PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 251,651 words · 349 reading sections
Another Triplet Of Graces
The Apostle, in an earlier part of this same letter, defines for us what that hope is, which thus is the secret of perpetual gladness, when he speaks about 'rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.' Yes, it is that great, supreme, calm, far off, absolutely certain prospect of being gathered into the divine glory, and wal…
681 wordsSECTION 122Another Triplet Of Graces
II. Now, secondly, here is the thought that life, if full of joyful hope, will be patient. I have been saying that the gladness of which my text speaks is independent of circumstances, and may persist and be continuous even when externals occasion sadness. It is possible--I do not say it is easy, God knows it is hard-…
710 wordsSECTION 123Another Triplet Of Graces
But can I pray without ceasing? Not if by prayer you mean only words of supplication and petition, but if by prayer you mean also a mental attitude of devotion, and a kind of sub-conscious reference to God in all that you do, such unceasing prayer is possible. Do not let us blunt the edge of this commandment, and weake…
364 wordsSECTION 124Still Another Triplet
'Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. 14. Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. 15. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.'--ROMANS xii. 13-15. In these verses we pass from the innermost region of communion with God into the wide field of duties in…
772 wordsSECTION 125Still Another Triplet
The hospitality which is here enjoined is another shape which Christian love naturally took in the early days. When believers were a body of aliens, dispersed through the world, and when, as they went from one place to another, they could find homes only amongst their own brethren, the special circumstances of the time…
734 wordsSECTION 126Still Another Triplet
On the whole, love to Jesus is the basis of love to man, and love to man is the practical worship of Christianity. As in all things, so in the exhortations which we have now been considering, Jesus is our pattern and power. He Himself communicates with our necessities, and opens His heart to give us hospitable welcome …
783 wordsSECTION 127Still Another Triplet
The attainment of this spirit of amity and concord ought to be a distinct object of effort, and especially in times like ours, when there is no hostile pressure driving Christian people together, but when our great social differences are free to produce a certain inevitable divergence and to check the flow of our sympa…
792 wordsSECTION 128Still Another Triplet
But, plainly as this exhortation is needful, it is too heavy a strain to be ever carried out except by the power of Christ formed in the heart. It is in His earthly life that we find the great example of the highest stooping to the lowest duties, and elevating them by taking them upon Himself. He did not 'strive nor cr…
716 wordsSECTION 129Still Another Triplet
The exhortations of our text were preceded with injunctions to distribute material help, and to bestow helpful sympathy. The tempers enjoined in our present text are the inward source and fountain of such external bestowments. The rendering of material help and of sympathetic emotion are right and valuable only as they…
689 wordsSECTION 130Still Another Triplet
A Christian man then is bound to live a life which all men will acknowledge to be good. In that precept is implied the recognition of even bad men's notions of morality as correct. The Gospel is not a new system of ethics, though in some points it brings old virtues into new prominence, and alters their perspective. It…
992 wordsSECTION 131Still Another Triplet
There is no need for enlarging on the enormous difficulty of carrying out such a commandment in our daily lives. We all know too well how hard it is; but we may reflect for a moment on the absolute necessity of obeying this precept to the full. For their own souls' sakes Christian men are to avoid all bitterness, strif…
773 wordsSECTION 132Still Another Triplet
'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' God only has the right to recompense the ungodly and the sinner as well as the righteous. Dwelling in such a system as we do, how dares any one take that work into his hands? It requires perfect knowledge of the true evil of an action, which no one has who cannot read …
762 wordsSECTION 133Love And The Day
'Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this…
722 wordsSECTION 134Love And The Day
But Paul seems to limit the action of love here to negative doing no ill. That is simply because the commandments are mostly negative, and that they are is a sad token of the lovelessness natural to us all. But do we love ourselves only negatively, or are we satisfied with doing ourselves no harm? That stringent patter…
763 wordsSECTION 135Salvation Nearer
'... Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.'--ROMANS xiii. 11. There is no doubt, I suppose, that the Apostle, in common with the whole of the early Church, entertained more or less consistently the expectation of living to witness the second coming of Jesus Christ. There are in Paul's letters passages wh…
784 wordsSECTION 136Salvation Nearer
