Bible Commentaries

Called to Be Saints

1 Corinthians 1:2

Many names are given to the followers of our Lord in the New Testament. But the name most frequently given is "saint". The word occurs sixty times in its pages, and it is plainly intended to describe the life which every Christian should earnestly seek after.

I. The idea of devotion—devoted to Christ; that is the essence of the Christian life, that is the primary notion of sainthood. And really this is the basis of membership in the Church of Christ. This is the one thing to look for in every one who desires to join a Christian Church. The primary question to be asked 1 Corinthians 1:10-11

The average man or woman is always at open discord with some one; the great majority could not live without oft-recurrent squabble.... Verbal contention 1 Corinthians 1:12

In a letter Vinet remarks, apropos of Thomas Erskine: "If I did not abjure on principle such expressions as "I am of Apollos, and of Cephas," I should gladly allow myself to say "I am of Erskine". He does not wrap up the Gospel in shadows. He makes us feel that if the how of the mysteries of religion is inconceivable, the why is perfectly accessible to our reason."

References.—112.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p73; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p79. I:13.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p186. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p210. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p48. I:14.—Ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. p82.

1 Corinthians 1:17

"Take eloquence," said Paul Verlaine once, "and wring its neck."

References.—117.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p367; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. pp212 , 366. I:17 , 18.—Ibid. p29.

The Preaching of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18

Christianity is the religion of redemption; it is for that reason that the Apostle gives as the motto and the summary of the Gospel this little sentence in the text, "The preaching of the cross". For the cross is the symbol, as it once was the instrument, of our redemption. Whether it were to Galatia or to Corinth; to rude and barbarous rustics in their impetuosity and changefulness; or whether it were to the cultivated children of Greek 1 Corinthians 1:19

It is for the punishment of our temeritie and instruction of our misery and incapacity, that God caused the trouble, downfall and confusion, of Babels Tower. What course soever man taketh of himself, it is God's permission that he ever commeth to that confusion whose image he so lively representeth unto us by the just punishment, wherewith he framed the presumptuous overweening of Nembroth, and brought to nothin" the frivolous enterprises of the building of his high-towering Pyramis or Heaven-menacing tower. "I will destroy the wisdome of the wise, and refuse the praidence of them that are most prudent". The diversitie of tongues and languages wherewith he disturbed that worke and overthrew that proudly-raised Pile; what else is it but this infinit altercation and perpetual discord of opinions and reason which accompanieth and entangleth the frivolous frame of man's learning, or vaine building of human science?

—Montaigne, vol. II. p12.

References.—I:20.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p31. I:20 , 21.—T. D. Bernard, The Exclusion of 1 Corinthians 1:22-23

I. Note the testimony of heathenism to men's religious wants, or what men desire.

II. Note that Christianity seems to neglect and contradict many of men's ideas and wants. (1) We preach. Not we do—opposition to all requirements for signs, to all sacramentarianism and ritualistic notions. (2) We preach Christ. We deal with a Person. (3) We preach Christ crucified. The cross is the centre of His work.

III. Note that Christianity really meets and satisfies them all. (1) Christ crucified is Power. No other sign half as strong. (2) Christ crucified is Wisdom. Christ crucified meets the real wants of every age and of every man.

—A. Maclaren

Reference.—I:22 , 23.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p232.

The Power of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:22-24

"The Jews ask for signs," a request which is not necessarily indicative of a thirst. That is the bane and peril of all externalism. It may gratify a feverish curiosity without awakening the energies of a holy life.

"And the Greeks seek after wisdom." They are the epicures in philosophies, the dainty tasters of intellectual subtilties. "The Jews ask for signs," and their religion degenerates into a despiritualised system of magic. "The Greeks seek after 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

I. Let us note the desire of Jew and Greek. "The Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. A sign! Had not the Jew received signs sufficient? He had seen the leper cleansed, he had seen the dead raised from their graves, and yet the Jews required a sign. This is quite explicable in consistency with the nature of men. If you look for external things you will never be satisfied with them. "And the Greeks seek after wisdom." There was nothing wrong in that. But the Corinthian Greek babbled of wisdom when he had nothing but the name left. And yet they were not willing to accept the message of eternal truth, because they preferred their own little puppets to the Gospel, just as a child prefers the little ragged doll it has made for itself to the best products of the market.

II. What does Paul do? What is his message in the face of this? Will he manufacture signs? I believe Paul could have done so had he chosen. Did Paul dazzle the Greek by a display of wisdom? No. "We preach Christ." And that is not all. "We preach Christ crucified." That is the gist of the matter; that is where the difficulty comes in. The cross must be taken into account, and not only that, but the cross is the centre and secret of all Christian life and power. Of course, Paul does not mean that he remains constantly with the cross, that he has nothing further to say; he does not mean that he never varies his discourse. What he means 1 Corinthians 1:23

We preach Christ crucified. The phrase may be described as a watershed, and I will illustrate its different uses from a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes:—

Behold the rocky wall

That down its sloping sides

Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall

In rushing river-tides!

