so proud, and,
second, with the universal Christian graces.

" Love never faileth ; " it is imperishable : it grows
from less to more ; there never comes a time when it
gives place to some higher quality of soul, or when it
is unimportant whether a man has it or no, or when
it is no longer the criterion of the whole moral state.
The most surprising spiritual gifts can make no such
claim. " Whether there be prophecies, they shall be
done away ; whether there be tongues, they shall
cease." These gifts were for the temporary benefit of
the Church. However some might misapprehend their
significance and fancy that these extraordinary mani-
festations were destined to characterise the Christian
Church throughout its history, Paul was not so
deceived. He was prepared for their disappearance.
They were the scaffolding which no one thinks of or
inquires after when the building is finished, the school-
books which become the merest rubbish when the boy
is educated, the prop which the forester removes when
the sapling has become a tree.

But knowledge ? The knowledge of God and of
Divine things in which good men delight, and which
is esteemed the stamina of character — is not this per-
manent ? No, says Paul. " Knowledge also shall be
done away." And to illustrate his meaning Paul
uses two figures : the figure of a child's knowledge,
which is gradually lost in the knowledge of the man,
and the figure of an object dimly seen through a
semi-transparent medium. We shall understand the
significance and the bearing of these figures if we
consider that when we speak of imperfect knowledge we
may mean either of two things : we may either mean
that it is imperfect in amount or that it is imperfect

304 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

in quality, in accuracy. When a boy begins the study
of Euclid, the first proposition he learns is absolutely
accurate and true ; he may add to it, but he can
never improve upon it. His knowledge is imperfect
in amount, but so far as it goes it is absolutely reliable ;
he may build upon it and deduce other truths from it.
But when we are walking on a misty morning and
see an object at a distance, our knowledge is imperfect,
but in quite another sense. It is imperfect in the
sense of being dim, uncertain, inaccurate. We see
that there is something before us, but whether a human
being or a gatepost we cannot say. A little nearer
we see it is a human being, but whether old or young,
friend or no friend, we cannot say. Here the growth
of our knowledge is from dimness to accuracy.

Both the figures used by Paul imply that our know-
ledge of Divine things is of this latter kind. They
Icom, as it were, through a mist. Many of their details
are invisible. We have not got them under our hand
to examine at leisure. Our present knowledge is as
the light of a lantern by which we can pick our way,
or as the starlight, for which we are thankful in the
meantime ; but when the sun of a wider, deeper, truer
knowledge rises, what we now call knowledge shall be
quite eclipsed. " When_I was a child," says Paul,
''I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought
as a child : but when I became a man, I put away
childish things." That is to say, Paul was distinctly
av«are that much of our present knowledge is pro-
\isional. We do not know the very truth, but only
such approximations to the truth and such sj^mbols
of it as we are able to understand. We are at present
in the state of childhood, which cherishes many notions
destined to be exploded by maturer knowledge. We

xii.31-xiii.13.] NO GIFT LIKE LOVE. 305

think of God as a Being very similar to ourselves, only-
very much greater ; and in our present state we must
be content with this imperfect knowledge, but prepared
to put it away as "childish" when fuller knowledge
comes. The atoning death of Christ may be spoken
of as the substitutionary sacrifice of a Victim on whom
our guilt is laid; but to speak thus of the death of
Christ is to make large use of the language of symbol,
and we must hold our minds open for the fuller
knowledge which will make such language seem quite
inadequate. Paul's language warns us against speaking,
or thinking, or acting as if our knowledge of Divine
things were perfectly accurate, and as if therefore we
might freely and unhesitatingly condemn all who differ
from us.

The other figure is still more precise, although there
is great difference of opinion as to what Paul means
by seeing now " through a glass, darkly." The word
here rendered M glass " is used either for the dim
metallic mirror used by the ancients, or for the semi-
translucent talc which was their substitute for glass
in windows. Of these two meanings it is the latter
which in this passage gives the best sense. It was a
common figure among the rabbis to illustrate dimness
of vision. If they wished to denote direct and clear
vision, they spoke of seeing a thing face to face ; if they
wished to denote uncertain and hazy vision, they spoke
of seeing through a glass — that is, through a substance
only a little more transparent than our own dimmed
glass, through which you can see objects, but cannot
tell exactly what they are or who the persons are who
are moving. Thus they had a common saying, "All
other prophets saw as through nine glasses, Moses as
through one." The rabbis, too, had another saying

3o6 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

which illustrates the second part of this twelfth verse:
" Even as a king, who with common people talks
through a veil, so that he sees them, but they do not
see him, but when his friend comes to speak to him,
he removes this veil, so that he might see him face
to face, even so did God speak to Moses apparently,
and not darkly."1

Interpreting Paul's language then by the language
of his own kith and kin and of the schools in which
he had been educated, his meaning is that in this life
we can see Divine things only dimly and as through
a veil, but hereafter we shall see them without the
intervention of any obscuring medium. Here and now
we can make out only the general outline of the unseen
realities ; but hereafter we shall know even as we are
known, shall see God as directly as He now sees us.
We shall not have even then the same perfect know-
ledge of Him that He has of us, but shall see Him
as immediately and directly as He sees us. Now He
wears a veil through which He can see, but through
which we cannot see ; hereafter He will lay aside this.
Our present knowledge of God and of all things unseen
is necessarily vague, not susceptible of exact definition.
There are some things of which we may be quite sure,
others of which we must be content to remain in un-
certainty. We may be quite sure that God exists, that
He loves us, that He has sent His Son to save us ; but
if we attempt to run a sharp and clear outline round
the truths thus dimly seen, we shall inevitably err.

It may be added that while Paul warns us against
supposing that our knowledge is perfect, he does not
mean to brand it as useless or delusive. On the

1 See the passages in Wets ein and Sehottgen.

xU.31-xiii.13.] NO GIFT LIKE LOVE. 3<>7

contrary, his figures imply that it is necessary for our
growth, and that unless we honestly use such knowledge
as we have, we cannot win our way to knowledge that
is perfect. It is the imperfect knowledge of the child
which leads it on to further attainment. The funda-
mental doctrine of the Christian creed that there are
three Persons in one God is certainly a very rough
and childish expression of a truth far deeper than we
can understand, but to reject this doctrine because it
is evidently only an approximation to a truth which
cannot be defined and stated in final terms is to refuse
to submit to the conditions under which we now live
and to ape a manhood which in point of fact we do
not possess.

Paul's crowming testimony to the worth of love is
given in the thirteenth verse : u But now abideth faith,
hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is
love." He does not mean that love abides while faith
becomes sight and hope fruition. Rather he indicates
that faith and hope are also imperishable, and hereby
distinguished from the spiritual gifts of which he has
been speaking. Both in this life and in that which
is to come faith, hope, and love abide. For faith and
hope pass away only in one aspect of their exercise.
If by faith be meant belief in things unseen, this
passes away when the unseen is seen. If hope be
taken as referring only to the future state in general,
then when that state is reached hope passes away.
But faith and hope are really permanent elements of
human life, faith being the confidence we have in
God, and hope the ever-renewed expectancy of future
good. But while faith maintains us in connection with
God, love is the enjoyment of God and the partaking
ofnis nature ; and while hope renews our energy and

308 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

guides our aims, it can bring us to no better thing
than love.

To see the beauty, fruitfulness, and sufficiency of
love is easy, but to have it as the mainspring of our own
ife most difficult, indeed the greatest of all attainments.
This we instinctively recognise as the true test of our
condition. Have we that in us which really knits us
to God and our fellow-men and prompts us to do
our utmost for them ? Have we in us this new
affection which destroys selfishness and brings us into
true and lasting relations with all we have to do
with ? This is the root of all good, the beginning of
all blessedness, because the germ of all likeness to
God, who Himself is love.

SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP.

M Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye
may prophesy. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh
not unto men, but unto God : for no man understandeth him ; bow-
beit in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth
speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. He
that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that
prophesieth edifieth the Church. I would that ye all spake with
tongues, but rather that ye prophesied : for greater is he that
prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret,
that the Church may receive edifying. Now, brethren, if I come unto
you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall
speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying,
or by doctrine ? And even things without life giving sound, whether
pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall
it be known what is piped or harped ? For if the trumpet give an
uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So like-
wise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood,
how shall it be known what is spoken ? for ye shall speak into the
air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and
none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the
meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian,
and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. Even so ye,
forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel
to the edifying of the Church. Wherefore let him that speaketh in an
unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in an
unknown tongue, my spirit praycth, but my understanding is un-
fruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will
pray with the understanding also : I will sing with the spirit, and I
will sing with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless
with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned
say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what
thou sayest ? For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not
edified. I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all :
yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my under-
standing, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten
thousand words in an unknown tongue. Brethren, be not children

in understanding : hovvbeit in malice be ye children, but in under-
standing be men. In the Law it is written, With men of other
tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all
that will they not hear Me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are
for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not :
but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them
which believe. If therefore the whole Church be come together into
one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that
are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad ?
But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one
unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all : and thus are the
secrets of his heart made manifest ; and so falling down on his face
he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth. How
is it then, brethren ? when ye come together, every one of you hath
a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an in-
terpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. If any man
speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by
three, and that by course ; and let one interpret. But if there be no
interpreter, let him keep silence in the Church ; and let him speak to
himself, and to God. Let the prophets speak two or three, and let
the other judge. If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by,
let the first hold his peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one, that
all may learn, and all may be comforted. And the spirits of the
prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the Author 01
confusion, but of peace, as in all Churches of the saints. Let your
women keep silence in the Churches : for it is not permitted untg
them to speak ; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as
also saith the Law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask
their husbands at home : for it is a shame for women to speak in
the Church. What ? came the word of God out from you ? or came
it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you
are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let
him be ignorant. Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid
not to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in
order." — I Cor. xiv. 1-40.

CHAPTER XX.

SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP,

IN the first twenty-five verses of this chapter Paul
gives his estimate of the comparative value of the
two chief spiritual gifts: speaking with tongues and
prophesying ; in the latter half of the chapter he lays
down certain rules which were to guide the exercise of
these gifts and certain principles on which all the wor-
ship and public services of the Church should proceed.
A difficulty, however, meets us at the outset. We
have no opportunity of observing these gifts in exercise,
and cannot readily understand them. With prophecy
indeed there need be no great difficulty. Prophesying
is speaking for God, whether the utterance regards
present or future matters. When Moses complained
that he had no gift of utterance, God said, " Aaron shall
be thy prophet ; " that is, shall speak for thee, or be thy
spokesman. Prediction is not necessarily any part of
the prophet's function. It may be so, and often it
was so, but a man might be a prophet who had no
revelation of the future. In the sense in which Paul
uses the word, a prophet was "an inspired teacher and
exhorter who revealed to men the secrets of God's will
and word and the secrets of their own hearts for the
purpose of conversion and edification." The function
of the prophet is indicated in the third verse : " He that

3H THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

prophesieth speaketh for edification, and exhortation,
and comfort ; " and still further in the twenty-fourth
and twenty-fifth verses, where the results of prophesy-
ing are described in terms precisely such as we should
use to describe the results of efficacious preaching.
The hearer is " convinced," is conscious in himself that
the wrords spoken are shedding light and carrying
conviction into the recesses of his heart. The gift of
prophecy, then, was the endowment which enabled a
Christian to speak so as to bring the mind and spirit
of the hearer into touch with God.

But the gift of tongues is involved in greater obscurity.
On its first occurrence, as recorded in the book of Acts,
it would seem to have been the gift of speaking in
foreign languages. We are told that the strangers
from Asia Minor, Parthia, the shores of the Black Sea,
Africa, and Italy, when they heard the disciples speak-
ing, recognised that they were speaking intelligible
languages. One man was attracted by the sound ot
his native Arabic ; another heard the familiar Latin ; a
third for the first time in Jerusalem heard a Jew
speaking the language he was accustomed to hear on
the banks of the Nile. Naturally they were confounded
by the circumstance, M every man hearing," as it is said,
" his own language, the tongue wrherein he was born."
It would certainly seem probable, therefore, that, whether
the gift afterwards changed its character or not, it was
originally the power of speaking in a foreign language
so as to be intelligible to any one who understood that
language.

This gift was of course communicated, not as a
permanent acquisition, to fit men to preach the Gospel
in foreign countries, but merely as a temporary impulse
to utter words which to themselves had no meaning. All

xiv.i-40.] SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP. 315

spiritual gifts seem to have been inconstant in their
influence. Paul had the gift of healing, and yet he " left
Trophimus atMiletumsick;" his dear friend Epaphroditus
was sick nigh unto death without Paul being able
to help him ; and when Timothy was unwell, he did
not cure him by miracle, but by a very commonplace
prescription. So, too, wrhen a man by study and practice
acquires the use of a foreign tongue, he has command
of that language so long as memory lives and for all
purposes ; but this " gift of tongues " was only available
H as the Spirit gave utterance " to each, and failed to
communicate a constant and complete command of the
language. It is not to be supposed therefore that this
gift was bestowed in order to enable men more easily
to proclaim the Gospel to all races. And at no period
of the world's history was such a gift less needed, Greek
and Latin being very generally understood throughout
the Roman world. Perhaps more persons grew up
bilingual in that day than at any other time.

If then this gift was intermittent and did not qualify
its possessor to use a foreign language for the ordinary
purposes of life or for preaching the Gospel, what was
its use ? It served the same purpose as other miracles ;
it made visible and called attention to the entrance of
new powers into human nature. As Paul says, it was
<l for them that believe not, not for them that believe."
It was meant to excite inquiry, not to instruct the mind
of the Christian. It produced conviction that among
the followers of Christ new powers were at work. The
evidence of this took a shape which seemed to intimate
that the religion of Christ was suitable for every race
of mankind. This gift of tongues seemed to claim all
nations as the object of Christ's work. The most remote
and insignificant tribe was accessible to Him. He

316 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

knew their language, suited Himself to their pecu-
liarities, and claimed kindred with them.

It must, however, be said that the common opinion of
scholars is that the gift of tongues did not consist in
ability to speak a foreign language even temporarily,
but in an exalted frame of mind which found expres-
sion in sounds or words belonging to no human language.
What was thus uttered has been compared to the
" merry, unmeaning shouts of boyhood, getting rid of
exuberant life, uttering in sounds a joy for which man-
hood has no words." These ecstatic cries or exclamations
were not always understood either by the person uttering
them, or by any one else, so that there was always a
risk of such utterances being considered either as the
ravings of lunatics, or, as in the first instance, the
thick and inarticulate mutterings of drunkards. But
sometimes there was present a person in the same
key of feeling whose spirit vibrated to the note struck
by the speaker, and who was able to render his
inarticulate sounds into intelligible speech. For as
music can only be interpreted by one who has a feeling
for music, and as the inarticulate language of tears, or
sighs, or groans can be comprehended by a sympathetic
soul, so the tongues could be interpreted by those whose
spiritual state corresponded to that of the gifted person.