But some one may say, 'Is a man not saved till after he is dead?' Is salvation future, not coming till after the grave? No, certainly not. There are three aspects of that word in Scripture. Sometimes the New Testament writers treat salvation as past, and represent a Christian as being invested with the possession of it…
761 wordsSECTION 137Salvation Nearer
The other thought that follows is as plain, viz. that that anticipation should always be buoyant, hopeful, joyous. We have nothing to do with the sad aspects of parting from earth. They are all but non-existent for the Christian consciousness, when it is as vigorous and God-directed as it ought to be. They drop into th…
770 wordsSECTION 138Salvation Nearer
Further, says Paul, this hopeful, cheerful contemplation of approaching salvation should lead us to cast off the evil, and to put on the good. You will remember the heart-stirring imagery which the Apostle employs in the context, where he says, 'The day is at hand; let us therefore fling off the works of darkness'--as …
295 wordsSECTION 139The Soldier'S Morning-Call
'Let us put on the armour of light.'--ROMANS xiii. 12. It is interesting to notice that the metaphor of the Christian armour occurs in Paul's letters throughout his whole course. It first appears, in a very rudimentary form, in the earliest of the Epistles, that to the Thessalonians. It appears here in a letter which …
681 wordsSECTION 140The Soldier'S Morning-Call
We hear a great deal to-day about being 'sanctified by faith.' I believe that as much as any man, but the office of faith is to bring us the power that cleanses, and the application of that power requires our work, and it requires our fighting. So it is not enough to say, 'Trust for your sanctifying as you have trusted…
686 wordsSECTION 141The Soldier'S Morning-Call
But there is another side to that thought, for if you will look, at your leisure, to the closing words of the chapter, you will find the Apostle's own exposition of what putting on the armour of light means. 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ'--that is his explanation of putting on 'the armour of light.' For 'once ye wer…
581 wordsSECTION 142The Limits Of Liberty
'So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. 13. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way. 14. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to …
841 wordsSECTION 143The Limits Of Liberty
But, short of that extreme case, Paul lays down the law of curbing liberty in deference to 'narrowness.' In verse 14 he states with equal breadth the extreme principle of the liberal party, that nothing is unclean of itself. He has learned that 'in the Lord Jesus.' Before he was 'in Him,' he had been entangled in cobwe…
697 wordsSECTION 144The Limits Of Liberty
Modern liberal-minded brethren can easily translate all this for to-day's use. Take care that you do not give the impression that your Christianity has its main operation in permitting you to do what your weaker brethren have scruples about. If you do not yield to them, but flaunt your liberty in their and the world's …
736 wordsSECTION 145Two Fountains, One Stream
'That we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.... 13. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope.'--ROMANS xv. 4, 13. There is a river in Switzerland fed by two uniting streams, bearing the same name, one of them called the 'white,' one of th…
730 wordsSECTION 146Two Fountains, One Stream
This purpose, we may say, is effected by Scripture in two ways. It encourages us by its records, and by its revelation of principles. Who can tell how many struggling souls have taken heart again, as they pondered over the sweet stories of sorrow subdued which stud its pages, like stars in its firmament? The tears she…
915 wordsSECTION 147Two Fountains, One Stream
It is that dogged persistence in plain duty, that tenacious continuance in our course, which is here set forth as the result of the encouragement which Scripture gives. Many of us have all our strength exhausted in mere endurance, and have let obvious duties slip from our hands, as if we had done all that we could do w…
781 wordsSECTION 148Two Fountains, One Stream
So hope is born of sorrow, when these other things come between. The darkness gives birth to the light, and every grief blazes up a witness to a future glory. Each drop that hangs on the wet leaves twinkles into rainbow light that proclaims the sun. The garish splendours of the prosperous day hide the stars, and throug…
815 wordsSECTION 149Two Fountains, One Stream
It is easy to see that this is the natural result of faith. The very act of confident reliance on another for all my safety and well-being has a charm to make me restful, so long as my reliance is not put to shame. There is no more blessed emotion than the tranquil happiness which, in the measure of its trust, fills ev…
963 wordsSECTION 150Joy And Peace In Believing
Thus, then, the sorrows of the earthly experience and the joys of the Christian life will blend together to produce the one blessed result of a hope that is full of certainty, and is the assurance of immortality. There is no rainbow in the sky unless there be both a black cloud and bright sunshine. So, on the blackest,…
844 wordsSECTION 151Joy And Peace In Believing