Yon stream, whose sources run

Turned by a pebble's edge,

Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun

Through the cleft mountain-ledge.

The slender rill had strayed,

But for the slanting stone

To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid

Of foam-flecked Oregon.

So from the heights of will

Life's parting stream descends,

And, as a moment turns its slender rill,

Each widening torrent bends,—

From the same cradle's side,

From the same mother's knee,—

One to long darkness and the frozen tide,

One to the Peaceful Sea!

Let me trace briefly the courses of the two streams. "We preach Christ crucified" on one side, and on the other "We, risen and crucified, preach Christ Divine, crucified, risen".

I. It is the word Divine which turns the course. The essence of heresy is the assertion that Christ is a creature. No matter how loftily He may be conceived of, if His Deity is denied the end is the long darkness and the frozen tide.

(1) We begin with Arianism, which seems at first sight, to grant so much that it is barely distinguishable from Christianity. It affirms that Christ existed before Ho became Incarnate, that by Him God made the worlds, that He 1 Corinthians 1:23

Preaching is an agency, previously unknown, which Christianity has created to be its chosen mode of utterance. Jesus and His messengers are the only preachers. Notice:—

I. The great pulpit theme: "Christ crucified". This is the sum of our message, the central regulative idea in the Gospel of God. The Gospel offers itself to us as a plan of restoration, it proceeds upon the fact of a fall. A Gospel based on the Incarnation of God cannot but be the final end of all God's other doings on this earth. The Christian scheme of salvation through God incarnate is thus the world's centre of gravity, but its own centre of gravity is the cross: it is not "Christ" simply but "Christ crucified" whom we preach. Modern thought is strong, because it recognises the Incarnation, but it is weak because it fails to see the necessary issue of the Advent in the work of the cross. The fact that our Divine Helper came in human form showed that there was a man's work to be done before God's help could be extended, and for the doing of that Christ was born. Christ bore His cross before He was fastened to it. He was born that He might die. Thus we reach the heart of Christianity. Such is the twofold Gospel fact: Christ the Incarnate Son; Christ crucified, our righteousness and ransom.

II. The utterance of the Divine message: "We preach". What is this peculiar instrument? Preaching is the announcement of the Saviour, with the offer of His salvation, in its widest sense; both being delivered as a message from God. So the Apostles preached; so have all great and honoured preachers; so must we. (1) As to matter; everything should serve the preacher's main drift, and illustrate or commend his message. (2) As to the form of the message: it must be in the main declarative.

Preaching is at once historical and personal. (1) All that concerns the life of Christ, with its historical foreshadowings, its self-manifestation in word and miracle must be prominent in the pulpit. (2) The Jesus of biography is now the glorified Christ, a Person present, though absent, whose spiritual power we feel; that ministry is best which leads straight to the living helping Saviour. Yet, even here, preaching will lose its savour unless it is sustained by a perpetual offer of the Saviour to men's hearts.

—J. Oswald Dykes, The Preacher's Magazine, vol. XI. p229.

1 Corinthians 1:23

Compare the curious use of this passage by Hazlitt in his Winterslow: "It has always been with me a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man. Of all the persons of this description that I have ever known, I never met with above one or two who would make this concession.... They did not know whom they had to contend with. The cornerstone, which the builders rejected, became the head-corner, though to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness; for, indeed, we cannot discover that he was much better understood by those of his own party, if we may judge from the little affinity there is between his mode of reasoning and theirs."

References.—I:23.—Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii. p119. H. S. Holland, Vital Values, p1. R. W. Church, Village Sermons (3Series), p101. Expositor (5th Series), vol. viii. p349; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p471.

The Message That Convinces

1 Corinthians 1:23-24

We preach Christ crucified... the power of God, and the wisdom of God! The words ring out, not in protest or defence, but as the summons of a herald. It is the message of an ambassador from his Royal Master. For this to St. Paul was the essence of His Gospel, so vital, so essential, so comprehensive that, as he adds presently, he had deliberately resolved to exclude from his teaching whatever was not directly concerned with the person and the work of His Lord Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The declaration, as you remember, is the climax of a natural argument. There had been divisions in the Corinthian Church, divisions that after their manner had grown to contentions. Incidents, perhaps trivial, had roused the party spirit. Sharply the Apostle calls the Christians back to first principles. What meant this ranging of themselves some under one name, some under another? Was Christ divided? Had Paul been crucified for them? Had they been baptised in his name? Nay, his only office had been the ministry of the good news, and to declare it with such definite-ness and simplicity that its appeal to their consciences might come through no distorting medium, and that their faith should stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