At various periods of the Church's history these
manifestations have been reproduced. The Montanists
of the early Church, the Camisards of France at the
close of the seventeenth century, and the Irvingites
of our own country claimed that they possessed similar
gifts. Probably all such manifestations are due to
violent nervous agitation. The early Quakers showed
their wisdom in treating all physical manifestations
as physical.

xiv. 1-40.] SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP. 317

Comparing these two gifts, prophecy and speaking
with tongues, Paul very decidedly gives the preference
to the former, and this mainly on the score of its
greater utility. It often happened that when one of
the Christians spoke in tongues there was no one
present who could interpret. However exalted the
man's own spirit might be, the congregation could
derive no benefit from his utterances. And if a number
of persons spoke at once, as they seemed to do in
Corinth, on the pretext that they could not control
themselves, any unbeliever who came in and heard
this Babel of sound would naturally conclude, as Paul
says, that he had stumbled into a ward of lunatics.
Such disorder must not be. If there were no one
present who could interpret what the speakers with
tongues were saying, they must be silent. Apart from
interpretation speaking with tongues was mere noise,
the blare of a trumpet sounded by one who did not
know one call from another, and which was mere
unintelligible sound. Prophesying was not liable to
these abuses. All understood it, and could learn some-
thing from it.

From this preference shown by Paul for the less
showy but more useful gift, we may gather that to
make public worship the occasion of self-display or
sensational exhibitions is to degrade it. This is a
hint for the pulpit rather than for the pew. Preachers
must resist the temptation to preach for effect, to make
a sensation, to produce fine sermons. The desire to
be recognised as able to move men, to say things
smartly, to put the truth freshly, to be eloquent, or to
be sensible is always striving against the simple-minded
purpose of edifying Christ's people. Worshippers as
well as preachers may, however, be so tempted. They

3x8 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

may sing with a gratified sense of exhibiting a good
voice. They may find greater pleasure in what is
sensational in worship than in what is simple and
intelligible.

Again, we here see that worship in which the under-
standing bears no part receives no countenance from
Paul. " I will pray with the spirit ; I will pray with
the understanding also." Where the prayers of the
Church are in an unknown tongue, such as Latin,
the worshipper may indeed pray with the spirit, and
may be edified thereby, but his worship would be
better did he pray with the understanding also. Music
unaccompanied by wrords induces in some tempera-
ments an impressible condition which has an appearance
of devcutness and probably something of the reality ;
but such devoutness is apt to be either hazy or senti-
mental or both, unless by the help of accompanying
words the understanding goes hand in hand with
feeling.

No countenance can be found in this chapter to the
idea that worship should exclude preaching and become
the sole purpose of the assembling together of Christian
people. Some temperaments incline towards worship,
but resent being preached to or instructed. The
reverential and serious feelings which are quickened
into life by devotional forms of prayer may be scattered
by the buffoonery or ineptitudes of the preacher.
Exasperation, unbelief, contempt, in the mind of the
hearer may be the only results achieved by some sermons.
It may occasionally occur to us that the Christian
world wrould be very much the better of some years of
silence, and that results which have not been reached
by floods of preaching might be attained if these floods
were allowed to ebb and a period of quiet and repose

xiv. 1-40.] SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP. 319

succeed. Unquestionably there is a clanger at present
of leading men to suppose that religion is a thing
which must be ceaselessly talked about, and which
perhaps chiefly consists of talk, so that if one only
hears enough, and has the right opinions, he may accept
himself as a religious person. But it is one thing to
say that there is at present too much preaching or too
careless and unequal a distribution of preaching, and
quite another thing to say there should be none.

Having given expression to his preference for
prophesying, Paul goes on to indicate the manner in
which the public services should be conducted. The
picture he draws is one which finds no counterpart
in the greater modern Churches. The chief distinction
between the services of the Corinthian Church and
those we are now familiar with is the much greater
freedom with which in those days the membership of
the Church took part in the service. " When ye come
together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine,
hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation."
Each member of the congregation had something to
contribute for the edification of the Church. The
experience, the thought, the gifts, of the individual
were made available for the benefit of all. One with
a natural aptitude for poetry threw his devotional feeling
into a metrical form, and furnished the Church with
her earliest hymns. Another with innate exactness
of thought set some important aspect of Christian truth
so clearly before the mind of the congregation that it
at once took its place as an article of faith. Another,
fresh from contact wTith the world and intercourse with
unbelieving and dissolute men, who had felt his own
feet sliding and renewed his grasp on Christ, entered
the meeting with the glow of conflict on his face, and

320 7 HE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

had eager words of exhortation to utter. And so
passed the hours of meeting, without any fixed order,
without any appointed ministry, without any uniformity
of service. And certainly the freshness, fulness, and
variety of such services were greatly to be desired
if possibly they could be attained. We lose much of
what would interest and much that would edify by
enjoining silence upon the membership of the Church.

And yet, as Paul observes, there was much to be
desired in those Corinthian services. Had there been
some authorized official presiding over them, the abuses
of which this letter speaks could not have arisen.
To appeal to this chapter or to any part of this letter
in proof that there should be no distinction between
clergy and laity would be very bad policy. It is indeed
obvious that at this time there were neither elders nor
deacons, bishops nor rulers of any kind, in the Church
of Corinth ; but then it is quite as obvious that there
was great need of them, and that the want of them
had given rise to some scandalous abuses and to much
disorder. The ideal condition would be one in which
authority should be lodged in certain elected office-
bearers, while the faculty and gift of each member in
some way contributed to the good of the whole Church.
In most Churches of our own day, efforts are made
to utilize the Christian energies of their membership
in those various charitable works which are so neces-
sary and so abundant. But probably we should all
be the better of a much freer ventilation of opinion
within the Church and of listening to men who have not
been educated in any particular school of theology and
hold their minds closely to the realities of experience.

We cannot but ask in passing, What has become of
all those inspired utterances with which the Corinthian

xiv. 1-40.] SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP. 321

Church from week to week resounded ? Doubtless
they entered into the life of that generation and fostered
the Christian character which so often shone out on
the heathen world with surprising purity. Doubtless,
too, the unknown teachers of those primitive Churches
did much both in the way of suggesting aspects of
truth to Paul and of confirming, and expounding, and
illustrating his somewhat condensed and difficult
teaching. Had their utterances been recorded, many
obscurities of Scripture might have been removed, much
light must have been reflected on the whole circle of
Christian truth, and we should have been able to
define more clearly the actual condition of the Christian
Church. Shorthand was in common use at that time
in the Roman courts, and by its means we are in
possession of relics of that age of much less value than
the report of one or two of these Christian meetings
might have been. No such report, however, is forth-
coming.

While Paul abstains from appointing office-bearers
to preside at their meetings, he is careful to lay down
two principles which should regulate their procedure.
First, " let everything be done decently and in order."
This advice was greatly needed in a Church in which
the public services were sometimes turned into tumul-
tuous exhibitions of rival gifts, each man trying to make
himself heard above the din of voices, one speaking
with tongues, another singing a hymn, a third loudly
addressing the congregation, so that any stranger who
might be attracted by the noise and step into the
house could think this Christian meeting nothing else
than Bedlam broke loose. Above all things, then, says
Paul, conduct your meetings in a seemly fashion.
Observe the rules of common decency and order. 1

322 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

do not prescribe any particular forms you must observe
nor any special order you must follow in your services.
I do not pronounce what portion of time should be
devoted to pra}^er nor what to praise or exhortation ;
nor do I require that you should in all cases begin
your service in the same stereotyped manner and carry
it through in the same routine. Your services must
vary both in form and in substance from week to week
according to the equipment of the individual members
of your Church ; sometimes there may be many who
wish to exhort, sometimes there may be none. But
in all this freedom and variety, spontaneity must not
run into obtrusiveness, and variety must be saved from
disorder.

The other general principle Paul lays down in the
words, " Let all things be done unto edifying." Let
each use his gift for the good of the congregation.
Keep the great end of your meetings in view, and you
need no formal rubrics. If extempore prayer is found
inspiring, use it ; if the old liturgy of the synagogue
is preferred, retain its service ; if both have advantages,
employ both. Judge your methods by their bearing
on the spiritual life of your members. Make no boast
of your aesthetic wrorship, your irreproachable liturgy,
your melting music, if these things do not result in
a more loyal service of Christ. Do not pique your-
selves on your puritanic simplicit}' of worship and the
absence of all that is not spiritual if this bareness and
simplicity do not bring you more directly into the
presence of your Lord. It matters little what we eat
or in what shape it is served if we are the better for
our food and are maintained in health and vigour. It
matters little whether the vehicle in which we travel
be highly decorated or plain so long as it brings us

xiv. 1-40.] SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP. 323

safely to our destination. Are we the better for our
services ? Is it our chief aim in them to receive and
promote an earnest religious spirit and a sincere
service of Christ?

It might be difficult to say whether the somewhat
selfish ambition of those Corinthians to secure the
surprising gifts of the Spirit or our own torpid
indifference and lack of expectation is less to be
commended. Certainly every one who attaches him-
self to Christ ought to indulge in great expectations.
Through Christ lies the way out from the poverty and
futility that oppress our spiritual history. From Him
we may, however falsely modest we are, expect at least
His own Spirit. And in this " least" there is promise
of all. They who sincerely attach themselves to Christ
cannot fail to end by being like Him. But lack of
expectation is fatal to the Christian. If we expect
nothing or very little from Christ, we might as well not
be Christians. If He does not become to us a second
conscience, ever present in us to warn against sin
and offer opposing inducements, we might as well call
ourselves by any other name. His power is exerted
now not to excite to unwonted exhibitions of abnormal
faculties, but to promote in us all that is most stable
and substantial in character. And the fact is that they
who hunger after righteousness are filled. They who
expect that Christ will help them to become like Him-
self do become like Him. All grace is attainable.
Nothing but unbelief shuts us out from it. Do not
be content until you find in Christ more abundant life,
until you have as clear evidence as these Corinthians
had that a new spirit of power dwells within you.
He Himself encourages you to expect this. It is to
receive this He calls us to Him ; and if we are not

324 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

expecting this spirit of life, it is because we do not
understand or do not believe Him. He has come to
give us the best God has to give, and the best is like-
ness to Himself. He has come to save our life from
being a folly and a failure, and He saves it by filling
it with His own Spirit. All fulness resides in Him ;
in Him Divine resource is made available for human
needs : but the distribution is moral, not mechanical ;
that is to say, it depends on your willingness to receive,
on your expectation of good, on your true personal
attachment to Christ in spirit and in wilL

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I
preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye
stand ; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in r^cnory what I
preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered
unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and
that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures : and
that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve : after that, He was
seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that
He was seen of James ; then of all the Apostles. And last of all He
was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the
least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be calle'l an apostle, be-
cause I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am
what I am : and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in
vain ; but I laboured more abundantly than they all : yet not I, but
the grace of God which was with me. Therefore whether it were I
or they, so we preach, and so ye believed. Now if Christ be preached
that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is
no resurrection of the dead ? But if there be no resurrection of the
dead, then is Christ not risen : and if Christ be not risen, then is
our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are
found false witnesses of God ; because we have testified of God that
He raised up Christ : whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead
rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised : and if
Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." —
I Cor. xv. 1-17.

XXI.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

I. Its Place in the Christian Creed.

PAUL having now settled the minor questions of
order in public worship, marriage, intercourse
with the heathen, and the other various difficulties
which were distracting the Corinthian Church, turns at
last to a matter of prime importance and perennial
interest : the resurrection of the body. This great
subject he handles not in the abstract, but with a view
to the particular attitude and beliefs of the Corinthians.
Some of them said broadly, "There is no resurrection
of the dead," although apparently they had no intention
of denying that Christ had risen. Accordingly Paul
proceeds to show them that the resurrection of Christ
and that of His followers hang together, that the re-
surrection of Christ is essential to the Christian creed,
that it is amply attested, and that although great diffi-
culties surround the subject, making it impossible to
conceive what the risen body will be, yet the resurrection
of the body is to be looked forward to with confident
hope.

It will be most convenient to consider first the
place which the resurrection of Christ holds in the
Christian creed; but that we may follow Paul's argument
and appreciate its fcrce, it will be necessary to make

328 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

clear to our own mind what he meant by the resurrec-
tion of Christ and what position the Corinthians sought
to maintain.

First, by the resurrection of Christ Paul meant
His rising from the grave with a body glorified or
made fit for the new and heavenly life He had entered.
Paul did not believe that the body he saw on the road
to Damascus was the very body which had hung upon
the cross, made of the same material, subject to the
same conditions. He affirms in this chapter that flesh
and blood, a natural body, cannot enter upon the
heavenly life. It must pass through a process which
entirely alters its material. Paul had seen bodies con-
sumed to ashes, and he knew that the substance of
these bodies could not be recovered. He was aware
that the material of the human body is dissolved, and
is by the processes of nature used for the constructing
of the bodies of fishes, wild beasts, birds ; that as the
body was sustained in life by the produce of the earth,
so in death it is mingled with the earth again, giving
back to earth what it had received. The arguments
therefore commonly urged against the Resurrection had
no relevancy against that in which Paul believed, for it
was not that very thing which was buried which he
expected would rise again, but a body different in kind,
in material, and in capacity.

But yet Paul always speaks as if there were some
connection between the present and the future, the
natural and the spiritual, body. He speaks, too, of the
body of Christ as the type or specimen into the likeness
of which the bodies of His people are to be transformed.
Now if we conceive, or try to conceive, what passed in
that closed sepulchre in the garden of Joseph, we can
only suppose that the body of flesh and blood which

xv.] SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 329

was taken down from the cross and laid there was
transformed into a spiritual body by a process which
may be called miraculous, but which differed from the
process which is to operate in ourselves only by its
rapidity. We do not understand the process ; but is
that the only thing we do not understand ? All along
the line which marks off this world from the spiritual
world mystery broods ; and the fact that we do not
understand how the body Christ had worn on earth
passed into a body fit for another kind of life ought
not to prevent our believing that such a transmutation
can take place. There are in nature many forces of
which we know nothing, and it may one day appear to
us most natural that the spirit should clothe itself with
a spiritual body. The connection between the two
bodies is the persistent and identical spirit which
animates both. As the life that is in the body now
assimilates material and forms the body to its particular
mould, so may the spirit hereafter, when ejected from
its present dwelling, have power to clothe itself with a
body suited to its needs. Paul refuses to recognise
any insuperable difficulty here. The transmutation of
the earthly body of Christ into a glorified body will
be repeated in the case of many of His followers, for,
as he says, " we shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye."