Further, this relation of the two things suggests to us that a consequence of a Christian man's faith is the direct action of God upon him. Notice how the Apostle puts that truth in a double form here, in order that he may emphasise it, using one form of expression, involving the divine, direct activity, at the beginni…
774 wordsSECTION 152Joy And Peace In Believing
He that believes has found the short, sure road to joy and peace, because his relations are set right with God. For these relations are the disturbing elements in all earthly tranquillity, and like the skeleton at the feast in all earthly joy, and a man can never, down to the roots of his being, be at rest until he is …
765 wordsSECTION 153Joy And Peace In Believing
And the truest basis on which that hope can rest is the experience granted to us, on condition of our faith, of a present, abundant possession of the joy and peace which God gives. The gladder you are to-day, if the gladness comes from the right source, the surer you may be that that gladness will never end. That is no…
381 wordsSECTION 154Phoebe
'I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the Church that is at Cenchrea: 2. That ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the Saints, and that ye assist her in whatsover matter she may have need of you: for she herself hath been a succourer of many, and of mine own self.'--ROMANS xvi. 1, 2 (R.V.).…
655 wordsSECTION 155Phoebe
Mark the lessons from this little picture. We note first the remarkable illustration here given of the power of the new bond of a common faith. The world was then broken up into sections, which were sometimes bitterly antagonistic and at others merely rigidly exclusive. The only bond of union was the iron fetter of Ro…
848 wordsSECTION 156Priscilla And Aquila
We may further see in her a foreshadowing of the reward of lowly service, though it be only the service of help. Little did Phoebe dream that her name would have an eternal commemoration of her unnoticed deeds of kindness and aid, standing forth to later generations and peoples of whom she knew nothing, as worthy of et…
732 wordsSECTION 157Priscilla And Aquila
Such is all that we know of Priscilla and Aquila. Can we gather any lessons from these scattered notices thus thrown together? I. Here is an object lesson as to the hallowing effect of Christianity on domestic life and love. Did you ever notice that in the majority of the places where these two are named, if we adopt…
857 wordsSECTION 158Priscilla And Aquila
Dear brethren, what we want is not half so much preachers such as my brethren and I, as Christian tradesmen and merchants and travellers, like Aquila and Priscilla. III. Again, we may see here a suggestion of the unexpected issues of our lives. Think of that complicated chain of circumstances, one end of which was ro…
650 wordsSECTION 159Priscilla And Aquila
IV. Further, here we have an instance of the heroic self-devotion which love to Christ kindles. 'For my sake they laid down their own necks.' We do not know to what Paul is referring: perhaps to that tumult in Ephesus, where he certainly was in danger. But the language seems rather more emphatic than such danger would…
354 wordsSECTION 160Two Households
'... Salute them which are of Aristobulus' household. 11. ... Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord.'--ROMANS xvi. 10, 11. There does not seem much to be got out of these two sets of salutations to two households in Rome; but if we look at them with eyes in our heads, and some sympa…
703 wordsSECTION 161Two Households
II. Secondly, these two households teach us very touchingly and beautifully the uniting power of Christian sympathy. A considerable proportion of the first of these two households would probably be Jews--if Aristobulus were indeed Herod's grandson. The probability that he was is increased by the greeting interposed be…
798 wordsSECTION 162Two Households
Again, these two households suggest for us the tranquillising power of Christian resignation. They were mostly slaves, and they continued to be slaves when they were Christians. Paul recognised their continuance in the servile position, and did not say a word to them to induce them to break their bonds. The Epistle to…
770 wordsSECTION 163Tryphena And Tryphosa
There were no difficulties too great for these men to overcome; there are no difficulties too great for us to overcome. And wherever you and I may be, we cannot be in any place where it is so hard to live a consistent life as these people were. Young men in warehouses, people in business here in Manchester, some of us …
1,027 wordsSECTION 164Tryphena And Tryphosa
Another thought which may be suggested by Tryphena and Tryphosa is the blessed hallowing of natural family relations by common faith. They were probably sisters, or, at all events, as their names indicate, near relatives, and to them that faith must have been doubly precious because they shared it with each other. None…
938 wordsSECTION 165Tryphena And Tryphosa
We may take these two sisters, finally, as pointing for us the true victory over this formidable enemy. They had turned resolutely away from the heathen ideal enshrined in their names to a life of real hard toil, as is distinctly implied by the word used by the Apostle. What that toil consisted in we do not know, and n…
276 wordsSECTION 166Persis