I. This very plainness of speech, this absence of philosophy and rhetoric, were resented by a Church where the eloquent Apollos had just been labouring. Offence had been taken and on various grounds. The Apostle's preaching had come into conflict with the prejudices of one class of men, and not less with the postulates of another class. The pride of religion and the pride of reason both refused their assent. The man who sought for merit in some sterile series of 1 Corinthians 1:25

The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries, to dissolve them into light. It is mystery, on the other hand, which the religious instinct demands and pursues: it is mystery which constitutes the essence of worship, the power of proselytism. When the cross became the "foolishness" of the cross, it took possession of the masses. And in our own day, those who wish to get rid of the supernatural, to enlighten religion, to economise faith, find themselves deserted, like poets who should declaim against poetry, or women who should decry love.

—Amiel's Journal (June, 1870).

References.—I:25.—J. B. Lightfoot, Cambridge Sermons, p265. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p214.

1 Corinthians 1:26

"Saturday, 17th November (London).—I spent an hour," writes Wesley in his Journal for1759 , "agreeably and profitably with Lady G—H—and Sir C—H—. It is well a few of the rich and noble are called. O that God would increase their number! But I should rejoice (were it the will of God) if it were done by the ministry of others. If I might choose, I should still (as I have done hitherto), preach the Gospel to the poor."

Not many wise, rich, noble, or profound

In science, win one inch of heavenly ground.

And is it not a mortifying thought

The poor should gain it, and the rich should not?

No:—the voluptuaries, who ne"er forget

One pleasure lost, lose heaven without regret;

Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer,

Prayer would add faith, and faith would fix them there.

—Cowper, Truth (337 f.).

References.—I:26.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p275; ibid. (6th Series), vol. i. p98. I:26 , 27.—J. G. Greenhough, The Cross in Modern Life, p54126-28.—E. M. Geldart, Faith and Freedom, p15. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p113. I:26-29.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x. No587.

1 Corinthians 1:27

Sir John Hooker has pointed out a very remarkable illustration of this, in showing that... the English fly soon supersedes entirely the disgusting and enormous blue-bottle of New Zealand. The English rat drives out the Maori rat. The little clover competes successfully even with the phormium tenax, the sword-flax, "a plant of the coarsest, hardest, and toughest description, that forms huge matted patches of woody rhizomes, which send up tufts of sword-like leaves six to ten feet high, and inconceivably strong in texture and fibre". This is "the weak things of the world confounding the mighty" over again, though in a purely physical sense.

—R. H. Hutton, Theological Essays, p53.

1 Corinthians 1:27-28

In his essay on George Eliot's Life and Letters, Mr. R. H. Hutton declares "that her ambition always took an intellectual form, that she despised the moral judgment of those who were not intellectual, and never shared a trace of sympathy with the Christian principle "embodied in the above verses". George Eliot had absolutely none of this feeling."

In modern Christendom it is not merely our theories of life but the facts of life that have changed. "Weak things of the world and things that are despised hath God called." With the recognition of rights in human beings as such, there comes a new realisation of human capacities, not only for the emancipated multitude, but for those whom Aristotle would have allowed to be previously sharers in the βιός πρακτικός. The problems of life become for them far more difficult indeed, but first on account of their greater range and complication, they become of such a kind as to elicit powers previously unused.

—T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (III:5).

Reference.—I:27.—J. B. Johnston, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. p252.

1 Corinthians 1:30

All early Christians taught in the same manner. They never cared to expound the nature of this or that virtue; for they knew that the believer who had Christ had all. Did he need fortitude? Christ was his rock: Equity? Christ was his righteousness: Holiness? Christ was his sanctification: Liberty? Christ was his redemption: Temperance? Christ was his ruler: Wisdom? Christ was his light: Truthfulness? Christ was the Truth: Charity? Christ was love.

—Ruskin, Stones of Venice, vol. II. chap. VIII.

References.—I:30.—W. J. Knox-Little, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p211. R. Flint, Sermons and Addresses, pp213 , 223 , 234. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p282. W. B. Selbie, The Servant of God, p201. I:30 , 31.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No991.

1 Corinthians 1:31

"Religion," says Butler in his thirteenth sermon, "does not demand new affections, but only claims the direction of those you already have, those affections you daily feel.... We only represent to you the higher, the adequate objects of those very faculties and affections. Let the man of ambition go on still to consider disgrace as the greatest evil; honour, as his chief good. But disgrace, in whose estimation? Honour, in whose judgment? This is the only question."

Reference.—I:31.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No1178.

1 Corinthians 1:31

The first text chosen by R. W. Dale as co-pastor at Carr's Lane Meeting, Birmingham.

Reference.—II:1 , 2.—J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p187.