Secondly, we must understand the position occupied
by these whom Paul addressed in this chapter. They
doubted the Resurrection ; but in that day, as in our own,
the Resurrection was denied from two opposite points
of view. Materialists, such as the Sadducees, believing
that mental and spiritual life are only manifestations
of physical life and dependent upon it, necessarily
concluded that with the death of the body the whole

330 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

life of the individual terminates. And it would rather
appear as if the Corinthians were tainted with mate-
rialism. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die/'
can only be the suggestion of the materialist, who be-
lieves in no future life of any kind.

But many who opposed materialism held that the
resurrection of the body, if not impossible, was at all
events undesirable. It was the fashion to speak con-
temptuously of the body. It was branded as the source
and seat of sin, as the untamed bullock which dragged
its yokefellow, the soul, out of the straight path.
Philosophers gave thanks to God that He had not
tied their spirit to an immortal body, and refused to
allow their portrait to be taken, lest they should be
remembered and honoured by means of their material
part. When Paul's teaching was accepted by such
persons, they laid great stress on his inculcation of the
mystical or spiritual dying with Christ and rising again,
until they persuaded themselves this was all he meant
by resurrection. They declared that the Resurrection
was past already, and that all believing men were
already risen in Christ. To be free from all connection
with matter was an essential element in their idea of
salvation, and to promise them the resurrection of the
body was to offer them a very doubtful blessing
indeed.

In our own day the resurrection of Christ is denied
both from the materialist and from the spiritualist or
idealist point of view. It is said that the resurrection
of Christ is an undoubted fact if by the resurrection it
be meant that His spirit survived death and now lives
in us. But the bodily resurrection is a thing of no
account. Not from the risen body flows the power
that has altered human history, but from the teachings

xv.] SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 331

and life of Christ and from His devotement of Himself
even unto death to the interests of men. Christ lay in
His grave, and the elements of His body have passed
into the bosom of nature, as ours will before long ; but
His spirit was not imprisoned in the grave : it lives,
perhaps in us. Statements to this effect you may hear
or read frequently in our day. And either of two very
different beliefs may be expressed in such language. It
may, on the one hand, mean that the person Jesus is
individually extinct, and that although virtue still flows
from His life, as from that of every good man, He is
Himself unconscious of this and of everything else, and
can exert no new and fresh influence, such as emanates
from a person presently alive and aware of the exi-
gencies appealing to His interference. This is plainly
a form of belief entirely different from that of the
Apostles, who acted for a living Lord, to whom they
appealed and by whom they were guided. Belief in a
dead Christ, who cannot hear prayer and is unconscious
of our service, may indeed help a man who has nothing
better to help him ; but it is not the belief of the
Apostles.

On the other hand, it may be meant that although
the body of Christ remained in the tomb, His spirit
survived death, and lives a disembodied but conscious
and powerful life. One of the profoundest German
critics, Keim, has expressed himself to this effect. The
Apostles, he thinks, did not see the actual risen body
of the Lord ; their visions of a glorified Jesus were
not, however, delusive ; the appearances were not the
creations of their own excitement, but were intentionally
produced by the Lord Himself. Jesus, it is believed,
had actually passed into a higher life, and was as full
of consciousness and of power as He had been on

332 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

earth ; and of this glorified life in which He was He gave
the Apostles assurance by these appearances. The
body of the Lord remained in the tomb ; but these
appearances were intended, to use the critic's own
words, as a kind of telegram, to assure them He was
alive. Had such a sign of His continued and glorified
life not been given, their belief in Him as the Messiah
could not have survived the death on the cross.

This view, although erroneous, can do little harm to
experimental or practical Christianity. The difference
between a disembodied spirit and a spiritual body is
really unappreciable to our present knowledge. And
if any one finds it impossible to believe in the bodily
resurrection of Christ, but easy to believe in His
present life and power, it would only be mischievous
to require of him a faith he cannot give in addition
to a faith which brings him into real fellowship with
Christ. The main purpose of Christ's appearances
was to give to His disciples assurance of His continued
life and power. If that assurance already exists, then
belief in Christ as alive and supreme supersedes the
use of the usual stepping-stone towards that belief.

At the same time, it must be maintained that not only
did the Apostles believe they saw the body of Christ,
by which indeed they first of all identified Him, but
also they were distinctly assured that the body they
saw was not a ghost or a telegram, but a veritable body
that could stand handling, and whose lips and throat
could utter sound. Besides, it is not in reason to sup-
pose that when they saw this appearance, whatever it
was, they should not at once go to the sepulchre and
see what was there. And if there they saw the body
while in various other places they saw what seemed to
be the body, what a world of incomprehensible and

xv,] SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 333

mystifying jugglery must they have felt themselves to
">e involved in !

It is a fact then that those who knew most both
about the body and about the spirit of Jesus believed
they saw the body and were encouraged so to believe.
Besides, if we accept the view that though Christ is
alive, His body remained in the grave, we are at once
confronted with the difficulty that Christ's glorification
is not yet complete. If Christ's body did not partake
in His conquest over the grave, then that conquest is
partial and incomplete. Human nature both in this
life and in the life to come is composed of body and
spirit; and if Christ now sits at God's right hand in
perfected human nature, it is not as a disembodied
spirif, but as a complete person in a glorified body, we
must conceive of Him. No doubt it is a spiritual in-
fluence which Christ now exerts upon His followers,
and their belief in His risen life may be independent
of any statements made by the disciples concerning
His body ; at the same time, to suppose that Christ is
now without a body is to suppose that He is imperfect :
and it must also be remembered that the primitive
faith and restored confidence in Christ, to which the
very existence of the Church is due, were created by
the sight of the empty tomb and the glorified body.

In the face of such chapters as this and other pas-
sages equally explicit, modern believers in a merely
spiritual resurrection have found some difficulty in
reconciling their views with the statements of Paul.
Mr. Matthew Arnold undertakes to show us how this
may be done. " Not for a moment," he says, " do we
deny that in Paul's earlier theology, and notably in
the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, the
physical and miraculous aspect of the Resurrection,

334 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

both Christ's and the believer's, is primary and pre-
dominant. Not for a moment do we deny that to the
very end of his life, after the Epistle to the Romans,
after the Epistle to the Philippians, if he had been
asked whether he held the doctrine of the Resurrection
in the physical and miraculous sense as well as in his
own spiritual and mystical sense, he would have replied
with entire conviction that he did. Very likely it would
have been impossible to him to imagine his theology
without it. But —

' Below the surface stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say we feel — below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel, there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed ; '

and by this alone are we truly characterised." This,
however, is not to interpret an author, but to make
him a mere nose of wax that can be worked into any
convenient shape. Probably Paul understood his own
theology quite as well as Mr. Arnold ; and, as his critic
says, he considered the physical resurrection of Christ
and the believer an essential part of it.

Considering the place which our Lord's risen body
had in Paul's conversion, it could not be otherwise.
At the very moment when Paul's whole system of
thought was in a state of fusion the risen Lord was
pre-eminently impressed upon it. It was through his
conviction of the resurrection of Christ that both Paul's
theology and his character were once for all radically
altered. The idea of a crucified Messiah had been
abhorrent to him, and his life was dedicated to the
extirpation of this vile heresy that sprang from the
Cross. But from the moment when with his own eyes
he saw the risen Lord he understood, with the rest of

xv.] SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 335

the disciples, that death was the Messiah's appointed
path to supreme spiritual headship. As truly in Paul's
case as in that of the other disciples faith sprang from
the sight of the glorified Christ ; and to none could
it be so inevitable as to him to say, " If Christ be not
risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also
vain." From the first Paul had put the resurrection
of Christ forward as an essential and fundamental part
of the Gospel he had received, and which he was
accustomed to deliver.

And, generally speaking, this place is assigned to it
both by believers and by unbelievers. It is recognised
that it was the belief in the Resurrection which first
revived the hopes of Christ's followers and drew them
together to wait for the promise of His Spirit. It is
recognised that whether the Resurrection be a fact or
no, the Church of Christ was founded on the belief
that it had taken place, so that if that had been
removed the Church could not have been. This is
affirmed as decisively by unbelievers as by believers.
The great leader of modern unbelief (Strauss) declares
that the Resurrection is " the centre of the centre, the
real heart of Christianity as it has been until now;"
while one of his ablest opponents says, " The Resur-
rection created the Church, the risen Christ made
Christianity ; and even now the Christian faith stands
or falls with Him. ... If it be true that no living
Christ ever issued from the tomb of Joseph, then that
tomb becomes the grave, not of a man, but of a religion,
with all the hopes built on it and all the splendid
enthusiasms it has inspired " (Fairbairn).

It is not difficult to perceive what it was in the
resurrection of Christ which gave it this importance.

I. First, it was the convincing proof that Christ's

336 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

words were true, and that He was what He had claimed
to be. He Himself had on more occasions than one
hinted that such proof was to be given. " Destroy this
temple," He said, " and in three days I will raise it
again." The sign which was to be given, notwithstand-
ing His habitual refusal to yield to the Jewish craving
for miracle, was the sign of the prophet Jonah. As
he had been thrown out and lost for three days and
nights, but had thereby only been forwarded in his
mission, so our Lord was to be thrown out as
endangering the ship, but was to rise again to fuller
and more perfect efficiency. In order that His claim
to be the Messiah might be understood, it was necessary
that He should die ; but in order that it might be
believed, it was needful that He should rise. Had He
not died, His followers would have continued to expect
a reign of earthly power; His death showed them no
such reign could be, and convinced them His spiritual
power sprang out of apparent weakness. But had He
not risen again, all their hopes would have been blighted.
All who had believed in Him would have joined with
the Emmaus disciples in their hopeless cry, " We thought
that this had been He who should have redeemed
Israel."

It was the resurrection of our Lord, then, which
convinced His disciples that His words had been true,
that He was what He had claimed to be, and that He
was not mistaken regarding His own person, His work,
His relation to the Father, the prospects of Himself and
His people. This was the answer given by God to the
doubts, and calumnies, and accusations of men. Jesus
at the last had stood alone, unsupported by one favour-
ing voice. His own disciples forsook Him, and in their
bewilderment knew not what to think. Those who

xv.] SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 337

considered Him a dangerous and seditious person or
at best a crazed enthusiast found themselves backed
by the voice of the people and urged to extreme
measures, with none to remonstrate save the heathen
judge, none to pity save a few women. This delusion,
they congratulated themselves, was stamped out. And
stamped out it would have been but for the Resurrection.
" Then it was seen that while the world had scorned
the Son of God, the Father had been watching over
Him with unceasing love; that while the world had
placed Him at its bar as a malefactor and blasphemer,
the Father had been making ready for Him a seat at
His own right hand ; that while the world nailed Him
to the cross, the Father had been preparing for Him
1 many crowns ' and a name that is above every name ;
that while the world had gone to the grave in the
garden, setting a watch and sealing the stone, and had
then returned to its feasting and merriment, because
the Preacher of righteousness was no longer there to
trouble it, the Father had waited for the third morning
in order to bring Him forth in triumph from the
grave." x

This contrast between the treatment Christ received
at the hands of men and His justification by the Father
in the Resurrection fills and colours all the addresses
delivered by the Apostles to the people in the imme-
diately succeeding days. They evidently accepted the
Resurrection as God's great attestation to the person
and work of Christ. It changed their own thoughts
about Him, and they expected it would change the
thoughts of other men. They saw now that His death
was one of the necessary steps in His career, one of
the essential parts of the work He had come to do.

1 Milligan, The Resurrection of our Lord, p. 1 50.

338 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Had Christ not been raised, they would have thought
Him weak and mistaken as other men. The beauty
and promise of His words which had so attracted them
would now have seemed delusive and unbearable. But
in the light of the Resurrection they saw that the Christ
" ought to have suffered these things and so to enter
His glory." They could now confidently say, " He
died for our sins, and was raised again for our justi-
fication."

2. Secondly, the resurrection of Christ occupies a
fundamental place in the Christian creed, because by
it there is disclosed a real and close connection between
this world and the unseen, eternal world. There is
no need now of argument to prove a life beyond ; here
is one who is in it. For the resurrection of Christ was
not a return to this life, to its wants, to its limitations,
to its inevitable close ; but it was a resurrection to a
life for ever beyond death. Neither was it a discarding
of humanity on Christ's part, a cessation of His accept-
ance of human conditions, a rising to some kind of
existence to which man has no access. On the contrary,
it was because He continued truly human that in
human body and with human soul He rose to veritable
human life beyond the grave. If Jesus rose from the
dead, then the world into which He is gone is a real
world, in which men can live more fully than they live
here. If He rose from the dead, then there is an
unseen Spirit mightier than the strongest material
powers, a God who is seeking to bring us out of all
evil into an eternally happy condition. Quite reason-
ably is death invested with a certain majesty, if not
terror, as the mightiest of physical things. There may
be greater evils ; but they do not affect all men, but only
some, or they debar men from certain enjoyments and

xv.] SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION 339

a certain kind of life, but not from all. But death
shuts men out from everything with which they have
here to do, and launches them into a condition of which
they know absolutely nothing. Any one who conquers
death and scatters its mystery, who shows in his own
person that it is innocuous, and that it actually betters
our condition, brings us light that reaches us from no
other quarter. And He who shows this superiority
over death in virtue of a moral superiority, and uses it
for the furtherance of the highest spiritual ends, shows
a command over the whole affairs of men which makes
it easy to believe He can guide us into a condition like
His own. As Peter affirms, it is " by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead we are begotten again
unto a lively hope."