'Salute the beloved Persis, who laboured much in the Lord.'--ROMANS xvi. 12. There are a great number of otherwise unknown Christians who pass for a moment before our view in this chapter. Their characterisations are like the slight outlines in the background of some great artist's canvas: a touch of the brush is all…
759 wordsSECTION 167Persis
Now, it is to be noticed that this striking form of eulogium which is attached to our Persis she shares in common with others in the group. And it is to be further noticed that all those who are, as it were, decorated with this medal--on whom Paul bestows this honour of saying that they had 'laboured,' or 'laboured muc…
915 wordsSECTION 168Persis
She 'laboured much in the Lord,' or, as Jesus Christ said about the other woman who was blamed by the people that did not love enough to understand the blessedness of self-sacrifice, 'she had done what she could.' It was an apology for the form of Mary's service, but it was a stringent demand as to its amount. 'What sh…
670 wordsSECTION 169Persis
The last lesson about our work which I draw from Persis is the unexpected immortality of true Christian service. How Persis would have opened her eyes if anybody had told her that nearly 1900 years after she lived, people in a far-away barbarous island would be sitting thinking about her, as you and I are doing now! Ho…
286 wordsSECTION 170A Crushed Snake
'The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.'--ROMANS xvi. 20. There are three other Scriptural sayings which may have been floating in the Apostle's mind when he penned this triumphant assurance. 'Thou shalt bruise his head'; the great first Evangel--we are to be endowed with Christ's power; 'The li…
719 wordsSECTION 171A Crushed Snake
Turn, now, to the other thought that is here, the promise and pledge of victory in the name, the God of peace. I have already referred to two similar designations of God in the previous chapter, and if we take them in union with this one in our text, what a wonderfully beautiful and strengthening threefold view of that…
778 wordsSECTION 172A Crushed Snake
'My soul! there is a country Far, far beyond the stars, Where stands an armed sentry, All skilful in the wars.' And her name is Peace, as the poet goes on to tell us. Ah, brethren! if we lived nearer the Lord, we should find it more possible to 'fight the good fight of faith,' and yet to have 'our feet shod with th…
672 wordsSECTION 173Tertius
'I, Tertius, who write the epistle, salute you in the Lord.'--ROMANS xvi. 22 (R.V.). One sometimes sees in old religious pictures, in some obscure corner, a tiny kneeling figure, the portrait of the artist. So Tertius here gets leave to hold the pen for a moment on his own account, and from Corinth sends his greeting…
856 wordsSECTION 174Tertius
We can discern in Tertius' words a little touch of what we may call pride in his work. No doubt he knew it to be subordinate, but he also knew it to be needful; and no doubt he had put all his strength into doing it well. No man will put his best into any task which he does not undertake in such a spirit. It is a very …
417 wordsSECTION 175Quartus A Brother
'Quartus a brother.'--ROMANS xvi. 23. I am afraid very few of us read often, or with much interest, those long lists of names at the end of Paul's letters. And yet there are plenty of lessons in them, if anybody will look at them lovingly and carefully. There does not seem much in these three words; but I am very much…
788 wordsSECTION 176Quartus A Brother
And all this fabric, full of active repulsions and disintegrating forces, was bound together into an artificial and unreal unity by the iron clamp of Rome's power, holding up the bulging walls that were ready to fall--the unity of the slave-gang manacled together for easier driving. Into this hideous condition of thing…
777 wordsSECTION 177Quartus A Brother
Again, how simply, and with what unconscious beauty, the deep reason for our Christian unity is given in that one word, a 'Brother.' As if he had said, Never mind telling them anything about what I am, what place I hold, or what I do. Tell them I am a brother, that will be enough. It is the only name by which I care to…
878 wordsSECTION 178Contents
ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D., Litt.D. CORINTHIANS (_To II Corinthians, Chap. V_) CALLING ON THE NAME (1 COR. i. 2) PERISHING OR BEING SAVED (1 COR. i. 18) THE APOSTLE'S THEME (1 COR. ii. 2) GOD'S FELLOW-WORKERS (1 COR. iii. 9) THE TESTING FIRE (1 COR. iii. 12, 13) TEMPLES OF GOD (1 COR. iii. 16) DEATH, THE FRIEND (…
349 wordsSECTION 179Calling On The Name
'All that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.'--1 COR. i. 2. There are some difficulties, with which I need not trouble you, about both the translation and the connection of these words. One thing is quite clear, that in them the Apostle associates the church at Corinth w…
769 wordsSECTION 180Calling On The Name
Prayer to Christ from the very beginning of the Christian Church was, then, the characteristic of believers, and He to whom they prayed, thus, from the beginning, was recognised by them as being a Divine Person, God manifest in the flesh. The object of their worship, then, was known by the people among whom they lived…
818 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.