3. For, lastly, it is in the resurrection of Christ we
see at once the norm or type of our life here and of our
destiny hereafter. Holiness and immortality are two
aspects, two manifestations, of the Divine life we receive
from Christ. They are inseparable the one from the
other. His Spirit is the source of both. " If the Spirit
that raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead dwelleth
in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead
shall also quicken your mortal bodies through His
Spirit that dwelleth in you." If we have now the one
evidence of His indwelling in us, we shall one day have
the other. The hope that should uplift and purify
every part of the Christian's character is a hope which
is shadowy, unreal, inoperative, in those who merely
know about Christ and His work ; it becomes a living
hope, full of immortality, in all who are now actually
drawing their life from Christ, who have their life truly
hid with Christ in God, who are in heart and will one
with the Most High, in whom is all life

340 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Therefore does Paul so continually hold up to us
the risen life of Christ as that to which we are to be
conformed. We are to rise with Him to newness of
life. As Christ has done with death, having died to sin
once, so must His people be dead to sin and live to
God with Him. Sometimes in weariness or dejection
one feels as if he had seen the best of everything
experienced all he can experience, and must now simply
endure life ; he sees no prospect of anything fresh, or
attractive, or reviving. But this is not because he has
exhausted life, but because he has not begun it. To
the "children of the Resurrection," who have followed
Christ in His path to life by renouncing sin, and
conquering self, and giving themselves to God, there
is a springing life in their own soul that renews hope
and energy.

XXII.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST {continued).

II. Its Proof.

PAUL, having affirmed that the resurrection of
Christ is an essential element of the Gospel, pro-
ceeds to sketch the evidence for the fact. That
evidence mainly consists in the attestation of those
who at various times and in various places and circum-
stances had seen the Lord after His death. Other
evidence there is, as Paul indicates. In certain unspeci-
fied passages of the Old Testament he thinks a dis-
cerning reader might have found sufficient intimation
that when the Messiah came He would both die and
rise again. But as he himself had not at first recog-
nised these intimations in the Old Testament, he does
not press them upon others, but appeals to the simple
fact that many of those who had been familiar with the
appearance of Christ while He lived saw Him after
death alive.

As a preliminary to the positive evidence here
adduced by Paul, it may be remarked that we have no
record of any contemporary denial of the fact, save
only the story put in the mouths of the soldiers by the
chief priests. Matthew tells us that it was currently
reported that the soldiers who had been on guard at
the sepulchre were bribed by the priests and elders to

342 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

say that the disciples had come in the night and stolen
the body. But whatever temporary purpose they
fancied this might serve, the great purpose it now
serves is to prove the truth of the Resurrection, for the
main point is admitted, the tomb was empty. As for
the story itself, its falsehood must have been apparent ;
and probably no one in Jerusalem was so simple as to
be taken in by it. For, in point of fact, the authorities
had taken steps to prevent this very thing. They were
resolved there should be no tampering with the grave,
and accordingly had set their official seal upon it and
} laced a guard to watch.

The evidence thus unintentionally furnished by the
raithorities is important. Their action after the Resur-
rection proves that the tomb was empty ; while their
action previous to the Resurrection proves that it was
emptied by no ordinary interposition, but by the actual
rising of Jesus from the dead. So beyond doubt was
this that when Peter stood before the Sanhedrim arid
affirmed it no one was hardy enough to contradict
him. Had they been able to persuade themselves that
the disciples had tampered with the guard, or over-
powered them, or terrified them in the night by strange
appearances, why did they not prosecute the disciples
for breaking the official seal ? Could they have had a
more plausible pretext for exploding the Christian faith
and stamping out the nascent heresy ? They were
perplexed and alarmed at the growth of the Church ;
what hindered them from bringing proof that there had
been no resurrection ? They had every inducement to
do so, yet they did not. If the body was still in the
grave, nothing was easier than to produce it ; if the
grave was empty, as they affirmed, because the disciples
had stolen the body, no more welcome handle against

xv.i-17.] PROOF OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 343

them could have been furnished to the authorities.
But they could not in open court pretend any such
thing. They knew that what their guard reported was
true. In short, there was no object the Sanhedrim
would more gladly have compassed than to explode the
belief in the resurrection of Christ ; if that belief was
false, they had ample means of showing it to be so :
and yet they did absolutely nothing that had any
weight with the public mind. It is apparent that not
only the disciples, but the authorities, were compelled to
admit the fact of the Resurrection.

The idea that there was only a pretended resurrec-
tion, vamped up by the disciples, may therefore be dis-
missed ; and indeed no well-informed person nowadays
would venture to affirm such a thing. It is admitted
by those who deny the Resurrection as explicitly as by
those who affirm it that the disciples had a bond fidi
belief that Jesus had risen from the dead and was alive.
The only question is, How was that belief produced ?
And to this question there are three answers : (1) that
the disciples saw our Lord alive after the Crucifixion,
but He had never been dead ; (2) that they only
thought they saw Him ; and (3) that they did actually
see Him alive after being dead and buried.

I. The first answer is plainly inadequate. We are
asked to account for the Christian Church, for the
belief in a risen Lord which animated the first disciples
with a faith, a hope, a courage, whose power is felt to
this day ; we ask for an explanation of this singular
circumstance that a number of men arrived at the con-
clusion that they had an almighty Friend, One who
had all power in heaven and on earth ; and we are
told, in explanation of this, that they had seen their
Master barely rescued from crucifixion, creeping about

344 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

the earth, scarcely able to move, all stained with blood,
soiled from the tomb, pale, weak, helpless, and this
object caused them to believe He was almighty. As
one of the most sceptical of critics himself says, " one
who had thus crept forth half dead from the grave and
crawled about a sickly patient, needing medical and
surgical assistance, nursing and strengthening, and
who finally succumbed to his sufferings, could never
have given his followers the impression that he was
the Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of
life. Such a recovery could only have weakened or
at best given a pathetic tinge to the impression which
he had made upon them by his life and death ; it
could not possibly have changed their sorrow into
ecstasy, and raised their reverence into worship."

This explanation then may be dismissed. It is
neither in harmony with the facts, nor is it adequate as
an explanation.

It is not in harmony with the facts, because the.
fact of His death was certified by the surest authority.
There was in the world at that time, and there is in
the world now, nothing more punctiliously accurate
than a soldier trained under the old Roman discipline.
The punctilious exactness of this discipline is seen in
the conduct both of the soldiers at the cross and of
Pilate. Though the soldiers see that Jesus is dead,
they make sure of His death by a spear-thrust, a hand-
breadth wide, sufficient of itself, as they very well
knew, to cause death. And when Pilate is applied to
for the body, he will not give it up until he has received
from the centurion on duty the necessary certificate
that the sentence of death has actually been executed.

Neither is the supposition that Jesus survived the
Crucifixion and appeared to His disciples in this rescued

xv.i-17.] PROOF OF CUR 1ST S RESURRECTION. 345

condition any explanation of their faith in Him as a
risen, glorious, almighty Lord. The Person they saw
and afterwards believed in was not a bleeding, crushed,
defeated man, who had death still to look forward to,
but a Person who had passed through and conquered
death, and was now alive for evermore, opening for
Himself and to them the gates of a glorious and death-
less life.

2. The belief of the disciples is explained with
greater appearance of insight by those who say that
they imagined they saw the risen Lord, although in
reality they did not. There are, it is pointed out,
several ways in which the disciples may have been
deceived. For example, some clever and scheming
person may have personated Jesus. Such persona-
tions have been made, but never with such results.
When Postumus Agrippa was killed, one of his slaves
secreted or dispersed the ashes of the murdered man,
to destroy the evidence of his death, and retired for a
time till his hair and beard were grown, to favour a
certain likeness which he actually bore him. Mean-
while, taking a few intimates into his confidence, he
spread a report, which found ready listeners, that
Agrippa still lived. He glided from town to town,
showing himself in the dusk for a few minutes only at
a time to men prepared for the sudden apparition,
until it came to be noised abroad that the gods had
saved the grandson of Agrippa from the fate intended
for him, and that he was about to visit the city and
claim his rightful inheritance. But no sooner did the
vulgar imposture take this practical shape and come
into contact with the realities of life than the whole
trick exploded. Imposture, in fact, does not fit the case
before us at all ; and the more we consider the combina-

34$ THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

tion of qualities required in any one who could under-
take to personate the risen Lord, the more we shall be
persuaded that the right explanation of the belief in
the Resurrection is not to be sought in this direction.

Again, one of the most reasonable and influential
of our contemporaries ascribes " the great myth of
Christ's bodily revival to the belief on the part of the
disciples that such a soul could not become extinct.
In a lesser way the grave of a beloved friend has been
to many a man the birthplace of his faith ; and it is
obvious that in the case of Christ every condition was
fulfilled which would raise such sudden conviction to
the height of passionate fervour. The first words of
the disciples to one another on that Easter morn may
well have been ' He is not dead. His spirit is this
day in paradise among the sons of God.' " Quite so ;
they of course believed that His spirit was in paradise,
and for that very reason fully expected to find His
bedy in the tomb. No ordinary visit to a grave, nor
any ordinary results flowing from such a visit, throw
light on the case before us, because in ordinary cir-
cumstances sane men do not believe that their friends
are restored to them, and are standing in bodily palpable
shape before them. There is no likelihood whatever
that their belief in the continued existence of their
Master's spirit should have given rise to the conviction
that they had seen Him. It might have given rise to
such expressions as that He would be with them to
the end of the world, but not to the conviction that
they had seen Him in the bod}'.

Here, again, is Renan's account of the growth of this
belief: "To Jesus was to happen the same fortune
v hich is the lot of all men who have riveted the
attention of their fellow-men. The world, accustomed

xv. I-I7-] PROOF OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 347

to attribute to them superhuman virtues, cannot admit
that they have submitted to the unjust, revolting, ini-
quitous law of the death common to all. At the
moment in which Mahomet expired Omar rushed from
the tent, sword in hand, and declared that he would
hew down any one who should dare to say that the
prophet was no more. . • . Heroes do not die. What
is true existence but the recollection of us which sur-
vives in the hearts of those who love us ? For some
years this adored Master had filled the little world by
which He was surrounded with joy and hope ; could
they consent to allow Him to the decay of the tomb ?
No ; He had lived so entirely in those who surrounded
Him, that they could but affirm that after His death
He was still living." M. Renan is careful not to
remind us that the uproar occasioned by Omar's
announcement was stilled by the calm voice of Abu
Bekr, who also came forth from the deathbed of
Mahomet with the memorable words, " Whoso hath
worshipped Mahomet, let him know that Mahomet
is dead, but whoso hath worshipped God that the
Lord liveth and doth not die." The great critic omits
also to notice that none of the Apostles said, like Omar,
that their Master was not dead ; they admitted and
felt His death keenly ; and it is vain to attempt to con-
found things essentially distinct, the assertion of a
matter of fact, viz., that the Lord had risen again, with
the sentimental or regretful resuscitation of a man's
image in the hearts of his surviving friends.

Besides, it should be observed that all these hypo-
theses which explain the belief in the Resurrection by
supposing that the disciples imagined they had seen
Christ, or persuaded themselves that He still lived,
omit altogether to explain how they disposed of the

348 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

tomb of our Lord, in which, according to this hypothesis,
His body was still quietly reposing. One or two
persons in a peculiarly excitable state might suppose
they had seen a figure resembling a person about whom
they were concerned ; but how the belief that the tomb
was empty could take any hold on them or on the
thousands who must have visited it in the succeeding
weeks is not explained, nor is any attempt made to
explain it.

Is there then no possibility of the disciples having
been deceived ? May they not have been mistaken ?
May they not have seen what they wished to see, as
other men have sometimes done ? Men of vivid fancy
or of a boastful spirit sometimes come really to believe
they have done and said things they never did or said.
Is it out of the question to imagine that the disciples
may have been similarly misled ? Had the belief in
the Resurrection depended on the report of one man,
had there been only one or a few eyewitnesses of the
matter, their evidence might have been explained away
on this ground. It is possible, of course, that one or
two persons who were anxiously looking for the resur-
rection of Jesus might have persuaded themselves they
saw Him, might persuade themselves that some distant
figure or some gleam of morning sunshine among the
trees of the garden was the looked-for person. It
requires no profound psychological knowledge to teach
us that occasionally visions are seen. But what we
have here to explain is how not one but several
persons, not together but in different places and at
different times, not all in one mood of mind but in
various moods, came to believe they had seen the risen
Lord. He was recognised, not by persons who expected
to see Him alive, but by women who went to anoint

xv.i-17.] FROOF OF CU FIST'S RESURRECTION. 349

Him dead; not by credulous, excitable persons, but
by men who would not believe till they had gone to
and into the sepulchre ; not by persons so enthusiastic
and creative of their own belief as to mistake any
passing stranger or even a gleam of light for Him
they sought, but so slow to believe, so scornfully
incredulous of resurrection, so resolutely sceptical
and so keenly alive to the possibility of delusion,
that they vowed nothing would satisfy them but the
test of touch and sight. It was a belief produced,
not by one extraordinary and doubtful appearance, but
by repeated and prolonged appearances to persons in
various places and of various temperaments.

This supposition, therefore, that the disciples were
prepared to believe in the Resurrection and wished to
believe it, and that what they wished to see they
thought they saw, must be given up. It has never
been shown that the disciples had such a belief; it
formed no part of the Jewish creed regarding the
Messiah : and the idea that they actually were in this
expectant state of mind is thoroughly contradicted by
the narrative. So far from being hopeful, they were
sad and gloomy, as witness the melancholy, resigned
despair of the two friends on the road to Emmaus.

41 It is a woe ' too deep for tears ' when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing spirit,
Whcsi light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
But pale despair and cold tranquillity."

Such was the state of mind of the bereft disciples.
They thought all was over. The women who went
with their spices to anoint the dead — they certainly
were not expecting to find their Lord risen. The men
to whom they announced what they had seen were

sceptical ; some of them laughed at the women, and
called their report u idle tales/' and would not believe.
Mary Magdalene was so little expecting to see her
Lord alive again that when He did appear to her she
thought He was the gardener, the only person she
dreamt of seeing going about at that hour in the garden.
Thomas, with all the resolute distrust of others which
a modern sceptic could show, vows he will believe such
a wild imagination on no man's word, and unless he
sees the Lord with his own eyes and is allowed to
test the reality of the figure by touch as well, he will
not be convinced. To the disciples on the way to
Emmaus, though they had never heard such conversa-
tion before as that of the Person who joined them, it
never once occurred that this could be the Lord. In
short, there was not one person to whom our Lord
appeared who was not taken wholly by surprise. So
far were they from depicting the Resurrection in their
hopes and fancies with such vividness as to make it
seem to take. outward shape and reality, that even when
it did actually take place they could scarcely believe it
on the strongest evidence. We are compelled, there-
fore, to dismiss the idea that the first disciples Delieved
in the resurrection because they wished to do so and
were prepared to do so.

3. There remains, therefore, only the third explana-
tion of the disciples' belief in the Resurrection : they
did see Him alive after He had been dead and buried.
Plainly it was no phantom, or ghost, or imaginary
appearance which could personate their lost Master and
rouse them from the despondency, and inaction, and
timidity of disappointed hopes to the calmest con-
sistency cf plan and the firmest courage. It was no
vision created by their own imagination which could at

xv.i-17-] PROOF OF CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 351

once and for ever alter the idea of the Messiah which
the disciples, in common with all their countrymen, held.
It was no phantom who could imitate the impressive
individuality of the Lord and continue His identity
into new scenes, who could inspire the disciples with
unity of purpose, and who could lead them forward to
the most splendid victories men have ever won. No;
nothing will explain the faith of the Apostles and of
the rest but the fact of their really seeing the Lord
after His death clothed in power. The men who said
they had seen Him were men of probity ; they were
men who showed themselves worthy of being witnesses
to so great an event ; men animated by no paltry spirit
of vainglory, but by seriousness, even sublimity, of
mind ; men whose lives and conduct require an ex-
planation, and which are explained by their having
been brought in contact with the spiritual world in this
surprising and solemnizing manner.

The testimony of Paul himself is in some respects
more convincing than that of those who saw the Lord
immediately after the Resurrection. Certainly he was
neither anxious to believe nor likely to be ignorant of
the facts. He had devoted himself to the extermina-
tion of the new faith; all his hopes as a Pharisee and
as a Jew were banded against it. He had the best
means of ascertaining the truth, living on terms of
friendship with the leading men in Jerusalem. It is
simply inconceivable that he should have abandoned all
his prospects and entered on a wholly different life
without carefully investigating the chief fact which
influenced him in making this change. It is of course
said that Paul was a nervous, excitable creature, pro-
bably epileptic, and certainly liable to see visions. It
is insinuated that his conversion was due to the com-

35* THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

bined influence of epilepsy and a thunderstorm — of all
the unlucky suggestions of modern scepticism perhaps
the unluckiest. Were it true, one could only wish
epilepsy commoner than it is. We have to account
• not only for Paul's conversion, but for his abiding by
the convictions at first produced in him. It is out of
the question to suppose that he did not spend much of
the immediately succeeding years in examining the
grounds of the Christian faith and in questioning him-
self as to his own belief. Paul was no doubt eager
and enthusiastic, but no man was ever better fitted to
move among the realities of life or to ascertain what
these realities are. Englishmen regard Paley as one of
the best representatives of the combined acuteness and
sense, penetration and solidity of judgment, by which
English judges are supposed to be characterized ; and
Paley says of Paul, " His letters furnish evidence of
the soundness and sobriety of his judgment, and his
morality is everywhere calm, pure, and rational ;
adapted to the condition, the activity, and the business
of social life and of its various relations ; free from the
overscrupulousness and austerities of superstition, and
from what was more perhaps to be apprehended, the
abstractions of quietism and the soarings and extrava-
gances of fanaticism." But really no person of ordinary
capacity needs certificates of Paul's sanity. No saner
or more commanding intellect ever headed a complex
and difficult movement. There is no one of that
generation whose testimony to the Resurrection is
more worth having, and we have it in the most
emphatic form of a life based upon it.

No one, so far as I know, who has taken a serious
interest in the evidence adduced for this event, has
denied that it would be quite sufficient to authenticate

xv.i-17.] PROOF OF CHRIST S RESURRECTION. 353

any ordinary historical event. In point of fact, the
majority of the events of past history are accepted on
much slenderer evidence than that which we have for
the Resurrection. The evidence we have for it is of
precisely the same kind as that on which we accept
ordinary events ; it is the testimony of the persons con-
cerned, the simple statements of eyewitnesses and of
those who were acquainted with eyewitnesses. It is
not a prophetical, or poetical, or symbolical, or super-
natural statement, but the plain and unvarnished
testimony of ordinary men. The accounts vary in
many particulars, but as to the central fact that the
Lord rose and was seen over and over again there
is no variation, and such variations as there are are
merely such as exist in all similar accounts by different
individuals of one and the same event. In short, the
evidence can be refused only on the ground that no
evidence, however strong, could prove such an incredible
event. It is admitted that the evidence would be
accepted in any other case, but this reported event is
in itself incredible. The idea of any interference with
the physical laws which rule the world, no matter how
important an end is to be served by the interference,
is rejected as out of the question. This seems to me
quite an illogical method of dealing with the subject.
The supernatural is rejected as a preliminary, so as to
bar any consideration of the most appropriate evidences
of the supernatural. Before looking at that which, if
not the most effective proof of the supernatural, is at
least among these arguments which chiefly deserve
attention, the mind is made up to reject all evidence of
the supernatural.

The first business of scientific men is to look at facts.
Many facts which at first sight seemed to contradict

354 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

previously ascertained laws were ultimately found to
indicate the presence of a higher law. Why are men
of science so terrified by the word " miracle" ? This
event may, like the visit of a comet, have occurred only
once in the world's history ; but it need not on that
account be irreducible to law or to reason. The
resurrection of Christ is unique, because He is unique.
Find another Person bearing the same relation to the
race and living the same life, and you will find a similar
resurrection. To say that it is unusual or unprece-
dented is to say nothing at all to the purpose.

Besides, those who reject the resurrection of Christ
as impossible are compelled to accept an equally
astounding moral miracle — the miracle, I mean, that
those who had the best means of ascertaining the truth
and every possible inducement to ascertain it should
all have been deceived, and that this deception should
have been the most fruitful source of good, not only to
them, but to the whole world.

We are brought then to the conclusion that the
disciples believed in the resurrection of Christ because
it had actually taken place. No other account of their
belief has ever been given which commends itself to
the common understanding which accepts what appeals
to it. No account of the belief has been given which
is at all likely to gain currency or which is more
credible than that which it seeks to supplant. The
belief in the Resurrection which so suddenly and effec-
tively possessed the first disciples remains unexplained
by any other supposition than the simple one that the
Lord did rise again.

CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION,

° Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say
some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? But if
there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen : and
if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is
also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ; because
we have testified of God that He raised up Christ : whom He raised
not up, if so be that the dead rise net. For if the dead rise not, then
is not Christ raised : and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ;
ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in
Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we
are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the
dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by
man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But
every man in his own order : Christ the firstfruits ; afterward they
that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when
He snail have put down all rule and all authority and power. For
He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all
things under His feet. But when He saith, all things are put under
Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things
under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things
under Him, that God may be all in all. Else what shall they do
which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all ? why are
they then baptized for the dead ? And why stand we in jeopardy
every hour ? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ
Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have
fought with beasts at Ephesuc, what advantageth it me, if the dead
rise not ? let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die. Be not
deceived : evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to
righteousness, and sin not ; for some have not the knowledge of God :
I speak this to your shame." — I Cor. xv. 12-34

XXIII.

CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION.

IN endeavouring to restore among the Corinthians
the belief in the resurrection of the body; Paul
shows the fundamental place occupied in the Christian
creed by the resurrection of Christ, and what attestation
His resurrection had received. He further exhibits
certain consequences which flow from denial of the
resurrection. These consequences are (i) that if there
is no resurrection of the body, then Christ is not risen,
and that, therefore, (2) the Apostles who witnessed to
that resurrection are false witnesses ; (3) that those
who had already died believing in Christ, had perished,
and that our hope in Christ must be confined to this
life ; (4) that baptism for the dead is a vain folly if the
dead rise not. To the statement and discussion of these
consequences Paul devotes a large part of this chapter,
from verse 12 to verse 34. Let us take the least
important consequence first.

I. "If the dead rise not at all, what shall they do
who are baptized for the dead ? " (ver. 29) — an enquiry
of which the Corinthians no doubt felt the full force,
but which is rather lost upon us because we do not
know what it means. Some have thought that as
baptism is sometimes used in Scripture as equivalent
to immersion in a sea of troubles, Paul means to ask,

35§ THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

" What shall they do, what hope have they, who are
plunged in grief for the friends they have lost ? " Some
think it refers to those who have been baptized with
Christ's baptism, that is to say, have suffered martyr-
dom and so entered into the Church of the dead.
Others again think, that to be baptized " for the dead "
means no more than ordinary baptism, in which the
believer looks forward to the resurrection from the
dead. The primitive form of baptism brought death
and the resurrection vividly before the believer's mind,
and confirmed his hope in the resurrection, which hope
was vain if there is no resurrection.

The plain meaning of the words, however, seems to
point to a vicarious baptism, in which a living friend
received baptism as a proxy for a person who had died
without baptism. Of such a custom there is historical
trace. Even before the Christian era, among the Jews
when a man died in a state of ceremonial defilement it
was customary for a friend of the deceased to perform
in his stead the washings and other rites which the dead
man would have performed had he recovered. A similar
practice prevailed to some small extent among the primi-
tive Christians, although it was never admitted as a
valid rite by the Church Catholic. Then, as now, it
sometimes happened that on the approach of death the
thoughts of unbelieving persons were strongly turned
towards the Christian faith, but before baptism could
be administered death cut down the intending Christian.
Baptism was generally postponed until youth or even
middle life was passed, in order that a large number
of sins might be washed away in baptism, or that
fewer might stain the soul after it. But naturally
miscalculations sometimes occurred, and sudden death
anticipated a long-delayed baptism. In such cases the

xv.J CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION. 359

friends of the deceased derived consolation from vica-
rious baptism. Some one who was persuaded of the
faith of the departed answered for him and was baptized
in his stead.

If Paul meant to say, On the supposition that death
ends all, what is the use of any one being baptized as
proxy for a dead friend ? he could not have used words
more expressive of his meaning than when he says, " If
the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for
the dead ? " The only difficulty is, that Paul might thus
seem to draw an argument for a fundamental doctrine
of Christianity from a foolish and unjustifiable practice.
Is it possible that a man of such sagacity can have
sanctioned or countenanced so absurd a superstition ?
But his alluding to this custom in the wray he here
does, scarcely implies that he approved of it. He
rather differentiates himself from those who practised
the rite. ''What shall they do who are baptized for
the dead ? " — referring, probably, to some of the
Corinthians themselves. In any case, the point of
the argument is obvious. To be baptized for those
who had died without baptism, and whose future was
supposed thereby to be jeopardized, had at least a
show of friendliness and reason ; to be baptized for
those who had already passed out of existence was of
course, on the face of it, absurd.

2. The second consequence which flows from the
denial of the resurrection is, that Paul's own life is
a mistake. u Why stand we in jeopardy every hour ?
What advantageth it me to risk death daily, and to
suffer daily, if the dead rise not ? " If there is no
resurrection, he says, my whole life is a folly. No day
passes but I am in danger of death at the hands either
of an infuriated mob or a mistaken magistrate. I am

360 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

in constant jeopardy, in perils by land and sea, in perils
of robbers, in nakedness, in fasting ; all these dangers
I gladly encounter because I believe in the resurrection.
But " if in this life only we have hope in Christ, then
we are of all men most miserable. " We lose both this
life and that which we thought was to come.

Paul's meaning is plain. By the hope of a life
beyond, he had been induced to undergo the greatest
privations in this life. He had been exposed to count-
less dangers and indignities. Although a Roman citizen,
he had been cast into the arena to contend with wild
beasts : there was no risk he had not run, no hardship
he had not endured. But in all he was sustained by
the assurance that there remained for him a rest and
an inheritance in a future life. Remove this assurance
and you remove the assumption on which his conduct
is wholly built. If there is no future life either to win
or to lose, then the Epicurean motto may take the
place of Christ's promises, " Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die."

It may indeed be said that even if there be no life
to come, this life is best spent in the service of man,
however full of hazard and hardship that service be.
That is quite true ; and had Paul believed this life
was all, he might still have chosen to spend it, not on
sensual indulgence, but in striving to win men to some-
thing better. But in that case there would have been
no deception and no disappointment. In point of fact,
however, Paul believed in a life to come, and it was
because he believed in that life he gave himself to the
work of winning men to Christ regardless of his own
pains and losses. And what he says is that if he is
mistaken, then all these pains and losses have been
giatuitous, and that his whole life has proceeded on a

xv.] CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION. 361

mistake. The life to which he sought to win and for
which he sought to prepare men does not exist.

Besides, it must be acknowledged that the mass of
men do sink to a merely sensual or earthly life if the
hope of immortality is removed, and that Paul did not
require to be very guarded in his statement of this
truth. In fact, the words " Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die" were taken from the history of his
own nation. When Jerusalem was besieged by the
Babylonians and no escape seemed possible, the people
gave themselves up to recklessness and despair and
sensual indulgence, saying, " Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die." Similar instances of the reckless-
ness produced by the near approach of death may very
readily be culled from the history of shipwrecks, of
pestilences, and of besieged cities. In the old Jewish
book, the Book of Wisdom, it finds a very beautiful
expression, the following words being put into the
mouth of those who knew not that man is immortal :
" Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of man
is no remedy ; neither was any man ever known to
return from the grave : for we are all born at an
adventure, and shall be afterwards as though we had
never been ; for the breath of our nostrils is as smoke,
and a little spark is the moving of our heart, which,
being extinguished, our bodies will be burnt to ashes,
and our spirit vanish as the soft air : and our name
shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall hold our
works in remembrance, and our life shall pass away
like the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a
mist that is driven away with the beams of the sun,
and overcome with the heat thereof. . . . Come on
therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present,
and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth.

362 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments,
and let no flower of the spring pass by us ; let us
crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered ;
let none of us go without his share of voluptuousness ;
let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place, for
this is our portion and our lot is this."

It is obvious therefore that this is the conclusion
which the mass of mankind draw from a disbelief in
immortality. Convince men that this life is all, that
death is final extinction, and they will eagerly drain
this life of all the pleasure it can yield. We may say
that there are some men to whom virtue is the greatest
pleasure : we may say that to all the denial of appe-
tite and self-indulgence is a more genuine pleasure
than the gratification of it : we may say that virtue is
its own reward, and that irrespective of the future it
is right to live now spiritually and not sensually, for
God and not for self : we may say that the judgments
of conscience are pronounced without any regard to
future consequences, and that the highest and best life
for man is a life in conformity to conscience and in
fellowship with God, whether such life is to be long 01
shcrt, temporal or eternal. And this is true, but how
are we to get men to accept it ? Teach men to believe
in a future life and you strengthen every moral senti-
ment and every Godward aspiration by revealing the
tiue dignity of human nature. Make men feel that
they are immortal beings, that this life, so far from
being all, is the mere entrance and first step to
existence ; make men feel that there is open to
them an endless moral progress, and you give them
some encouragement to lay the foundations of this
progress in a self-denying and virtuous life in this
world. Take away this belief, encourage men to think

xv.] CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION. 363

of themselves as worthless little creatures that come
into being for a few years and are blotted out again for
ever, and you destroy one mainspring of right action
in men. It is not that men do noble deeds for the
sake of reward : the hope of reward is scarcely a
perceptible influence in the best of men, or indeed in
any men ; but in all men trained as we are, there is
an indefinite consciousness that, being immortal crea-
tures, we are made for higher ends than those of this
life, and have prospects of enjoyments which should
make us independent of the grosser pleasures of the
present bodily condition.

Apparently the Corinthians themselves had argued
that morality was quite independent of a belief in
immortality. For Paul goes on : " Be not deceived : you
cannot, however much you may think so, you cannot
hear such theories without having your moral con-
victions undermined and your tone lowered. This he
conveys to them in a common quotation from a heathen
poet — " Evil communications corrupt good manners ; M
that is to say, false opinions have a natural tendency
to produce unsatisfactory and immoral conduct. To
keep company with those whose conversation is frivo-
lous or cynical, or charged with dangerous or false
views of things, has a natural tendency to lead us to a
style of conduct we should not otherwise have fallen
into. Men do not always recognise this ; they need
the warning, " Be not deceived." The beginnings of
conduct are so hidden from our observation, our lives
are formed by influences so imperceptible, what we
hear sinks so insidiously into the mind and mingles
so insensibly with our motives, that we can never say
what we have heard without moral contamination. No
doubt it is possible to hold the most erroneous opinion 3

364 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

and yet to keep the life pure ; but they are strong and
guileless spirits who can preserve a high moral tone
while they have lost faith in those truths which mainly
nourish the moral nature of the mass of men. And
many have found to their surprise and grief that
opinions which they fancied they might very well hold
and yet live a high and holy life, have somehow sapped
their moral defences against temptation and paved the
way for shameful falls. We cannot always prevent
doubts, even about the most fundamental truths, from
entering our minds, but we can always refuse to
welcome such doubts, or to be proud of them ; we can
always be resolved to treat sacred things in a reverent
and not in a flippant spirit, and we can always aim at
least at an honest and eager seeking for the truth.

3. But the most serious consequence which results
if there be no resurrection of the dead, is that in that
case Christ is not risen. " If there be no resurrection
of the dead, then is Christ not risen.' For Paul refused
to consider the resurrection of Christ as a miracle in
the sense of its being exceptional and aside from the
usual experience of man. On the contrary, he accepts
it as the type to which every man is to be conformed.
Precedent in time, exceptional possibly in some of its
accidental accompaniments, the resurrection of Christ
may be, but nevertheless as truly in the line of human
development as birth, and growth, and death. Christ
being man must submit to the conditions and experience
of men in all essentials, in all that characterises man as
human. And, therefore, if resurrection be not a normal
human experience, Christ has not risen. The time at
which resurrection takes place, and the interval elapsing
between death and resurrection, Paul makes nothing of.
A child may live but three days, but it is not on that

xv.] CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION. 365

account any the less human than if he had lived his
threescore years and ten. Similarly the fact of Christ's
resurrection identifies Him with the human race, while
the shortness of the interval elapsing between death
and resurrection does not separate Him from man, for
in point of fact the interval will be less in the case
of many.

Both here and elsewhere Paul looks upon Christ as
the representative man, the one in whom we can see
the ideal of manhood. If any of our own friends should
veritably die, and after death should appear to us alive,
and should prove his identity by remaining with us
for a time, by showing an interest in the very things
which had previously occupied his thought, and by
taking practical steps to secure the fulfilment of his
purposes, a strong probability that we too should live
through death would inevitably be impressed on our
mind. But when Christ rises from the dead this
probability becomes a certainty, because He is the type
of humanity, the representative person. As Paul here
says, " He is the firstfruits of them that sleep." His
resurrection is the sample and pledge of ours. When
the farmer pulls the first ripe ears of wheat and carries
them home, it is not for their own sake he values them,
but because they are a specimen and sample of the
whole crop ; and when God raised Christ from the
dead, the glory of the event consisted in its being a
pledge and specimen of the triumph of mankind over
death. u If we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with Him."

And yet while Paul distinctly holds that resurrection
is a normal human experience, he also implies that but
for the interposition of Christ that experience might

366 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS,

have been lost to men. It is in Christ that men are
made alive after and through death. As Adam is the
source of physical life that ends in death, so Christ
is the source of spiritual life that never dies. " By
man came death, by man came also the resurrection
of the dead." Adam's severance from God and
preference of what was physical, brought man under
the powers of the physical world : Christ by perfect
adhesion to God, and constant conquest of all physical
allurements, won life eternal for Himself and for those
who have His Spirit. As a man of genius and wisdom
will by his occupation of a throne enlarge men's ideas
of what a king is, and bring many blessings to his
subjects, so Christ by living a human life enlarged it
to its utmost dimensions, compelling it to express His
ideas of life, and winning for those who follow Him
entrance into a larger and higher condition. Resur-
rection is here represented, not as an experience which
men would have enjoyed had Christ never appeared on
earth, nor as an experience opened to men by God's
sovereign goodwill, but as an experience in some way
brought by Christ within human reach. " By man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall
all be made alive." That is to say, all who are by
physical derivation truly united to Adam, incur the
death which by sinning he introduced into human
experience ; and similarly all who by spiritual affinity
are in Christ, enjoy the new life which triumphs over
death, and which He won. Adam wras not the only
man who died, but the firstfruits of a rich harvest ;
and so, Christ is not alone in resurrection, but is become
the firstfruits of them that sleep. According to Paul's
theology, the conduct of a man, the sin of Adam, carried

xv.] CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION. 367

in it disastrous consequences to all connected with
him : but equally fruitful in consequences was the
human life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The
death of Adam was the first stroke of that funeral knell
that has ceaselessly sounded through all generations :
but the resurrection of Christ was equally the pledge
and earnest that the same experience would be enjoyed
by all " that are Christ's."

Paul is carried on from the thought of the resur-
rection of "them that are Christ's," to the thought
of the consummation of all things which this great
event introduces and signalizes. This exhibition of
the triumph over death is the signal that all other
enemies are now defeated. u The last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death ; " and this being destroyed,
all Christ's followers being now gathered in and having
entered on their eternal condition, the work of Christ
so far as this world is concerned is over. Having
reunited men to God, His work is done. The pro-
visional government administered by Him having
accomplished its work of bringing men into perfect
harmony with the Supreme Will, it gives place to the
immediate and direct government of God. What is
implied in this it is impossible to say. A condition
in which sin shall have no place and in which there
shall be no need of means of reconciliation, a condition
in which the work of Christ shall be no longer needed
and in which God shall be all in all, pervading with
His presence every soul and as welcome and natural
as the air or the sunlight, — that is a condition not
easy to be imagined. Neither can we readily imagine
what Christ Himself shall be and do when the term
of His mediatorial administration is finished and God
is all in all.

368 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

One idea conspicuous in this brief and pregnant
passage is that Christ came to subdue all the enemies
of mankind, and that He will continue His work until
His purpose is accomplished. He alone has taken a
perfectly comprehensive view of the obstacles to human
happiness and progress, and He has set Himself to
remove these. He alone has penetrated to the root
of all human evil and misery, and has given Himself
to the task of emancipating men from all evil, of
restoring men to their true life, and of abolishing for
ever the miseries which have so largely characterised
man's history. Slowly indeed, and unseen, does His
work proceed ; slowly, because the work is for eternity,
and because only gradually can moral and spiritual
evils be removed. " It is by no breath, turn of eye,
wave of hand, salvation joins issue with death," but
by actual and sustained moral conflict, by real sacrifice
and persistent choice of. good, by long trial and
development of individual character, by the slow
growth of nations and the interaction of social and
religious influences, by the leavening of all that is
human with the spirit of Christ, that is, with self-
devotement in practical life to the good of men. All
this is too great and too real to be other than slow.
The tide of moral progress in the world has often
seemed to turn. Even now, when the leaven has
been working for so long, how doubtful often seems
the issue, how concerned even Christian people are
about the merest superficialities and how little labour-
ing to put down in Christ's name the common enemies.
Can any one who looks at things as they are find
it easy to believe in the final extinction of evil ?
Whither tend the prevalent vices, the empty-souled
love of pleasure and demand for excitement, the

xv.j CONSEQUENCES OF DENYING RESURRECTION 369

unyielding, brazen-faced selfishness of the principles
of business if not of the men who engage in it, the
diligent propagation of error, the oppression of the
rich and the greed and sensuality that poverty induces ?
One needs to be reminded that these things are the
enemies, not only of good men, but of Christ, and that
by God's will He is to defeat them. One needs to
be reminded also that to see this victory accomplished
and to have had no share in it will be the sorest
humiliation and the most painful reflection to every
generous mind. However slight be our power, let
us strike such blow as we can at the common enemies
which must be destroyed ere the great consummation
b reached.

TEE SPIRITUAL BODY.

M But some man will say, How are the dead raised up ? and with
what body do they come ? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not
quickened, except it die : and that which thou sowest, thou sowest
not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat,
or of some other grain : but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased
Him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same
flesh : but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts,
another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial is one,
and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the
sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars :
for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the
resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in
incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in glory: it is sown
in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is
raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a
spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made
a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit
that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and
afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy : the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy,
such are they also tnac are earthy : and as ij the heavenly, such are
they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the
earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I
say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show
you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and
we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting ?
O grave, where is thy victory ? The sting of death is sin ; and the
strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in
the Lord."— I Cor. xv. 35-58.

XXIV.

THE SPIRITUAI BODY.

THE proofs of the Resurrection which Paul ha3
adduced are satisfactory. So long as they are
clearly before the mind, we find it possible to believe
in that great experience which will finally give us
possession of the life to come. But after all proof
rises doubt irrepressible, owing to the difficulty of
understanding the process through which the body
passes and the nature of the body that is to be.
a Some man will say, How are the dead raised up ?
and with what body do they come ? " Not always in
an unbelieving or scoffing spirit, often in mere per-
plexity and justifiable inquisitiveness, will men ask
these questions.

Paul answers both inquiries by referring to analogies
in the natural world. Only by death, he says, does
seed reach its designed development ; and the body
or form in which seed rises is very different in appear-
ance from that in which it is sown. These analogies
have their place and their use in removing objections
and difficulties. They are not intended or supposed
to establish the fact of the Resurrection, but only to
remove difficulties as to its mode. By analogy you
can show that a certain process or result is not impos-
sible, you may even create a presumption in its favour,

374 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

but you cannot establish it as an actuality. Analogy
is a powerful instrument for removing objections, but
utterly weak for establishing positive truth. Seed
lives again after burial, but it does not follow that our
bodies will do so. Seed when it rots away beneath
the soil gives birth to a better thing than that which
was sown, but this is no proof that the same result
will follow when our bodies pass through a similar
treatment. But if a man says, as Paul here supposes
he may, " Such a thing as this resurrection you speak
of is an unnatural, unheard-of, and impossible thing,"
the best reply is to point him to some analogous pro-
cess in nature, in which this apparent impossibility or
something very similar is actually brought to pass.

Even outside the circle of Christian thought these
analogies in nature have always been felt to remove
some of the presumptions against the Resurrection and
to make room for listening to evidence in its favour.
The transformation of the seed into the plant and the
development of the seed to a fuller life through apparent
extinction, the transformation of the grub into the
brilliant and powerful dragon-fly through a process
which terminates the life of the grub — these and other
natural facts show that one life may be continued
through various phases, and that the termination of one
form of life does not always mean the termination of
all life in a creature. We need not, these analogies
tell us, at once conclude that death ends all, for in
some visible instances death is only a birth to a higher
and freer life. Neither need we point to the dissolution
of the natural body and conclude that no more perfect
body can be connected with such a process, because
in many cases we see a more efficient body disengaged
from the original and dissolving body. Thus far the

xv. 35-38.3 THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 375

analogies carry us. It is doubtful whether they should
be pushed further, although they might seem to indicate
that the new body is not to be a new creation, but is to
be produced by virtue of what is already in existence.
The new body is not to be irrespective of what has
gone before, but is to be the natural result of causes
already working. What these causes are, or how the
spirit is to impress its character on the body, we do
not know.

It is not impossible, then, nor even quite improbable,
that the death of our present body may set free a new
and far more perfectly equipped body. The fact that
we cannot conceive the nature of this body need not
trouble us. Who without previous observation could
imagine what would spring from an acorn or a seed
of wheat? To each God gives its own body. We
cannot imagine what our future body, subject to no
waste or decay, can be; but we need not on that
account reject as childish all expectation that such a
body shall exist. "All flesh is not the same flesh."
The kind of flesh you now wear may be unfit for
everlasting life, but there may await you as suitable
and congenial a body as your present familiar tenement.
Consider the inexhaustible fertility of God, the endless
varieties already existing in nature. The bird has a
body which fits it for life in the air; the fish lives
with comfort in its own element. And the variety
already existing does not exhaust God's resources.
We read at present but one chapter in the history of
life, and what future chapters are to unfold who can
imagine ? A fertile and inventive man knows no bound
to his progress; will God stand still? Are we not
but at the beginning of His works? May we not
reasonably suppose that a truly infinite expansion and

376 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

development await God's works ? Is it not entirely
unreasonable to suppose that what we see and know
is the measure of God's resources ?

Paul does not attempt to describe the future body,
but contents himself with pointing out one or two of
its characteristics by which it is distinguished from
the body we now wear. " It is sown in corruption ;
it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ;
it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised
in power : it is sown a natural body ; it is raised a
spiritual body." In this body there is decay, humilia-
tion, weakness, a life that is merely temporary ; in the
body that is to be decay gives place to incorruptibility,
humiliation to glory, weakness to power, animal life
to spiritual.

The present body is subject to decay. Not only is
it easily injured by accident and often rendered perr
manently useless, but it is so constituted that all
activity wastes it ; and this waste needs constant repair.
That we may constantly seek this repair, we are
endowed with strong appetites, which sometimes over-
bear everything else in us and both defeat their own
ends and hinder the growth of the spirit. The organs
by which the waste is repaired themselves wear out,
so that by no care or nourishment can a man make
out to live as long as a tree. But the ver}*- decay of
this body makes way for one in which there shall be no
waste, no need of physical nourishment, and therefore
no need of strong and overbearing physical appetites.
Instead of impeding the spirit by clamouring to have
its wants attended to, it will be the spirit's instrument.
A great part of the temptations of this present life
arise from the conditions in which we necessarily exist
as dependent for our ccmfort in great measure on the

*v. 35-38.] THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 377

body. And one can scarcely conceive the feeling of
emancipation and superiority which will possess those
who have no anxiety about a livelihood, no fear of
death, no distraction of appetite.

The present body is for similar reasons characterized
by " weakness." We cannot be where we would, nor
do what we would. A man may work his twelve hours,
but he must then acknowledge he has a body which
needs rest and sleep. Many persons are disqualified
by bodily weakness from certain forms of usefulness
and enjoyment. Many persons also, though able to
do a certain amount of work, do it with labour ; their
vitality is habitually low, and they never have the full
use of their powers, but need continually to be on
their guard, and go through life burdened with a
lassitude and discomfort more difficult to bear than
passing attacks of pain. In contradistinction to this
and to every form of weakness, the resurrection body
will be full of power, able to accomplish the behests
of the will, and fit for all that is required of it.

But the most comprehensive contrast between the
two bodies is expressed in the words, " It is sown a
natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body." A natural
body is that which is animated by a human life and is
fitted for this world. " The first man Adam was made
a living soul," or, as we should more naturally say, an
animal. He was made with a capacity for living ; and
because he was to live upon earth, he had a body in
which this life or soul was lodged. The natural body
is the body we receive at birth, and which is suited for
its own requirements of maintaining itself in life in this
world into which we are born. The soul, or animal life,
of man is higher than that of the other animals, it has
richer endowments and capacities, but it is also in

37» THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

many respects similar. Many men are quite content
with the merely animal life which this world upholds
and furnishes. They find enough to satisfy them in
its pleasures, its work, its affairs, its friendships ; and
for all these the natural body is sufficient. The
thoughtful man cannot indeed but look forward and ask
himself what is to become of this body. If he turns to
Scripture for light, he will probably be struck with the
fact that it sheds no light whatever on the future of the
natural body. Those who are in Christ enter into
possession of a spiritual body, but there is no hint of
any more perfect body being prepared for those who
are not in Christ.

The spiritual body, which is reserved for spiritual
men, is a body in which the upholding life is spiritual.
The natural life of man both forms to a human shape
and upholds the natural body ; the spiritual body is
similarly maintained by what is spiritual in man. It is
the soul, or natural life, of man which gives the body its
appetites and maintains it in efficiency ; remove this
soul, and the body is mere dead matter. In like manner
it is the spirit which maintains the spiritual body ; and
by the spirit is meant that in man which can delight in
God and in goodness. The body we now have is
miserable and useless or happy and serviceable in
proportion to its animal vitality, in proportion to its
power to assimilate to itself the nutriment this physical
world supplies. The spiritual body will be healthy or
sickly in proportion to the spiritual vitality that
animates it ; that is to say, in proportion to the power
of the individual spirit to delight in God and find its
life in Him and in what He lives for.

We have already seen that Paul refuses to consider
the resurrection of Christ as miraculous in the sense of

*v- 35-3S] THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 379

its being unique or abnormal ; on the contrary, he con-
siders resurrection to be an essential step in normal
human development, and therefore experienced by
Christ. And now he enunciates the great principle or
law which governs not only this fact of resurrection, but
the whole evolution of God's works : " first that which
is natural, afterward that which is spiritual." It is this
law which we see ruling the history of creation and the
history of man. The spiritual is the culminating point
towards which all the processes of nature tend. The
gradual development of what is spiritual, of will, of
love, of moral excellence — this, so far as man can see,
is the end towards which all nature constantly and
steadily is working.

Sometimes, however, it occurs to one to question the
law " first that which is natural, afterward that which
is spiritual." If the present body hinders rather than
helps the growth of the spirit, if at last all Christians
are to have a spiritual body, why might we not have
had this body to begin with ? What need of this
mysterious process of passing from life to life and from
body to body ? If it is true that we are here only for
a few years and in the future life for ever, why should
we be here at all ? Why might we not at birth have
been ushered into our eternal state ? The answer is
obvious. We are not at once introduced into our
eternal condition because we are moral creatures, free
to choose for ourselves, and who cannot enter an eternal
state save by choice of our own : first that which is
natural, first that which is animal, first a life in which
we have abundant opportunity to test what appears
good and are free to make our choice ; then that
which is spiritual, because the spiritual can only be a
tiling of choice, a thing of the will. There is no

38o THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

spiritual life or spiritual birth save by the will. Men
can become spiritual only by choosing to be so. In-
voluntary, compulsory, necessitated, natural spirituality
is, so far as man is concerned, a contradiction in
terms.

Human nature is a thing of immense possibilities
and range. On the one side it is akin to the lower
animals, to the physical world and all that is in it, high
and low; on the other side it is akin to the highest
of all spiritual existences, even to God Himself. At
present we are in a world admirably adapted for our
probation and discipline, a world in which, in point of
fact, every man does attach himself to the lower or to
the higher, to the present or to the eternal, to the
natural or to the spiritual. And although the results
of this may not be apparent in average cases, yet in
extreme cases the results of human choice are
obtrusively apparent. Let a man give himself un-
restrainedly and exclusively to animal life in its grosser
forms, and the body itself soon begins to suffer. You
can see the process of physical deterioration going on,
deepening in misery, until death comes. But what
follows death ? Can one promise himself or another
a future body which shall be exempt from the pains
which unrepented sin has introduced ? Are those who
have by their vice committed a slow suicide to be
clothed hereafter in an incorruptible and efficient body ?
It seems wholly contrary to reason to suppose so.
And how can their probation be continued if the very
circumstance which makes this life so thorough a pro-
bation to us all — the circumstance of our being clothed
with a body — is absent ? The truth is, there is no
subject on which more darkness hangs or on which
Scripture preserves so ominous a silence as the future

*v. 35-38.] TUB SPIRITUAL BODY. 381

of the body of those who in this life have not chosen
God and things spiritual as their life.

On the other hand, if we consider instances in which
the spiritual life has been resolutely and unreservedly
chosen, we see anticipations here also of the future
destiny of those who have so chosen. They may be
crushed by diseases as painful and as fatal as the
most flagrant of sinners endure, but these diseases
frequently have the result only of making the true
spiritual life shine more brightly. In extreme cases,
you would almost say, the transmutation of the
tortured and worn body into a glorified body is begun.
The spirit seems dominant ; and as you stand by and
watch, you begin to feel that death has no relation to the
emotions, and hopes, and intercourse you detect in that
spirit. These, which seem, and are, the very life of the
spirit, cannot be thought of as terminated by a merely
physical change. They do not spring from, nor do
they depend upon, what is physical ; and it is reasonable
to suppose that they will not be destroyed by it.
Looking at Christ Himself and allowing due impression
to be made upon us by His concernment about the
highest, and best, and most lasting things, by His
recognition of God and harmony with Him, by His
living in God, and by His superiority to earthly con-
siderations, we cannot but feel it to be most unlikely
that such a spirit should be extinguished by bodily
death.

This spiritual body we receive through the inter-
vention of Christ. As from the first man we receive
animal life, from the second we receive spiritual life.
"The first man Adam was made a living soul, the
last Adam a quickening spirit. And as we have
borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the

382 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

image of the heavenly." The image of the first man
we have by our natural and physical derivation from
him, the image of the second by spiritual derivation ;
that is to say, by our choosing Christ as our ideal
and by our allowing His Spirit to form us. This Spirit
is life-giving ; this Spirit is indeed God, communicating
to us a life which is at once holy and eternal.

The mode of Christ's intervention is more fully
described in the words, " The sting of death is sin ;
and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to
God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ." Everywhere Paul teaches that it was
sin which brought death upon man ; that man would
have broken through the law of death which reigns
in the physical world had he not by sin brought him-
self under the power of things physical. And this
poisonous fang was pressed in by the Law. The
strength of sin is the Law. It is positive disobedience,
the preference of known evil to known good, the
violation of law whether written in the conscience or
in spoken commandments, which gives sin its moral
character. The choice of the evil in presence of the
good — it is that which constitutes sin.

The words are no doubt susceptible of another
meaning. They could be used by one who wished
to say that sin is that which makes death painful,
which adds terror of future judgment and gloomy fore-
bodings to the natural pain of death. But it must be
owned that this is not so much in keeping with Paul's
usual way of looking at the connection between death
and sin.

Christ's victory over death is thus explained by
Godet : " Christ's victory over death has two aspects,
the one relating to Himself, the other concerning men.

xv. 35-38.] THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 383

He first of all conquered sin in relation to Himself by
denying to it the right of existence in Him, condemning
it to non-existence in His flesh, similar though it was
to our sinful flesh (Rom. viii. 3) ; and thereby He
disarmed the Law so far as it concerned Himself. His
life being the Law in living realization, He had it for
Him, and not against Him. This twofold personal
victory was the foundation of His own resurrection.
Thereafter He continued to act that this victory might
extend to us. And first He freed us from the burden
of condemnation which the Law laid on us, and whereby
it was ever interposing between us and communion
with God. He recognised in our name the right of
God over the sinner; He consented to satisfy it to the
utmost in His own person. Whoever appropriates
this death as undergone in his room and stead and
for himself, sees the door of reconciliation to God
open before him, as if he had himself expiated all his
sins. The separation established by the Law no longer
exists ; the Law is disarmed. By that very fact sin
also is vanquished. Reconciled to God, the believer
receives Christ's Spirit, who works in him an absolute
breach of will with sin and complete devotion to God.
The yoke of sin is at an end ; the dominion of God
is restored in the heart. The two foundations of the
reign of death are thus destroyed. Let Christ appear,
and this reign will crumble in the dust for ever."

It is then with joy and triumph Paul contemplates
death. Naturally we shrink from and fear it. We
know it only from one side : only from seeing it in the
persons of other men, and not from our own experience.
And what we see in others is necessarily only the
darker side of death, the cessation of bodily life and
of all intercourse with the warm and lively interests of

384 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

M' ' " ' " ■'^, ' ' I ■.■■ — ■ ■■ ■!!■„■ ,. .!■■■«

the world. It is a condition exciting tears, and moaning,
and grief in those that remain in life; and though
these tears arise chiefly from our own sense of loss,
yet insensibly we think of the condition of the dead
as a state to be bewailed. We see the sowing in weak-
ness, in dishonour, in corruption, as Paul says ; and we
do not see the glory, and strength, and incorruption
of the spiritual body. The dead may be in bright
regions and be living a keener life than ever ; but of
this we see nothing : and all we do see is sad, de-
pressing, humiliating.

But to " faith's foreseeing eye " the other side of
death becomes also apparent. The grave becomes the
robing room for life eternal. Stripped of " this muddy
vesture of decay," we are there to be clothed with a
spiritual body. Death is enlisted in the service of Christ's
people ; and by destroying flesh and blood, it enables
this mortal to put on immortality. The blow which
threatens to crush and annihilate all life breaks but
the shell and lets the imprisoned spirit free to a larger
life. Death is swallowed up in victory, and itself
ministers to the final triumph of man. Our instincts
tell us that death is critical and has a determining
power on our destinies. We cannot evade it ; we may
depreciate or neglect, but we cannot diminish, its im-
portance. It has its place and its function, and it will
operate in each one of us according to what it finds
in us, destroying what is merely animal, emancipating
what is truly spiritual. We cannot as yet stand on
the further side of death, and look back on it, and
recognise its kindly work in us ; but we can understand
Paul's burst of anticipated triumph, and with him we
can forecast the joy of having passed all doubtful
struggle and anxious foreboding, and of finally experi-

THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 385

encing that all the evils of humanity have been over-
come. With a triumph so complete in view, we can
also listen to his exhortation, u Therefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding
in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that
your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

But if we have any fit conception of the magnitude
of the triumph, we shall also cherish some worthy idea
of the reality of the conflict. Those who have felt the
terror of death know that it can be counterbalanced
only by something more than a surmise, a hope, a
longing, only indeed by a fact as solid as itself. And
if to them the resurrection of Christ approves itself as
such a fact, and if they can listen to His voice saying,
11 Because I live, ye shall live also," they do feel them-
selves armed against the graver terrors of death, and
cannot but look forward with some confident hope to a
life into which the ills they have here experienced
cannot follow them. But at the same time, and in pro-
portion as the reality of the future life quickens hope
within them, it must also reveal to them the reality of
the conflict through which that life is reached. By no
mere idle naming of the name of Christ or resultless
faith in Him can men pass from what is natural to
what is spiritual. We are summoned to believe in
Christ, but for a purpose ; and that purpose is that,
believing in Him as the revelation of God to us, we
may be able to choose Him as our pattern and live His
life. It is only what is truly spiritual in ourselves that
can put us in possession of a spiritual body. From
Christ we can receive what is spiritual ; and if our
belief in Him prompts us to become like Him, then we
may count upon sharing in His destiny.

This is the permanent incentive of the Christian life*

386 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

• —— — — —

This present experience of ours leads to a larger, more
satisfying experience. Beyond our horizon there
awaits us an endlessly enlarging world. Death, which
seems to bound our view, is really but our real birth to
a fuller, and eternal, and true life. " Therefore be ye
steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord." The promptings of conscience do not
delude you ; your instinctive hopes will not be put to
shame ; your faith is reasonable ; there is a life beyond.
And no effort you now put forth will prove vain ; no
prayer, no earnest desire, no struggle towards what is
spiritual, will fail of its effect. All that is spiritual is
destined to live ; it belongs to the eternal world : and
all that you do in the Spirit, all mastery of self, and the
world, and the flesh, all devoted fellowship with God —
all is giving you a surer place and a more abundant
entrance into the spinrual world, for " your labour is
not in vain in the Lord."

TEE POOH,

" Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order
to the Churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the
week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered
him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come,
whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to
bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. And if it be meet that I go
also, they shall go with me. Now I will come unto you, when I shall
pass through Macedonia: for I do pass through Macedonia. And it
may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring
me on my journey whithersoever I go. For I will not see you now
by the way; but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit
But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great door and
effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. Now
if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear : for he
workcth the work of the Lord, as I also do. Let no man therefore
despise him : but conduct him forth in peace, that he may come unto
me : for I look for him with the brethren. As touching our brother
Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren1:
but his will was not at all to come at this time ; but he will come
when he shall have convenient time. Watch ye, stand fast in the
faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with
charity. I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas,
that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted them-
selves to the ministry of the saints,) that ye submit yourselves unto
such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboureth. I am
glad of the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for
that which was lacking on your part they have supplied. For they
have refreshed my spirit and yours : therefore acknowledge ye them
that are such. The Churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and
Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the Church that is in
their house. All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with
an holy kiss. The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. If
any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema
Maran-atha. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My
love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen." — I Cor. xvi

XXV.

THE POOR.

IN closing his letter to the Corinthians, Paul, as usual,
explains his own movements, and adds a number
of miscellaneous directions and salutations. These for
the most part relate to matters of merely temporary
interest, and call for no comment. Interest of a more
permanent kind unfortunately attaches to the collection
for the poor Christians oi Jerusalem which Paul
invites the Corinthians to make. Several causes had
contributed to this poverty ; and, among others, it is
not improbable that the persecution promoted by Paul
himself had an important place. Many Christians
were driven from their homes, and many more must
have lost their means of earning a livelihood. But it
is likely that Paul was anxious to relieve this poverty,
not so much because it had been partly caused by
himself as because he saw in it an opportunity for
bringing more closely together the two great parties
in the Church. In his Epistle to the Galatians Paul
tells us that the three leaders of the Jewish Christian
Church — James, Peter, and John — when they had
assured themselves that this new Apostle was trust-
worthy, gave him the right hand of fellowship, on the
understanding that he should minister to the Gentiles,
"only," he adds — "only they would that we should

390 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

remember the poor, the same which I also was forward
to do." Accordingly we find him seeking to interest
the Gentile Churches in their Jewish brethren, and
of such importance did he consider the relief that was
to be sent to Jerusalem that he himself felt it an
honour to be the bearer of it. He saw that no
doctrinal explanations were likely to be so fruitful in
kindly feeling and true unity as this simple expression
of brotherly kindness.

In our own day poverty has assumed a much more
serious aspect. It is not the poverty which results
from accident, nor even that which results from wrong-
doing or indolence, which presses for consideration.
Such poverty could easily be met by individual charity
or national institutions. But the poverty we are now
confronted with is a poverty which necessarily results
from the principle of competition which is the main-
spring of all trade and business. It is the poverty
which results from the constant effort of every man
to secure custom by offering a cheaper article, and to
secure employment by selling his labour at a cheaper
rate than his neighbour. So overstocked is the labour-
market that the employer can name his own terms.
Where he wants one man, a hundred offer their services ;
and he who can live most cheaply secures the place.
So that necessarily wages are pressed down by com-
petition to the very lowest figure; and wherever any
trade is not strong enough to combine and resist this
constant pressure, the results are appalling. No slaves
were ever so hunger-bitten, no lives were ever more
crushed under perpetual and hopeless toil, than are
thousands of our fellow-countrymen and countrywomen
in our own time. It is the fact that in all our
large cities there are thousands of persons who by

iv\. THE POOR, 391

working sixteen hours a day earn only what suffices
to maintain the most wretched existence. Every day
hundreds of children are being born to a life of hopeless
toil and misery, unrelieved by any of the comforts or
joys of the well-to-do.

The most painful and alarming feature of this con-
dition of things is, as every one knows, that it seems
the inevitable result of the principles on which our
entire social fabric is built. Every invention, every
new method of facilitating business, every contrivance
or improvement in machinery, makes life more difficult
to the mass of men. The very advances made by
civili'sed nations in the rapid production of needful
articles increase the breach between rich and poor,
throwing larger resources into the hands of the few,
but making the lot of the many still darker and more
poverty-stricken. Every year makes the darkness
deeper, the distress more urgent. Here individual
chanty is unavailing. It is not the relief of one here
or there that is needed ; it is the alteration of a system
of things which inevitably produces such results. In-
dividual charity is here a mere mop in the face of the
tide. What is wanted is not larger workhouses where
the aged poor may be sheltered, but such a system as
will enable the working man to provide for himself
against old age. What is wanted is not that the
charitable should eke out by voluntary contributions
the earnings of the labouring classes, but that these
earnings should be such as to amply cover all ordinary
human wants. " Money given in aid cf wages relieves
the employer, not the employed ; reduces wages, not
misery." What is wanted is a social system which
tends to bring within the reach of all the comforts and
the joys of life which men legitimately desire, and

392 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

which does not tend, as our present social system does,
to overload a small number of men with more wealth
than they need, or desire, or can use, while the millions
are crushed with toil and pinched with semi- starvation.
What the working classes at present demand is, not
charity, but justice. They do not wish to seem to be
indebted to others for support which they feel they
have toiled for and earned. They require a social
system, in which the honest toil of a lifetime shall be
sufficient to secure the toiler and his family from the
dangers and degradation of utter poverty.

That a change is desirable no one who has spent
two thoughts on the subject can doubt. The only
question is, What change is desirable and possible ? Is
there any organization or social system which could
check the evils resulting from the present competitive
system, and secure that every one who is willing to
work should be furnished with remunerative employ-
ment ? Socialists are quite convinced that the whole
problem would be solved were private capital to be
converted into co-operative or public capital. Socialism
demands that society shall be the only capitalist, and
that all private captains of industry and capital be
abolished. No return is possible to the state of things
in which every man worked by himself with his own
hands and at his own risk, producing his one or two
webs, tilling his one or two acres. It is recognised
that far more and better products can be produced
when manufactures are carried on in large factories.
But on the socialistic principle these factories must be
owned, not by private capitalists, but by the State, 01
at any rate by co-operative societies of some kind.
This is the essence of the demand of Socialism : that
'•'whereas industry is at present carried on by private

xvi. THE POOR. 393

capitalists served by wage-labour, it must in the future
be conducted by associated or co-operating workmen
jointly owning the means of production."

The difficulty in pronouncing judgment on such a
demand arises from the fact that very few men indeed
have sufficient imagination and sufficient knowledge
of our complicated social system to be able to forecast
the results of so great a change. In the present stage
of human progress personal interest is undoubtedly
one of the strongest incentives to industry, and to this
motive the present system of competition appeals.
And although Socialists declare that their system would
not exclude competition, it is difficult to see what field
it would have or at what point it would find its
opportunity. Certain departments of industry are
already in the hands of the State or of co-operative
societies, but the organization of all industries and the
management and remuneration of all labour demand a
machinery so colossal that it is feared it would fall
to pieces by its own weight. Still it is possible
that ways and means of working a socialistic scheme
may be devised ; and it is quite certain that if any
system could be devised which is really workable, and
which should at once save us from the disastrous
results of competition and yet evoke all the energy
which competition evokes, that system would forth-
with be adopted in every civilised country.

As yet, however, no such social system has been
elaborated. General principles, ruling ideas, theories,
paper plans, have been enunciated by the score ; but, in
point of fact, there is no system yet devised which
appeals either to the common-sense and instincts of
the masses, or which stands the criticism of experts.
And some of those who have given greatest attention

394 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

to social subjects, and have made the greatest personal
sacrifices in behalf of the poor and down-trodden, are
inclined to believe that no such system can be devised,
and that deliverance from the present wretched state
of matters is to be found, not in compulsory enactment,
nor even in the sudden adoption of a different social
system, but in the application of Christian principles
to the working of the present competitive system.
That is to say, they believe that true progress here,
as elsewhere, begins in character, not in outward
organization, or, as it has been put, that "the soul
of improvement is the improvement of the soul."
They consider that the present system rests on un-
changeable laws of human nature, but that if men
worked that system with consideration, unworldliness,
and brotherly kindness, the present evil results wTould
be avoided. Or they believe that it is at any rate
useless to alter the present system violently by mere
legislative enactment or by revolution, but that if it
is to be altered, it can effectually, and permanently, and
beneficially be so only under the pressure and at the
dictation of an improved public opinion.

Appeal is confidently made to the mind of Christ
by both parties, both by those who trust to the
enforcement of a socialistic scheme, and by those who
believe only in the social improvement which results
from the improvement of the individual. By the one
party it is confidently affirmed that were Jesus Christ
now on earth He would be a communist, would aim
at equalizing all classes and at commuting private
property into a public fund. Communism has been
tried to some extent in the Church. In monastic
societies private property is surrendered for the good
of the community, and this practice professes to find

xvi.] THE POOR 395

its sanction in the communism of the primitive Church.
But the account we have of that communism shows
that it was neither compulsory nor permanent. It
was not compulsory, for Peter reminds Ananias that
his property was his own, and that even after he had
sold it he was at liberty to do what he pleased with
the proceeds. And it was not permanent nor universal,
for here we find that Paul had to ask contributions for
the relief of the poor Christians of Jerusalem ; while
we see that there were rich and poor in the same
congregations, and that such duties as almsgiving and
hospitality, which could not be practised without
private means, were enjoined upon Christians. It is
also obvious that many of the duties inculcated in the
Epistles of Paul could not be discharged in a society
in which all classes were levelled.

It is perhaps of more importance to observe that in

probably the most critical period of the world's history

our Lord took no part in any political movement ; nay,

He counted it a temptation of the devil when He saw

how much inducement there was to head some popular

party and compete with kings or statesmen. He

was no agitator, although He lived in an age abounding

in abuses. And this limitation of His work was due

to no superficial view of social movements nor to any

mere shrinking from the rougher work of life, but

to His perception that His own task was to touch

what was deepest in man, and to lodge in human

nature forces which ultimately would achieve all that

was desirable. The cry of the poor against the

oppressor was never louder than in His lifetime ;

slavery was universal : no country on earth enjoyed

a free government. Yet our Lord most carefully

abstained from following in the steps of a Judas the

396 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

Gaulanite, and from intermeddling with social or State
affairs. He came to found a kingdom, and that
kingdom was to exist on earth, and was to be the
ideal condition of mankind ; but He trusted to move
and mould society by regenerating the individual and
by teaching men to seek in the first place not what
" the Gentiles seek " — happy outward conditions — but
the kingdom of God, the rule of God's Spirit in the
heart, and the righteousness that comes of that. It
was by the regeneration of individuals society was
to be regenerated. The leaven which contact with
Him imparted to the individual would touch and
purify the whole social fabric.

In any case the duty of individual Christians is
plain. Whether needless and unjust poverty is to
be relieved by social revolution or by the happier and
surer, if slower, method of leavening society with the
spirit of Christ, it is the part of every Christian man
to inform himself of the state of his fellow-citizens
and to bring himself in some practically helpful way
into connection with the wretchedness in the midst
of which we are living. To shut our eyes to the
squalor, and vice, and hopelessness which poverty too
often brings, to seclude ourselves in our own com-
fortable homes and shut out all sounds and signs of
misery, to " abhor the affliction of the afflicted," and
practically to deny that it is better to visit the house
of mourning than the house of feasting — this is simply
to furnish proof that we know nothing of the spirit
of Christ. We may find ourselves quite unable to
rectify abuses on a large scale or to discern how
poverty can be absolutely prevented, but we can do
something to brighten some lives ; we can consider
those whose hard and bare lives make our comforts

*vi.] THE POOR. Z07

cheap ; we can ask ourselves whether we are quite
free from blood-guiltiness in using articles which are
cheap to us because wrung out of underpaid and
starving hands. It is true that anything we can do
may be but a scratching of the surface, the lifting of
a bucketful out of an overflowing flood which should
be stopped at the source ; still we must do what we
can, and all knowledge of social facts and kindly
feeling and action towards the oppressed are helpful,
and on the way to a final settlement of our social
condition. Let every Christian give his conscience
fair play, let him ask himself what Christ would do
in his circumstances, and this final settlement will not
be long postponed. But so long as selfishness rules,
so long as the world of men is like a pit full of loath-
some creatures, each struggling to the top over the
heads and crushed bodies of the rest, no scheme will
alter or even disguise our infamy.

The method of collecting which Paul recommends
was in all probability that wThich he himself practised.
" Upon the first day of the week let every one of you
lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that
there be no gatherings when I come/' This verse has
sometimes been quoted as evidence that the Christians
met for worship on Sundays as we do. Manifestly
it shows nothing of the kind. It is proof that the first
day of the week had a significance, probably as the day
of our Lord's resurrection, possibly only for some trade
reasons now unknown. It is expressly said that each
was to lay up " by him " — that is, not in a public fund,
but at home in his own purse — what he wished to give.
But what is chiefly to be noticed is that Paul, who
ordinarily is so free from preciseness and form, here
enjoins the precise method in which the collection

39§ THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

might best be made. That is to say, he believed in
methodical giving. He knew the value of steady
accumulation. He laid it on each man's conscience
deliberately to say how much he would give. He
wished no one to give in the dark. He did not carry
out in the letter, even if he knew, the precept, " Let
not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth."
He knew how men seem to themselves to be giving
much more than they are if they do not keep an exact
account of what they give, how some men shrink from
knowing definitely the proportion they give away.
And therefore he presents it as a duty we have each
to discharge to determine what proportion we can give
away, and if God prospers us and increases our incomes,
to what extent we should increase our personal expen-
diture and to what extent use for charitable objects the
additional gain.

The Epistle concludes with an overflowing expression
of affection from Paul and his friends to the Church of
Corinth ; but suddenly in the midst of this there occur
the startling words, " If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema." " Anathema "
means accursed. What induced Paul to insert these
words just here, it is difficult to see. He had taken
the manuscript out of the hand of Sosthenes and written
the salutation with his own hand, and apparently still
with his own hand adds this startling sentence. Pro-
bably his feeling was that all his lessons of charity and
every other lesson he had been inculcating would be
in vain without love to the Lord Jesus. All his own
love for the Corinthians had sprung from this source ;
and he knew that their love for the Jews would prove
hollow unless it loo was animated by this same prin-
ciple. They are serious words for us all — serious

xvi.] TH£ FOOR. 399

because our own hearts tell us they are just. If we
do not love the Lord Jesus, what good thing can we
love ? If we do not love Him who is simply and only
good, must there not be something accidental, super-
ficial, unsafe, about our love for anything or any one
besides ? If we have not learned by loving Him to
love all that is wTorthy, may we not justly fear that
we are yet in danger of losing what life is meant to
teach and to give ? Trying to reach the truth about
ourselves, do we find that we have attained to see and
to love what is worthy ? Can we say with something
of Paul's conviction and joy, " Maranatha " — " The Lord
is at hand " ? Is it the true stay of our spirit that
Christ rules, and will in His own time reconcile all
things by His own spirit ?

3 1 1 97 00373 9445

DATE DUE

|"UG 1 8 m.

]

■AUG 1 9 m

IWB 1 1 19

WS>R 6 pp;

]____

l______J 1

1 J

~ 1" 1

' DEMCO 3 8-2 97

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "The Expositor's Bible"

See other formats